lorn hope," he said reflectively.

The matter had been so sedulously guarded from the knowledge of the
garrison, save such share as was of necessity divulged to the men who
fired the guns, the young sentinel, and Corporal O'Flynn,--and even they
were not aware that there had been a sortie of any other person than
Mrs. MacLeod,--that Hamish's absence passed unnoticed for several days,
and when it was announced that he had been smuggled out of the fort,
charged with dispatches to Colonel Montgomery, no one dreamed of
identifying him with the apparition in the gray gown whom the gunners
had seen to issue forth and return no more. Even Corporal O'Flynn
accepted the statement, without suspicion, that Captain Stuart had let
Mrs. MacLeod in at the sally-port. These excursions, he imagined, were
to secure information from Choo-qualee-qualoo.

The announcement that an express was now on the way was made to
encourage the men, for the daily ration had dwindled to a most meager
portion, and complaints were rife on every hand both among the soldiery
and the families of the settlers. A wild, startled look appeared in many
eyes, as if some ghastly possibility had come within the range of
vision, undreamed-of before. The facts, however, that the commandant was
able to still maintain a connection beyond the line of blockading
Cherokees, that Hamish had been gone for more than a week, that decisive
developments of some sort must shortly ensue, that the officers
themselves kept a cheerful countenance, served to stimulate an effort to
sustain the suspense and the gnawing privation. Continual exertions were
made in this direction.

"Try to keep up the spirits of the men," said Demere to O'Flynn one day.

"I do, sor," returned O'Flynn, his cheek a trifle pale and sunken. "I
offer meself to 'm as an example. I says to the guard only to-day, sor,
says I,--'Now in affliction ye see the difference betune a person of
quality, and a common spalpeen.' An' they wants to know who is this
person of quality, sor. And I names meself, sor, being descended from
kings of Oirland. An', would ye belave me, sor, not one of them
bog-trotting teagues but what was kings of Oirland, too, sor."

Corporal O'Flynn might have thought his superior officer needed cheering
too, for the twinkle in his eye had lost none of its alluring Celtic
quality.

The distressing element of internecine strife and bickerings was
presently added to the difficulties of the officer