A deep sigh burst from one immediately behind him.  The governor turned suddenly round, and beheld his son.  Never did human countenance wear a character of more poignant misery than that of the unhappy Charles at the moment.  Attracted by the report of the cannon, he had flown to the rampart to ascertain the cause, and had reached his companions only to learn the strong hope so recently kindled in his breast was fled for ever.  His cheek, over which hung his neglected hair, was now pale as marble, and his lips bloodless and parted; yet, notwithstanding this intensity of personal sorrow, a tear had started to his eye, apparently wrung from him by this unusual expression of dismay in his father.

“Charles—­my son—­my only now remaining child,” murmured the governor with emotion, as he remarked, and started at the death-like image of the youth; “look not thus, or you will utterly unman me.”

A sudden and involuntary impulse caused him to extend his arms.  The young officer sprang forward into the proffered embrace, and sank his head upon the cheek of his father.  It was the first time he had enjoyed that privilege since his childhood; and even overwhelmed as he was by his affliction, he felt it deeply.

This short but touching scene was witnessed by their companions, without levity in any, and with emotion by several.  None felt more gratified at this demonstration of parental affection for the sensitive boy, than Blessington and Erskine.

“I cannot yet persuade myself,” observed the former officer, as the colonel again assumed that dignity of demeanour which had been momentarily lost sight of in the ebullition of his feelings,—­“I cannot yet persuade myself things are altogether so bad as they appear.  It is true the schooner is in the possession of the enemy, but there is nothing to prove our friends are on board.”

“If you had reason to know him into whose hands she has fallen, as I do, you would think differently, Captain Blessington,” returned the governor.  “That mysterious being,” he pursued, after a short pause, “would never have made this parade of his conquest, had it related merely to a few lives, which to him are of utter insignificance.  The very substitution of yon black flag, in his insolent triumph, was the pledge of redemption of a threat breathed in my ear within this very fort:  on what occasion I need not state, since the events connected with that unhappy night are still fresh in the recollections of us all.  That he is my personal enemy, gentlemen, it would be vain to disguise from you; although who he is, or of what nature his enmity, it imports not now to enter upon Suffice it, I have little doubt my children are in his power; but whether the black flag indicates they are no more, or that the tragedy is only in preparation, I confess I am at a loss to understand.”