red embrace, and sank his
head upon the cheek of his father. It was the first time he had enjoyed
that privilege since his childhood; and even overwhelmed as he was by
his affliction, he felt it deeply.

This short but touching scene was witnessed by their companions,
without levity in any, and with emotion by several. None felt more
gratified at this demonstration of parental affection for the sensitive
boy, than Blessington and Erskine.

"I cannot yet persuade myself," observed the former officer, as the
colonel again assumed that dignity of demeanour which had been
momentarily lost sight of in the ebullition of his feelings,--"I cannot
yet persuade myself things are altogether so bad as they appear. It is
true the schooner is in the possession of the enemy, but there is
nothing to prove our friends are on board."

"If you had reason to know HIM into whose hands she has fallen, as I
do, you would think differently, Captain Blessington," returned the
governor. "That mysterious being," he pursued, after a short pause,
"would never have made this parade of his conquest, had it related
merely to a few lives, which to him are of utter insignificance. The
very substitution of yon black flag, in his insolent triumph, was the
pledge of redemption of a threat breathed in my ear within this very
fort: on what occasion I need not state, since the events connected
with that unhappy night are still fresh in the recollections of us all.
That he is my personal enemy, gentlemen, it would be vain to disguise
from you; although who he is, or of what nature his enmity, it imports
not now to enter upon Suffice it, I have little doubt my children are
in his power; but whether the black flag indicates they are no more, or
that the tragedy is only in preparation, I confess I am at a loss to
understand."

Deeply affected by the evident despondency that had dictated these
unusual admissions on the part of their chief, the officers were
forward to combat the inferences he had drawn: several coinciding in
the opinion now expressed by Captain Wentworth, that the fact of the
schooner having fallen into the hands of the savages by no means
implied the capture of the fort whence she came; since it was not at
all unlikely she had been chased during a calm by the numerous canoes
into the Sinclair, where, owing to the extreme narrowness of the river,
she had fallen an easy prey.

"Moreover," observed Captain Blessington, "it is highly improbable