CHAPTER XXV.
THE MIDNIGHT GALLOP.
Well into the half-light of morning, long after the last of his staff, Evans, Glegg and Macdonell, had departed, Brock sat alone at his headquarters at Fort George, writing rapidly.
On the oak mantel, an antique clock chimed the passing of the historic hours, with deep, musical strokes.
Was it presentiment—a clearer understanding that comes to men of active brain and acute perception, during solitary vigil in the silence of night, when, with heart and soul stripped, they stand on the threshold of the great divide—that whispered to this "knight of the sword" his doom? Was it this clearer comprehension that caused our hero to bow his head as a faint message from an unseen messenger reached him? With a sigh of resignation he arose from the unfinished manuscript and passed on to his bedroom.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A muffled, indistinct roar, a confusion of sounds, aroused the half-conscious sleeper. Brock sprang from his couch, partly dressed.