"My commission, the pride of my heart, was gone," said Charters with a sigh, as he concluded his story; "and by my own folly and extravagance, together with the active assistance of others, my fortune was nearly gone too. Friends disappeared as my purse emptied, and ere long I knew not what to do, or whither to turn me.
"As for Shirley, my lieutenancy availed him but little, as he was dismissed from the service soon after for declining to go out with a brother officer. Gradually he became a gambler, a blackleg—in fact, a common robber in London, and his fate was a fearful one; so in my heart, I now forgive him.
"Was he executed?" I inquired.
"Worse. His brother, Sir Jasper Shirley, being out of town, at his place in Hants, the household plate was lodged, as usual, at his banker's. It was valuable, for among it was a princely service he had received from the empress-queen when he was our Ambassador at Vienna; and when a sudden order came to the wary old butler, desiring him to get it all out, as Sir Jasper was returning to town, he showed the letter to my ci-devant friend, Fred Shirley, who said 'it was all right, as his brother would be in London to-morrow.'
"The butler, however, still had his secret fears; and after bringing home the plate, borrowed from a friend a bulldog—a surly and savage brute of great strength and ferocity, which he chained to the chest over night.
"Shortly before daybreak, a dreadful noise was heard in the apartment where the plate lay. Lights were procured—the butler and other servants hurried to the place, and found that a window had been forced by the usual implements of a housebreaker, who lay on the floor dead, but still warm, and in a pool of blood, for his throat and tongue were completely torn out by the fangs of the ferocious dog; and who think you he proved to be? Sir Jasper's younger brother—Frederick Shirley.
"So," added Charters, through his clenched teeth, "so perished he who betrayed me!
"Drinking, gambling, and reckless dissipation among the condottieri of London society, soon brought me like the prodigal of old to the husks and the swine trough; till one day, when my better angel triumphed over the evil spirit who had guided me so long, I conceived the idea of endeavouring to regain, by mere force of merit, the commission of which I had been so lawlessly deprived.
"Inspired by this resolution, so consistent with my warm and sanguine temperament, I enlisted in the Scots Greys; but my evil genius still follows me, for I have never got beyond the rank of corporal.
"I am not the man I once was, and may never rise higher. Perhaps I am too reckless, too much soured in temper, and too much of a misanthrope, to deserve a commission, or it may be that the secret vengeance of the king and his devil of a Walmoden, still pursues me even here. I cannot see my future, but, happily,