escaped us with the vigilant watch that has been kept on
the ramparts? The old gentleman certainly had that illusion
strongly impressed on his mind when he so sapiently spoke
of my firing at a shadow."

"But the gate," interrupted Charles de Haldimar, with
something of mild reproach in his tones,--"you forget,
Valletort, the gate was found unlocked, and that my
brother is missing. HE, at least, was flesh and blood,
as you say, and yet he has disappeared. What more probable,
therefore, than that this stranger is at once the cause
and the agent of his abduction?"

"Impossible, Charles," observed Captain Blessington;
"Frederick was in the midst of his guard. How, therefore,
could he be conveyed away without the alarm being given?
Numbers only could have succeeded in so desperate an
enterprise; and yet there is no evidence, or even suspicion,
of more than one individual having been here."

"It is a singular affair altogether," returned Sir Everard,
musingly. "Of two things, however, I am satisfied. The
first is, that the stranger, whoever he may be, and if
he really has been here, is no Indian; the second, that
he is personally known to the governor, who has been, or
I mistake much, more alarmed at his individual presence
than if Ponteac and his whole band had suddenly broken
in upon us. Did you remark his emotion, when I dwelt on
the peculiar character of personal triumph and revenge
which the cry of the lurking villain outside seemed to