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Major, who, with all his bustling and grotesque manner, is as good an officer and as brave a soldier as any his Majesty’s army in Canada can boast. For my part, I say, perish all promotion for ever, if it is only to be obtained over the dead bodies of those with whom I have lived so long and shared so many dangers!”
    “Nobly uttered, Charles,” said Captain Blessington: “the sentiment is, indeed, one well worthy of our present position; and God knows we are few enough in number already, without looking forward to each other’s death as a means of our own more immediate personal advancement. With you, therefore, I repeat, perish all my hopes of promotion, if it is only to be obtained over the corses 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 Haldimar in the same breath.
    “Immediately opposite to us on the common. But see, here are the remainder of the party stationary, and listening also.”
    They now stole gently forward a few paces, and were soon at the side of their companions, all of whom were straining their necks and bending their heads in the attitude of men listening attentively.
    “Have you heard any thing, Erskine?” asked Captain Blessington in the same low whisper, and addressing the officer who led the opposite party.
    “Not a sound ourselves, but here is Sir Everard’s black servant, Sambo, who has just riveted our attention, by declaring that
he
distinctly heard a groan towards the skirt of the common.”
    “He is right,” hastily rejoined Blessington; “I heard it also.”
    Again a death-like silence ensued, during which the eyesof the party were strained eagerly in the direction of the common. The night was clear and starry, yet the dark shadow of the broad belt of forest threw all that part of the waste which came within its immediate range into impenetrable obscurity.
    “Do you see any thing?” whispered Valletort to his friend, who stood next him: “look–look!” and he pointed with his finger.
    “Nothing,” returned De Haldimar, after an anxious gaze of a minute, “but that dilapidated old bomb-proof.”
    “See you not something dark, and slightly moving immediately in a line with the left angle of the bomb-proof?”
    De Haldimar looked again.–“I do begin to fancy I see something,” he replied; “but so confusedly and indistinctly, that I know not whether it be not merely an illusion of my imagination. Perhaps it is a stray Indian dog devouring the carcass of the wolf you shot yesterday.”
    “Be it dog or devil, here is for a trial of his vulnerability–Sambo, quick, my rifle.”
    The young negro handed to his master one of those long heavy rifles, which the Indians usually make choice of for killing the buffalo, elk, and other animals whose wildness renders them difficult of approach. He then,