It was under this
impression that he sternly gave and repeated the fatal
order to fire; and by this misjudged and severe, although
not absolutely cruel act, not only destroyed one of the
noblest beings that ever wore a soldier's uniform, but
entailed upon himself and family that terrific curse of
his maniac wife, which rang like a prophetic warning in
the ears of all, and was often heard in the fitful
starlings of his own ever-after troubled slumbers.
What his feelings were, when subsequently he discovered,
in the wretched fugitive, the son whom he already believed
to have been numbered with the dead, and heard from his
lips a confirmation of all that had been advanced by the
unhappy Halloway, we shall leave it to our readers to
imagine. Still, even amid his first regret, the rigid
disciplinarian was strong within him; and no sooner had
the detachment regained the fort, after performing the
last offices of interment over their ill-fated comrade,
than Captain de Haldimar received an intimation, through
the adjutant, to consider himself under close arrest for
disobedience of orders. Finally, however, he succeeded
in procuring an interview with his father; in the course
of which, disclosing the plot of the Indians, and the
short period allotted for its being carried into execution,
he painted in the most gloomy colours the alarming,
dangers which threatened them all, and finished by urgently
imploring his father to suffer him to make the attempt
to reach their unsuspecting friends at Michilimackinac.
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