Doubtless, many of our readers are prepared to expect that the doom of
the unfortunate Frank Halloway was, as an officer of his regiment had
already hinted, the fruit of some personal pique and concealed motive
of vengeance; and that the denouement of our melancholy story will
afford evidence of the governor's knowledge of the true character of
him, who, under an assumed name, excited such general interest at his
trial and death, not only among his military superiors, but those with
whom his adverse destiny had more immediately associated him. It has
already been urged to us, by one or two of our critical friends to whom
we have submitted what has been thus far written in our tale, that, to
explain satisfactorily and consistently the extreme severity of the
governor, some secret and personally influencing motive must be
assigned; but to these we have intimated, what we now repeat,--namely,
that we hope to bear out our story, by natural explanation and simple
deduction. Who Frank Halloway really was, or what the connection
existing between him and the mysterious enemy of the family of De
Haldimar, the sequel of our narrative will show; but whatever its
nature, and however well founded the apprehension of the governor of
the formidable being hitherto known as the warrior of the Fleur de lis,
and however strong his conviction that the devoted Halloway and his
enemy were in secret correspondence, certain it is, that, to the very
hour of the death of the former, he knew him as no other than the
simple private soldier.
To have ascribed to Colonel de Haldimar motives that would have induced
his eagerly seeking the condemnation of an innocent man, either to
gratify a thirst of vengeance, or to secure immunity against personal
danger, would have been to have painted him, not only as a villain, but
a coward. Colonel de Haldimar was neither; but, on the contrary, what
is understood in worldly parlance and the generally received
acceptation of the terms, a man of strict integrity and honour, as well
as of the most undisputed courage. Still, he was a severe and a haughty
man,--one whose military education had been based on the principles of
the old school--and to whom the command of a regiment afforded a field
for the exercise of an orthodox despotism, that could not be passed
over without the immolation of many a victim on its rugged surface.
Without ever having possessed any thing like acute feeling, his heart,
as nature had formed it, was moulded to receive the ordinary
impressions of humanity; and had he been doomed to move in the sphere
of private life, if he had not been distinguished by any remarkable
sensibilities, he would not, in all probability, have been conspicuous
for any extraordinary cruelties. Sent into the army, however, at an
early age, and with a blood not remarkable for its mercurial aptitudes,
he had calmly and deliberately imbibed all the starched theories and
standard prejudices which a mind by no means naturally gifted was but
too well predisposed to receive; and he was among the number of those
(many of whom are indigenous to our soil even at the present day) who
look down from a rank obtained, upon that which has been just quitted,
with a contempt, and coldness, and consciousness of elevation,
commensurate only with the respect paid to those still above them, and
which it belongs only to the little-minded to indulge in.
As a subaltern, M. de Haldimar had ever been considered a pattern of
rigid propriety and decorum of conduct. Not the shadow of military
crime had ever been laid to his charge. He was punctual at all parades
and drills; kept the company to which he was attached in a perfect hot
water of discipline; never missed his distance in marching past, or
failed in a military manoeuvre; paid his mess-bill regularly to the
hour, nay, minute, of the settling day; and was never, on any one
occasion, known to enter the paymaster's office, except on the
well-remembered 24th of each month; and, to crown all, he had never
asked, consequently never obtained, a day's leave from his regiment,
although he had served in it so long, that there was now but one man
living who had entered it with him. With all these qualities, Ensign de
Haldimar promised to make an excellent soldier; and, as such, was
encouraged by the field-officers of the corps, who unhesitatingly
pronounced him a lad of discernment and talent, who would one day rival
them in all the glorious privileges of martinetism. It was even
remarked, as an evidence of his worth, that, when promoted to a
lieutenancy, he looked down upon the ensigns with that becoming
condescension which befitted his new rank; and up to the captains with
the deferential respect he felt to be due to that third step in the
five-barred gate of regimental promotion, on which his aspiring but
chained foot had not yet succeeded in reposing. What, therefore, he
became when he had succeeded in clambering to the top, and looked down
from the lordly height he had after many years of plodding service
obtained, we must leave it to the imaginations of our readers to
determine. We reserve it to a future page, to relate more interesting
particulars.
