With you, therefore, I repeat, perish all my hopes of
promotion, if it is only to be obtained over the corpses
of my companions! And let those who are most sanguine in
their expectations beware lest they prove the first to
be cut off, and that even before they have yet enjoyed
the advantages of the promotion they so eagerly covet."

This observation, uttered without acrimony, had yet enough
of delicate reproach in it to satisfy Lieutenant Murphy
that the speaker was far from approving the expression
of such selfish anticipations at a moment like the present,
when danger, in its most mysterious guise, lurked around,
and threatened the safety of all most dear to them.

The conversation now dropped, and the party pursued their
course in silence. They had just passed the last sentinel
posted in their line of circuit, and were within a few
yards of the immediate rear of the fortress, when a sharp
"Hist!" and sudden halt of their leader, Captain
Blessington, threw them all into an attitude of the most
profound attention.

"Did you hear?" he asked in a subdued whisper, after a
few seconds of silence, in which he had vainly sought to
catch a repetition of the sound.

"Assuredly," he pursued, finding that no one answered,
"I distinctly heard a human groan."

"Where?--in what direction?" asked Sir Everard and De