“Blessington,” returned the young officer,—­and his features exhibited the liveliest image of despair,—­“all hope has long since been extinct within my breast.  See you yon theatre of death?” he mournfully pursued, pointing to the fatal bridge, which was thrown into full relief against the placid bosom of the Detroit:  “recollect you the scene that was acted on it?  As for me, it is ever present to my mind,—­it haunts me in my thoughts by day, and in my dreams by night.  I shall never forget it while memory is left to curse me with the power of retrospection.  On the very spot on which I now stand was I borne in a chair, to witness the dreadful punishment; you see the stone at my feet, I marked it by that.  I saw you conduct Halloway to the centre of the bridge; I beheld him kneel to receive his death; I saw, too, the terrible race for life, that interrupted the proceedings; I marked the sudden upspring of Halloway to his feet upon the coffin, and the exulting waving of his hand, as he seemed to recognise the rivals for mastery in that race.  Then was heard the fatal volley, and I saw the death-struggle of him who had saved my brother’s life.  I could have died, too, at that moment; and would to Providence I had! but it was otherwise decreed.  My aching interest was, for a moment, diverted by the fearful chase now renewed upon the height; and, in common with those around me, I watched the efforts of the pursuer and the pursued with painful earnestness and doubt as to the final result.  Ah, Blessington, why was not this all?  The terrible shriek, uttered at the moment when the fugitive fell, apparently dead, at the feet of the firing party, reached us even here.  I felt as if my heart must have burst, for I knew it to be the shriek of poor Ellen Halloway,—­the suffering wife,—­the broken-hearted woman who had so recently, in all the wild abandonment of her grief, wetted my pillow, and even my cheek, with her burning tears, while supplicating an intercession with my father for mercy, which I knew it would be utterly fruitless to promise.  Oh, Blessington,” pursued the sensitive and affectionate young officer, “I should vainly attempt to paint all that passed in my mind at that dreadful moment.  Nothing but the depth of my despair gave me strength to support the scene throughout.  I saw the frantic and half-naked woman glide like a phantom past the troops, dividing the air with the rapidity of thought.  I knew it to be Ellen; for the discovery of her exchange of clothes with one of the drum boys of the grenadiers was made soon after you left the fort.  I saw her leap upon the coffin, and, standing over the body of her unhappy husband, raise her hands to heaven in adjuration, and my heart died within me.  I recollected the words she had spoken on a previous occasion, during the first examination of Halloway, and I felt it to be the prophetic denunciation, then threatened, that she was now uttering on all the race of De Haldimar.  I saw no more, Blessington.