Sufficient has been shown, however, from this outline of his character,
as well as from the conversations among his officers, elsewhere
transcribed, to account for the governor's conduct in the case of
Halloway. That the recommendation of his son, Captain de Haldimar, had
not been attended to, arose not from any particular ill-will towards
the unhappy man, but simply because he had always been in the habit of
making his own selections from the ranks, and that the present
recommendation had been warmly urged by one who he fancied pretended to
a discrimination superior to his own, in pointing out merits that had
escaped his observation. It might be, too, that there was a latent
pride about the manner of Halloway that displeased and dissatisfied one
who looked upon his subordinates as things that were amenable to the
haughtiness of his glance,--not enough of deference in his demeanour,
or of supplicating obsequiousness in his speech, to entitle him to the
promotion prayed for. Whatever the motive, there was nothing of
personality to influence him in the rejection of the appeal made in
favour of one who had never injured him; but who, on the contrary, as
the whole of the regiment could attest, had saved the life of his son.
Rigid disciplinarian as he was, and holding himself responsible for the
safety of the garrison it was but natural, when the discovery had been
made of the unaccountable unfastening of the gate of the fort,
suspicion of no ordinary kind should attach to the sentinel posted
there; and that he should steadily refuse all credence to a story
wearing so much appearance of improbability. Proud, and inflexible, and
bigoted to first impressions, his mind was closed against those
palliating circumstances, which, adduced by Halloway in his defence,
had so mainly contributed to stamp the conviction of his moral
innocence on the minds of his judges and the attentive auditory; and
could he even have conquered his pride so far as to have admitted the
belief of that innocence, still the military crime of which he had been
guilty, in infringing a positive order of the garrison, was in itself
sufficient to call forth all the unrelenting severity of his nature.
Throughout the whole of the proceedings subsequently instituted, he had
acted and spoken from a perfect conviction of the treason of the
unfortunate soldier, and with the fullest impression of the falsehood
of all that had been offered in his defence. The considerations that
influenced the minds of his officers, found no entrance into his proud
breast, which was closed against every thing but his own dignified
sense of superior judgment. Could he, like them, have given credence to
the tale of Halloway, or really have believed that Captain de Haldimar,
educated under his own military eye, could have been so wanting in
subordination, as not merely to have infringed a positive order of the
garrison, but to have made a private soldier of that garrison accessary
to his delinquency, it is more than probable his stern habits of
military discipline would have caused him to overlook the offence of
the soldier, in deeper indignation at the conduct of the infinitely
more culpable officer; but not one word did he credit of a statement,
which he assumed to have been got up by the prisoner with the mere view
of shielding himself from punishment: and when to these suspicions of
his fidelity was attached the fact of the introduction of his alarming
visitor, it must be confessed his motives for indulging in this belief
were not without foundation.
The impatience manifested during the trial of Halloway was not a result
of any desire of systematic persecution, but of a sense of wounded
dignity. It was a thing unheard of, and unpardonable in his eyes, for a
private soldier to assert, in his presence, his honour and his
respectability in extenuation, even while admitting the justice of a
specific charge; and when he remarked the Court listening with that
profound attention, which the peculiar history of the prisoner had
excited, he could not repress the manifestation of his anger. In
justice to him, however, it must be acknowledged that, in causing the
charge, to which the unfortunate man pleaded guilty, to be framed, he
had only acted from the conviction that, on the two first, there was
not sufficient evidence to condemn one whose crime was as clearly
established, to his judgment, as if he had been an eye-witness of the
treason. It is true, he availed himself of Halloway's voluntary
confession, to effect his condemnation; but estimating him as a
traitor, he felt little delicacy was necessary to be observed on that
score.
Much of the despotic military character of Colonel de Haldimar had been
communicated to his private life; so much, indeed, that his sons,--both
of whom, it has been seen, were of natures that belied their origin
from so stern a stock,--were kept at nearly as great a distance from
him as any other subordinates of his regiment. But although he seldom
indulged in manifestations of parental regard towards those whom he
looked upon rather as inferiors in military rank, than as beings
connected with him by the ties of blood, Colonel de Haldimar was not
without that instinctive love for his children, which every animal in
the creation feels for its offspring. He, also, valued and took a pride
in, because they reflected a certain degree of lustre upon himself, the
talents and accomplishments of his eldest son, who, moreover, was a
brave, enterprising officer, and, only wanted, in his father's
estimation, that severity of carriage and hauteur of deportment,
befitting HIS son, to render him perfect. As for Charles,--the gentle,
bland, winning, universally conciliating Charles,--he looked upon him
as a mere weak boy, who could never hope to arrive at any post of
distinction, if only by reason of the extreme delicacy of his physical
organisation; and to have shown any thing like respect for his
character, or indulged in any expression of tenderness for one so far
below his estimate of what a soldier, a child of his, ought to be,
would have been a concession of which his proud nature was incapable.
