There was on the countenance
of each, that deep and fixed expression of gloom, which,
if it did not indicate any unmanliness of despair, told
at least that hope was nearly extinct: but more especially
was this remarkable in the young but sadly altered Charles
de Haldimar, who, with a vacant eye and a pre-occupied
manner, seemed wholly abstracted from the scene before
him.
All was silence in the body of the fort. The men off duty
had long since retired to rest in their clothes, and only
the "All's well!" of the sentinels was heard at intervals
of a quarter of an hour, as the cry echoed from mouth to
mouth in the line of circuit. Suddenly, however, between
two of those intervals, and during a pause in the languid
conversation of the officers, the sharp challenge of a
sentinel was heard, and then quick steps on the rampart,
as of men hastening to the point whence the challenge
had been given. The officers, whom this new excitement
seemed to arouse into fresh activity, hurriedly quitted
the room; and, with as little noise as possible, gained
the spot where the voice had been heard. Several men were
bending eagerly over the rampart, and, with their muskets
at the recover, riveting their gaze on a dark and motionless
object that lay on the verge of the ditch immediately
beneath them.
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