colonel apprised of the dreadful truth, do you know?"

"He is. It was told him at the moment of our arrival last night; but
from the little outward emotion displayed by him, I should be tempted
to infer he had almost anticipated some such catastrophe."

"Poor, poor Charles!" bitterly exclaimed Sir Everard Valletort--for it
was he. "What would I not give to recall the rude manner in which I
spurned you from me last night. But, alas! what could I do, laden with
such a trust, and pursued, without the power of defence, by such an
enemy? Little, indeed, did I imagine what was so speedily to be your
doom! Blessington," he pursued, with increased emotion, "it grieves me
to wretchedness to think that he, whom I loved as though he had been my
twin brother, should have perished with his last thoughts, perhaps,
lingering on the seeming unkindness with which I had greeted him after
so anxious an absence."

"Nay, if there be blame, it must attach to me," sorrowfully observed
Captain Blessington. "Had Erskine and myself not retired before the
savage, as we did, our unfortunate friend would in all probability have
been alive at this very hour. But in our anxiety to draw the former
into the ambuscade we had prepared for him, we utterly overlooked that
Charles was not retreating with us."

"How happened it," demanded Sir Everard, his attention naturally
directed to the subject by the preceding remarks, "that you lay thus in
ambuscade, when the object of the expedition, as solicited by Frederick
de Haldimar, was an attempt to reach us in the encampment of the
Indians?"

"It certainly was under that impression we left the fort; but, on
coming to the spot where the friendly Indian lay waiting to conduct us,
he proposed the plan we subsequently adopted as the most likely, not
only to secure the escape of the prisoners, whom he pledged himself to
liberate, but to defend ourselves with advantage against Wacousta and
the immediate guard set over them, should they follow in pursuit.
Erskine approving, as well as myself, of the plan, we halted at the
bridge, and disposed of our men under each extremity; so that, if
attacked by the Indians in front, we might be enabled to throw them
into confusion by taking them in rear, as they flung themselves upon
the bridge. The event seemed to answer our expectations. The alarm
raised in the encampment satisfied us the young Indian had contrived to
fulfil his promise; and we momentarily looked for the a