In his daughter Clara, however, the gentleness of sex claimed that
warmer affection which was denied to him, who resembled her in almost
every attribute of mind and person. Colonel de Haldimar doated on his
daughter with a tenderness, for which few, who were familiar with his
harsh and unbending nature, ever gave him credit. She was the image of
one on whom all of love that he had ever known had been centered; and
he had continued in Clara an affection, that seemed in itself to form a
portion, distinct and apart, of his existence.
We have already seen, as stated by Charles de Haldimar to the
unfortunate wife of Halloway, with what little success he had pleaded
in the interview he had requested of his father, for the preserver of
his gallant brother's life; and we have also seen how equally
inefficient was the lowly and supplicating anguish of that wretched
being, when, on quitting the apartment of his son, Colonel de Haldimar
had so unexpectedly found himself clasped in her despairing embrace.
There was little to be expected from an intercession on the part of one
claiming so little ascendancy over his father's heart, as the
universally esteemed young officer; still less from one who, in her
shriek of agony, had exposed the haughty chief to the observation both
of men and officers, and under circumstances that caused his position
to border on the ludicrous. But however these considerations might have
failed in effect, there was another which, as a soldier, he could not
wholly overlook. Although he had offered no comment on the
extraordinary recommendation to mercy annexed to the sentence of the
prisoner, it had had a certain weight with him; and he felt, all
absolute even as he was, he could not, without exciting strong
dissatisfaction among his troops, refuse attention to a document so
powerfully worded, and bearing the signature and approval of so old and
valued an officer as Captain Blessington. His determination, therefore,
had been formed, even before his visit to his son, to act as
circumstances might require; and, in the mean while, he commanded every
preparation for the execution to be made.
In causing a strong detachment to be marched to the conspicuous point
chosen for his purpose, he had acted from a conviction of the necessity
of showing the enemy the treason of the soldier had been detected;
reserving to himself the determination of carrying the sentence into
full effect, or pardoning the condemned, as the event might warrant.
Not one moment, meanwhile, did he doubt the guilt of Halloway, whose
description of the person of his enemy was, in itself, to him,
confirmatory evidence of his treason. It is doubtful whether he would,
in any way, have been influenced by the recommendation of the Court,
had the first charges been substantiated; but as there was nothing but
conjecture to bear out these, and as the prisoner had been convicted
only on the ground of suffering Captain de Haldimar to quit the fort
contrary to orders, he felt he might possibly go too far in carrying
the capital punishment into effect, in decided opposition to the
general feeling of the garrison,--both of officers and men.
When the shot was subsequently fired from the hut of the Canadian, and
the daring rifleman recognised as the same fearful individual who had
gained access to his apartment the preceding night, conviction of the
guilt of Halloway came even deeper home to the mind of the governor. It
was through Francois alone that a communication was kept up secretly
between the garrison and several of the Canadians without the fort; and
the very fact of the mysterious warrior having been there so recently
after his daring enterprise, bore evidence that whatever treason was in
operation, had been carried on through the instrumentality of mine host
of the Fleur de lis. In proof, moreover, there was the hat of Donellan,
and the very rope Halloway had stated to be that by which the
unfortunate officer had effected his exit. Colonel de Haldimar was not
one given to indulge in the mysterious or to believe in the romantic.
Every thing was plain matter of fact, as it now appeared before him;
and he thought it evident, as though it had been written in words of
fire, that if his son and his unfortunate servant had quitted the fort
in the manner represented, it was no less certain they had been forced
off by a party, at the head of whom was his vindictive enemy, and with
the connivance of Halloway. We have seen, that after the discovery of
the sex of the supposed drummer-boy when the prisoners were confronted
together, Colonel de Haldimar had closely watched the expression of
their countenances, but failed in discovering any thing that could be
traced into evidence of a guilty recognition. Still he conceived his
original impression to have been too forcibly borne out, even by the
events of the last half hour, to allow this to have much weight with
him; and his determination to carry the thing through all its fearful
preliminary stages became more and more confirmed.
