“What is the meaning of all this?  Send Doctor Von Vottenberg here immediately.”

And lucky was it for that gentleman that the officer who now desired his attendance on the commandant had roused him from that Lethean slumber in which he had been, only a few minutes before, so luxuriously indulging.

“Doctor Von Vottenberg,” commenced the captain, as soon as that official made his appearance before him; “you are quartered with Mr. Ronayne.  Have you seen any thing of him last night or this morning—­no evasion, nay,” seeing that the doctor’s brow began to be overclouded, “I mean no attempt to shield the young man by a suppression of the truth.”

“I certainly saw him last night, Captain Headley, but not at a very late hour.  We took a glass or two of punch, and smoked a couple of pipes together, but we both went to bed early, and for my part, I know that I slept so soundly as to have heard nothing—­seen nothing, until I got up this morning.”

The doctor spoke truly as to the time of their retirement to rest, for the ensign had left him early in the night, while he had found his way to his own bed, early in the morning.

“The boat is nearing the landing-place, sir,” reported the sergeant of the guard, who now came up, and more immediately addressed Lieutenant Elmsley.

This information, for the moment, banished the subject under discussion.  “Let the men pile their arms,” ordered Captain Headley; “and when this is done, Mr. Elmsley, follow me to the landing-place.”

In a few minutes both officers were there.  The boat was within fifty yards, when the subaltern joined his captain; and the oarsmen, evidently desirous of doing their best in the presence of the commanding officer, were polling silently and with a vigor that soon brought it to its accustomed berth.

“What body is that, Corporal Nixon?” inquired the latter, “and how is it that you are only here this morning?”

“Sir,” answered the corporal, removing one of his hands from the steer-oar, and respectfully touching his cap, “it’s poor Le Noir, the Frenchman, killed by the Injins yesterday, and as for our absence, it couldn’t be helped, sir; but it’s a long report I have to make, and perhaps, captain, you would like to hear it more at leisure than I can tell it here.”

By this time the men had landed from the boat, leaving the Canadian to be disposed of afterwards as the commanding officer might direct.  The quick eye of the latter immediately detected the slight limping of Green, whose wound had become stiff from neglect, cold, and the cramped position in which he had been sitting in the boat.

“What is the matter with this man?” he inquired of the corporal.  “What makes him walk so stiffly?”

“Nothing much the matter, captain,” was the indifferent reply.  “It’s only a ball he got in his leg in the scrimmage last night.”

“Ha! the first gun-shot wound that has come under my treatment during the three long years I have been stationed here.  Quick, my fine fellow, take yourself to the hospital, and tell the orderly to prepare my instruments for probing.”