The only lights visible in the fort proceeded from the
guard-house and a room adjoining that of the ill-fated
Charles de Haldimar. Within the latter were collected,
with the exception of the governor, and grouped around
a bed on which lay one of their companions in a nearly
expiring state, the officers of the garrison, reduced
nearly one third in number since we first offered them
to the notice of our readers. The dying man was Sir
Everard Valletort, who, supported by pillows, was
concluding a narrative that had chained the earnest
attention of his auditory, even amid the deep and heartfelt
sympathy perceptible in each for the forlorn and hopeless
condition of the narrator. At the side of the unhappy
baronet, and enveloped in a dressing gown, as if recently
out of bed, sat, reclining in a rude elbow chair, one
whose pallid countenance denoted, that, although far less
seriously injured, he, too, had suffered severely:--it
was Lieutenant Johnstone.
The narrative was at length closed; and the officer,
exhausted by the effort he had made in his anxiety to
communicate every particular to his attentive and surprised
companions, had sunk back upon his pillow, when, suddenly,
the loud and unusual "Who comes there?" of the sentinel
stationed on the rampart above the gateway, arrested
every ear.
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