In adopting this resolution in the first instance, he was not without a
hope that Halloway, standing, as he must feel himself to be, on the
verge of the grave, might be induced to make confession of his guilt,
and communicate whatever particulars might prove essential not only to
the safety of the garrison generally, but to himself individually, as
far as his personal enemy was concerned. With this view, he had charged
Captain Blessington, in the course of their march from the hut to the
fatal bridge, to promise a full pardon, provided he should make such
confession of his crime as would lead to a just appreciation of the
evils likely to result from the treason that had in part been
accomplished. Even in making this provision, however, which was met by
the prisoner with solemn yet dignified reiteration of his innocence,
Colonel de Haldimar had not made the refusal of pardon altogether
conclusive in his own mind: still, in adopting this plan, there was a
chance of obtaining a confession; and not until there was no longer a
prospect of the unhappy man being led into that confession, did he feel
it imperative on him to stay the progress of the tragedy.
What the result would have been, had not Halloway, in the strong
excitement of his feelings, sprung to his feet upon the coffin,
uttering the exclamation of triumph recorded in the last pages of our
first volume, is scarcely doubtful. However much the governor might
have contemned and slighted a credulity in which he in no way
participated himself, he had too much discrimination not to perceive,
that to have persevered in the capital punishment would have been to
have rendered himself personally obnoxious to the comrades of the
condemned, whose dispirited air and sullen mien, he clearly saw,
denounced the punishment as one of unnecessary rigour. The haughty
commander was not one to be intimidated by manifestations of
discontent; neither was he one to brook a spirit of insubordination,
however forcibly supported; but he had too much experience and military
judgment, not to determine that this was riot a moment, by foregoing an
act of compulsory clemency, to instil divisions in the garrison, when
the safety of all so much depended on the cheerfulness and unanimity
with which they lent themselves to the arduous duties of defence.
However originating in policy, the lenity he might have been induced to
have shown, all idea of the kind was chased from his mind by the
unfortunate action of the prisoner. At the moment when the distant
heights resounded with the fierce yells of the savages, and leaping
forms came bounding down the slope, the remarkable warrior of the Fleur
de lis--the fearful enemy who had whispered the most demoniac vengeance
in his ears the preceding night--was the only one that met and riveted
the gaze of the governor. He paused not to observe or to think who the
flying man could be of whom the mysterious warrior was in
pursuit,--neither did it, indeed, occur to him that it was a pursuit at
all. But one idea suggested itself to his mind, and that was an attempt
at rescue of the condemned on the part of his accomplice; and when at
length Halloway, who had at once, as if by instinct, recognised his
captain in the fugitive, shouted forth his gratitude to Heaven that "he
at length approached who alone had the power to save him," every shadow
of mercy was banished from the mind of the governor, who, labouring
under a natural misconception of the causes of his exulting shout, felt
that justice imperatively demanded her victim, and no longer hesitated
in awarding the doom that became the supposed traitor. It was under
this impression that he sternly gave and repeated the fatal order to
fire; and by this misjudged and severe, although not absolutely cruel
act, not only destroyed one of the noblest beings that ever wore a
soldier's uniform, but entailed upon himself and family that terrific
curse of his maniac wife, which rang like a prophetic warning in the
ears of all, and was often heard in the fitful starlings of his own
ever-after troubled slumbers.
What his feelings were, when subsequently he discovered, in the
wretched fugitive, the son whom he already believed to have been
numbered with the dead, and heard from his lips a confirmation of all
that had been advanced by the unhappy Halloway, we shall leave it to
our readers to imagine. Still, even amid his first regret, the rigid
disciplinarian was strong within him; and no sooner had the detachment
regained the fort, after performing the last offices of interment over
their ill-fated comrade, than Captain de Haldimar received an
intimation, through the adjutant, to consider himself under close
arrest for disobedience of orders. Finally, however, he succeeded in
procuring an interview with his father; in the course of which,
disclosing the plot of the Indians, and the short period allotted for
its being carried into execution, he painted in the most gloomy colours
the alarming, dangers which threatened them all, and finished by
urgently imploring his father to suffer him to make the attempt to
reach their unsuspecting friends at Michilimackinac. Fully impressed
with the difficulties attendant on a scheme that offered so few
feasible chances of success, Colonel de Haldimar for a period denied
his concurrence; but when at length the excited young man dwelt on the
horrors that would inevitably await his sister and betrothed cousin,
were they to fall into the hands of the savages, these considerations
were found to be effective. An after-arrangement included Sir Everard
Valletort, who had expressed a strong desire to share his danger in the
enterprise; and the services of the Canadian, who had been brought back
a prisoner to the fort, and on whom promises and threats were bestowed
in an equally lavish manner, were rendered available. In fact, without
the assistance of Francois, there was little chance of their effecting
in safety the navigation of the waters through which they were to pass
to arrive at the fort. He it was, who, when summoned to attend a
conference among the officers, bearing on the means to be adopted,
suggested the propriety of their disguising themselves as Canadian duck
hunters; in which character they might expect to pass unmolested, even
if encountered by any outlying parties of the savages. With the doubts
that had previously been entertained of the fidelity of Francois, there
was an air of forlorn hope given to the enterprise; still, as the man
expressed sincere earnestness of desire to repay the clemency accorded
him, by a faithful exercise of his services, and as the object sought
was one that justified the risk, there was, notwithstanding, a latent
hope cherished by all parties, that the event would prove successful.
