“Ah, would to Heaven that he at least had been spared,” sighed Sir Everard, as he took the wan white hand of his friend in his own; “and yet I know not:  he looks so calm, so happy in death, it is almost selfish to repine he has escaped the horrors that still await us in this dreadful warfare.  But what of Frederick and Madeline de Haldimar?  From the statement you have given, they must have been liberated by the young Ottawa before he came to me; yet, what could have induced them to have taken a course of flight so opposite to that which promised their only chance of safety?”

“Heaven only knows,” returned Captain Blessington.  “I fear they have again been recaptured by the savages; in which case their doom is scarcely doubtful; unless, indeed, our prisoner of last night be given up in exchange for them.”

“Then will their liberty be purchased at a terrible price,” remarked the baronet.  “Will you believe, Blessington, that that man, whose enmity to our colonel seems almost devilish, was once an officer in this very regiment?”

“You astonish me, Valletort.—­Impossible! and yet it has always been apparent to me they were once associates.”

“I heard him relate his history only last night to Clara, whom he had the audacity to sully with proposals to become his bride,” pursued the baronet.  “His tale was a most extraordinary one.  He narrated it, however, only up to the period when the life of De Haldimar was attempted by him at Quebec.  But with his subsequent history we are all acquainted, through the fame of his bloody atrocities in all the posts that have fallen into the hands of Ponteac.  That man, savage and even fiendish as he now is, was once possessed of the noblest qualities.  I am sorry to say it; but Colonel de Haldimar has brought this present affliction upon himself.  At some future period I will tell you all.”

“Alas!” said Captain Blessington, “poor Charles, then, has been made to pay the penalty of his father’s errors; and, certainly, the greatest of these was his dooming the unfortunate Halloway to death in the manner he did.”

“What think you of the fact of Halloway being the nephew of this extraordinary man, and both of high family?” demanded Sir Everard.

“Indeed!” and was the latter, then, aware of the connection?”

“Not until last night,” replied Sir Everard.  “Some observations made by the wretched wife of Halloway, in the course of which she named his true name, (which was that of the warrior also,) first indicated the fact to the latter.  But, what became of that unfortunate creature?—­was she brought in?”

“I understand not,” said Captain Blessington.  “In the confusion and hurry of securing our prisoner, and the apprehension of immediate attack from his warriors, Ellen was entirely overlooked.  Some of my men say they left her lying, insensible, on the spot whence they had raised the body of our unfortunate friend, which they had some difficulty in releasing from her convulsive embrace.  But, hark! there is the first drum for parade, and I have not yet exchanged my Indian garb.”