“Him!” exclaimed Colonel Grant, with growing anxiety—“him!—whom, I pray you? For heaven’s sake, tell me whom it is that you are fated to behold!”
“Pardon me,” replied Inverawe, at length in some degree collecting his ideas, but speaking in a solemn tone. “An intense remembrance which came suddenly upon me, regarding strange circumstances which happened to myself, has betrayed me to talk of that which I would have rather avoided, and—and which cannot interest you, incredulous as you have declared yourself to be regarding all such supernatural visitations.”
“Nay, you will pardon me, if you please,” said the Colonel, eagerly; “for you have so wonderfully excited my curiosity, that I must e’en entreat you to satisfy me. What were these circumstances that happened to you?—tell me, I conjure you.”
“It is with great pain,” said Inverawe gravely, “that I enter upon them at all; for, although they still remain as fresh upon my mind as if they had happened yesterday, I would fain bury them, not only from all mankind, but from myself. And yet, perhaps, it may be as well that you should know them,—for strange as they are in themselves, they would yet be stranger in their fulfilment. Listen then attentively, and I shall tell you every thing, even to the very minutest thought that possessed me.” And so he proceeded to narrate all that I have already told.
“Strange!” said the Colonel, after devouring the narrative with breathless attention—“wonderfully strange indeed! But these are airy phantoms of the brain, which we must not—nay, cannot allow to weigh with us, or to dwell upon our minds—else might we be bereft of reason itself, by permitting them to get mastery over us, and so might we unwittingly aid them in working out their own accomplishment. Help yourself to another cup of wine, Inverawe, and then let us change the subject for something of a more cheerful nature.”
But all cheerfulness had fled from Inverawe for that night, and the friends soon afterwards separated, to seek a repose, which he at least in vain tried to court to his pillow for many hours; and when sleep did come at last, the figure of the murdered man floated to and fro in his dreams. But it did so, only the more to convince him of the wonderful difference between such faint visions of slumber, and that vivid spectral appearance, which had formerly so terribly and deeply impressed itself upon his waking senses, in his own bed-chamber at Inverawe.
The conversation I have just repeated, together with Inverawe’s narrative, remained strongly engraven upon the recollection of Colonel Grant. The whole circumstances adhered to him so powerfully, that he almost felt as if he too had seen the apparition, and heard him utter his fatal words. He could not divest himself of a most intense solicitude about his friend’s future fate, which he could in no manner of way explain to his own rational satisfaction. But the active and bustling duties which now called for his attention, in consequence of the approaching campaign, very speedily banished all such thoughts from his mind.
It was not long after this, that Colonel Grant was summoned by General Abercromby to meet the other commanding-officers of corps in a council of war. The council lasted for many hours, and when the Colonel came forth from it after it had broken up, he was observed to have a cloud upon his brow, and a certain air of serious anxiety about him, which was very much augmented by his meeting with his friend Inverawe.
“Well,” said Inverawe cheerfully to him, as Colonel Grant joined him and his other officers at mess. “I hope you have good news for us, Colonel, and that at last you can tell us that we are to march out of quarters on some piece of active service.”
“We are to march to-morrow,” replied the Colonel, with unusual gravity.