But Desborough was in no humor to endure this mirth. Finding himself discovered, he had risen heavily from the litter to his feet, and now moved doggedly towards the guard-house, where the men had orders to confine him. His look still wore the character of ferocity, which years had stamped there, but with this was mixed an expression that denoted more of the cowering villain, whom a sudden reverse of fortune may intimidate, than the dauntless adventurer to whom enterprizes of hazard are at once a stimulus and a necessity. In short, he was entirely crest-fallen.
"Come and see the effect of Gerald's excellent fire," said Middlemore, when Desborough had disappeared within the guard-room. "I will show you the room pointed out to me by the subaltern whom I relieved, as that in which four field officers and three surgeons were killed."
Preceded by their companion, Captain Granville and Grantham entered the piazza leading to the officers' rooms, several of which were completely pierced with twenty-four pound shot, known at once as coming from the centre battery, which alone mounted guns of that calibre. After surveying the interior a few moments, they passed into a small passage communicating with the room in question. On opening the door, all were painfully struck by the sight which presented itself. Numerous shot-holes were visible everywhere throughout, while the walls at the inner extremity of the apartment were completely bespotted with blood and brains, scarcely yet dry anywhere, and in several places dripping to the floor. At one corner of the room, and on a mattress, lay the form of a wounded man, whom the blue uniform and silver epaulettes, that filled a chair near the head, attested for an American officer of rank. At the foot of the bed, dressed in black, her long hair floating wildly over the shoulders, and with a hand embracing one of those of the sufferer, sat a female, apparently wholly absorbed in the contemplation of the scene before her. The noise made by the officers on entering had not caused the slightest change in her position, nor was it until she heard the foot-fall of Captain Granville, as he advanced for the purpose of offering his services, that she turned to behold who were the intruders. The sight of the British uniform appeared to startle her, for she immediately sprang to her feet, as if alarmed at their presence. It was impossible they could mistake those features and that face. It was Miss Montgomerie. He who lay at her feet, was her venerable uncle. He was one of the field officers who had fallen a victim to Gerald's fire, and the same ball which had destroyed his companions, had carried away his thigh, near the hip bone. The surgeons had given him over, and he had requested to be permitted to die where he lay. His wish had been attended to, but in the bustle of evacuation, it had been forgotten to acquaint the officers commanding the British guard that he was there. The last agonies of death had not yet passed away, but there seemed little probability that he could survive another hour.
Perceiving the desperate situation of the respectable officer, Captain Granville stayed not to question on a subject that spoke so plainly for itself. Hastening back into the piazza with his subalterns, he reached the area just as the remaining troops, intended for the occupation of the fort, were crossing the drawbridge, headed by Colonel St. Julian. To this officer he communicated the situation of the sufferer, when an order was given for the instant attendance of the head of the medical staff. After a careful examination and dressing of the wound, the latter pronounced the case not altogether desperate. A great deal of blood had been lost, and extreme weakness had been the consequence, but still the Surgeon was not without hope that his life might yet be preserved, although, of course, he would be a cripple for the remainder of his days.
It might have been assumed, that the hope yet held out, of preservation of life on any terms, would have been hailed with some manifestation of grateful emotion, on the part of Miss Montgomerie; but it was remarked and commented on, by those who were present, that this unexpectedly favorable report, so far from being received with gratitude and delight, seemed to cast a deeper gloom over the spirit of this extraordinary girl. The contrast was inexplicable. She had tended him at the moment when he was supposed to be dying, with all the anxious solicitude of a fond child; and now that there was a prospect of his recovery, there was a sadness in her manner that told too plainly the discomfort of her heart.
"An unaccountable girl!" said Cranstoun, as he sipped his wine that day after dinner, in the mess-room at Detroit. "I always said she was the child of the devil."
"Child of the devil in soul, if you will," observed Granville, "but a true woman—a beautiful, a superb woman in person at least, did she appear this morning, when we first entered the room—did she not, Henry?"
"Beautiful indeed," was the reply—"yet, I confess, she more awed than pleased me. I could not avoid, even amid that melancholy scene, comparing her to a beautiful casket, which, on opening, is found to contain not a gem of price, but a subtle poison, contact with which is fatal; or to a fair looking fruit, which, when divided, proves to be rotten at the core."
"Allegorical, by all that is good, bad, and indifferent," exclaimed Villiers. "How devilish severe you are, Henry, upon the pale Venus. It is hardly fair in you thus to rate Gerald's intended."
"Gerald's intended! God forbid."