The lieutenant gazed through the glass a moment, and then pronounced name after name, as the men severally came under the range of the lens.  “Yes, sir, as you say, there is Corporal Nixon steering—­then, with, their backs to us, and pulling, are first, Collins, then Green, then Jackson, then Weston, then Cass, and then Philips.  But what they have in the bottom of the boat, for I now can see that plain enough, is not fish, sir, but a human body, and a dog crouched at its side.  Yes! it is indeed the Frenchman’s dog—­Loup Garou.”

“Well, I want to know!” exclaimed Ephraim Giles, who had ascended the bastion, and now stood amid the group of men, “I take it, that if that’s Loup Garou, his master can’t be far off.  I never knowed them to be separate.”

“Yes, sir, that is certainly a dead body,” pursued the lieutenant—­“somebody killed at the farm, no doubt.  Have you any orders for the direction of the party, when they land, sir?” he inquired, as he handed back the glass to the captain.

“Just desire the drum to beat to parade,” was the answer.  “It wants only a few minutes of guard-mounting, and by the time the men have fallen in, and the roll is called, the boat will be here.  Where is Mr. Ronayne?”

“I have not seen him this morning, sir, but believe that he is in his own rooms.  He, however, knows the hour, and doubtless will be here presently.”

“When the men have fallen in, come and report to me,” said the captain, as he descended from the bastion, and proceeded to his own quarters, to eat his untasted breakfast.

The lieutenant touched his cap in assent, and then, having despatched a man with orders to the temporary drum-major, crossed over to the apartments of the ensign, anxious not only to excuse himself for not being able to receive his friend to his own breakfast, at the hour he had named, but to prepare him for the reception of the body of Mr. Heywood, which he doubted not, was that now on its way for interment at his own house.

On entering the mess-room, in which they had taken their punch, the previous evening, everything bore evidence of a late debauch.  Ashes and tobacco were liberally strewed upon the table, while around the empty bowl, were, in some disorder, pipes and glasses—­one of each emptied of all but the ashes and sediment—­the other two only half-smoked, half-full, and standing amid a pool of wet, which had evidently been spilt by a not very steady hand.  The windows were closed, so that the smoke clung to what little furniture there was in the room, and the whole scent of the place was an abominable compound of stale tobacco and strong whisky.

A loud snoring in the room on his right attracted his attention.  He knew that it was Von Vottenberg’s, and he entered to see what had kept him in bed until that late hour.  The surgeon, only half-undressed, was fast asleep, not within, but on the outside of the bed-clothes.  Somewhat disgusted at the sight, for Elmsley was comparatively abstemious, he shook him not very gently, when the doctor, opening his eyes with a start, half-rose upon his elbow.  “Ha!” he exclaimed, “I know you mean to say that breakfast is waiting; I had forgotten all about it, old fellow.”