ing and uncertain steps would
admit across the coffin, and into the arms extended to receive him.

"My Ellen! oh, my own devoted, but too unhappy Ellen!" passionately
exclaimed the soldier, as he clasped the slight and agitated form of
his disguised wife to his throbbing heart. "This, this, indeed, is joy
even in death. I thought I could have died more happily without you,
but nature tugs powerfully at my heart; and to see you once more, to
feel you once more HERE" (and he pressed her wildly to his chest) "is
indeed a bliss that robs my approaching fate of half its terror."

"Oh Reginald! my dearly beloved Reginald! my murdered husband!"
shrieked the unhappy woman; "your Ellen will not survive you. Her heart
is already broken, though she cannot weep; but the same grave shall
contain us both. Reginald, do you believe me? I swear it; the same
grave shall contain us both."

Exhausted with the fatigue and excitement she had undergone, the
faithful and affectionate creature now lay, without sense or motion, in
the arms of her wretched husband. Halloway bore her, unopposed, a pace
or two in advance, and deposited her unconscious form on the fatal
coffin.

No language of ours can render justice to the trying character of the
scene. All who witnessed it were painfully affected, and over the
bronzed cheek of many a veteran coursed a tear, that, like that of
Sterne's recording angel, might have blotted out a catalogue of sins.
Although each was prepared to expect a reprimand from the governor, for
suffering the prisoner to quit his station in the ranks, humanity and
nature pleaded too powerfully in his behalf, and neither officer nor
man attempted to interfere, unless with a view to render assistance.
Captain Erskine, in particular, was deeply pained, and would have given
any thing to recall the harsh language he had used towards the supposed
idle and inattentive drummer boy. Taking from a pocket in his uniform a
small flask of brandy, which he had provided against casualties, the
compassionating officer slightly raised the head of the pale and
unconscious woman with one hand, while with the other he introduced a
few drops between her parted lips. Halloway knelt at the opposite side
of the coffin; one hand searching, but in vain, the suspended pulse of
his inanimate wife; the other, unbuttoning the breast of the drum-boy's
jacket, which, with every other part of the equipment, she wore beneath
the loose great coat so effectua