arose from their beds; the lame walked, and
were ready to march; almost immediately, in the open space beneath the
terrible great guns, were men,--settlers, soldiers, and Indians,--trying
the paces of horses, and chaffering over the terms of sale. Provisions
were brought in; every chimney sent up a savory reek. Women were getting
together their little store of valuables in small compass for the
journey. Children, recently good from feeble incapacity to be otherwise,
were now healthily bad, fortified by a generous meal or two. And Fifine
was stroking the cat's humped back, as the animal munched upon the
ground bits of meat thrown prodigally away, and telling her that now
she would not be eaten,--so had that terror preyed upon the motherly
baby heart! Odalie had some smiling tears to shed for Hamish's sake, in
the earnest hope that he might be as well off, and those whom she had
consoled in affliction now in their prosperity sought to console her.
The officers were hilarious. They could hardly credit their own good
fortune--permitted to surrender Fort Loudon, after its gallant defense
to the last extremity, to the savage Cherokees, upon just such terms as
would have been dictated by a liberal and civilized enemy! Demere, after
the first burst of reproach that Stuart should have so recklessly
endangered himself, and of joy that his mission had been so successfully
accomplished, was cheerfully absorbed in destroying such official papers
as, falling into the hands of the French, might be detrimental to the
British interest. Of them all, only Stuart was doubtful, angry,
disconsolate. Perhaps because some fiber of sensitive pride, buried
deep, had been touched to the quick by Oconostota's ill-disguised
triumph; or he realized that he had labored long here, and suffered much
uselessly, and but for the threatened desertion of the garrison felt
that the fort might still be held till relief could reach it; or he was
of the temperament that adorns success, or even stalwart effort, but is
blighted by failure; or he was only staggered by the completeness of
his prosperous negotiations with the Cherokees and doubtful of their
good faith,--at all events he had lost his poise. He was gloomy,
ruminative, and broke out now and again with futile manifestations of
his disaffection.

Demere, burning letter-books and other papers on the hearth of the great
chimney-place of the hall, looked up from the table where he sorted them
to remind Stua