“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.”

Deeply affected by the evident despondency that had dictated these unusual admissions on the part of their chief, the officers were forward to combat the inferences he had drawn:  several coinciding in the opinion now expressed by Captain Wentworth, that the fact of the schooner having fallen into the hands of the savages by no means implied the capture of the fort whence she came; since it was not at all unlikely she had been chased during a calm by the numerous canoes into the Sinclair, where, owing to the extreme narrowness of the river, she had fallen an easy prey.

“Moreover,” observed Captain Blessington, “it is highly improbable the ferocious warrior could have succeeded in capturing any others than the unfortunate crew of the schooner; for had this been the case, he would not have lost the opportunity of crowning his triumph by exhibiting his victims to our view in some conspicuous part of the vessel.”

“This, I grant you,” rejoined the governor, “to be one solitary circumstance in our favour; but may it not, after all, merely prove that our worst apprehensions are already realised?”

“He is not one, methinks, since vengeance seems his aim, to exercise it in so summary, and therefore merciful, a manner.  Depend upon it, colonel, had any of those in whom we are more immediately interested, fallen into his hands, he would not have failed to insult and agonize us by an exhibition of his prisoners.”

“You are right, Blessington,” exclaimed Charles de Haldimar, in a voice that his choking feelings rendered almost sepulchral; “he is not one to exercise his vengeance in a summary, and merciful manner.  The deed is yet unaccomplished, for even now the curse of Ellen Halloway rings again in my ear, and tells me the atoning blood must be spilt on the grave of her husband.”