themselves, was too forcible to find contradiction from
the secret monitor within. And yet of those assembled
there was not one, perhaps, who would not, in the hour
of glory and of danger, have generously interposed his
own frame between that of his companion and the steel or
bullet of an enemy. Such are the contradictory elements
which compose a soldier's life.

This conversation, interrupted only by occasional
questioning of the sentinels whom they passed in their
circuit, was carried on in an audible whisper, which the
close approximation of the parties to each other, and
the profound stillness of the night, enabled them to hear
with distinctness.

"Nay, nay, De Haldimar," at length observed Sir Everard,
in reply to the observation of his friend, "do not imagine
I intend to gratify Mr. Delme by any such exhibition as
that of a scalpless head; but, if such be his hope, I
trust that the hour which sees my love-locks dangling at
the top of an Indian pole may also let daylight into his
own carcass from a rifle bullet or a tomahawk."

"And yit, Captin, it sames to me," observed Lieutenant
Murphy, in allusion to the remark of Blessington rather
than in reply to the last speaker,--"it sames to me, I
say, that promotion in ony way is all fair and honourable
in times of hardship like thase; and though we may drop
a tare over our suparior when the luck of war, in the
shape of a tommyhawk, knocks him over, still there can