We have already seen to what extent their anticipations were realised.
Whether it was that he secretly acknowledged the too excessive
sternness of his justice in regard to Halloway (who still, in the true
acceptation of facts, had been guilty of a crime that entailed the
penalty he had paid), or that the apprehensions that arose to his heart
in regard to her on whom he yearned with all a father's fondness
governed his conduct, certain it is, that, from the hour of the
disclosure made by his son, Colonel de Haldimar became an altered man.
Without losing any thing of that dignity of manner, which had hitherto
been confounded with the most repellent haughtiness of bearing, his
demeanour towards his officers became more courteous; and although, as
heretofore, he kept himself entirely aloof, except when occasions of
duty brought them together, still, when they did meet, there was more
of conciliation in his manner, and less of austerity in his speech.
There was, moreover, a dejection in his eye, strongly in contrast with
his former imperious glance; and more than one officer remarked, that,
if his days were devoted to the customary practical arrangements for
defence, his pallid countenance betokened that his nights were nights
rather of vigil than of repose.
However natural and deep the alarm entertained for the fate of the
sister fort, there could be no apprehension on the mind of Colonel de
Haldimar in regard to his own; since, furnished with the means of
foiling his enemies with their own weapons of cunning and deceit, a few
extraordinary precautions alone were necessary to secure all immunity
from danger. Whatever might be the stern peculiarities of his
character,--and these had originated chiefly in an education purely
military,--Colonel de Haldimar was an officer well calculated to the
important trust reposed in him; for, combining experience with judgment
in all matters relating to the diplomacy of war, and being fully
conversant with the character and habits of the enemy opposed to him,
he possessed singular aptitude to seize whatever advantages might
present themselves.
The prudence and caution of his policy have already been made manifest
in the two several council scenes with the chiefs recorded in our
second volume. It may appear singular, that, with the opportunity thus
afforded him of retaining the formidable Ponteac,--the strength and
sinew of that long protracted and ferocious war,--in his power, he
should have waved his advantage; but here Colonel de Haldimar gave
evidence of the tact which so eminently distinguished his public
conduct throughout. He well knew the noble, fearless character of the
chief; and felt, if any hold was to be secured over him, it was by
grappling with his generosity, and not by the exercise of intimidation.
Even admitting that Ponteac continued his prisoner, and that the
troops, pouring their destructive fire upon the mass of enemies so
suddenly arrested on the drawbridge, had swept away the whole, still
they were but as a mite among the numerous nations that were leagued
against the English; and to these nations, it was evident, they must,
sooner or later, succumb.
Colonel de Haldimar knew enough of the proud but generous nature of the
Ottawa, to deem that the policy he proposed to pursue in the last
council scene would not prove altogether without effect on that
warrior. It was well known to him, that much pains had been taken to
instil into the minds of the Indians the belief that the English were
resolved on their final extirpation; and as certain slights, offered to
them at various periods, had given a colouring of truth to this
assertion, the formidable league which had already accomplished the
downfall of so many of the forts had been the consequence of these
artful representations. Although well aware that the French had
numerous emissaries distributed among the fierce tribes, it was not
until after the disclosure made by the haughty Ponteac, at the close of
the first council scene, that he became apprised of the alarming
influence exercised over the mind of that warrior himself by his own
terrible and vindictive enemy. The necessity of counteracting that
influence was obvious; and he felt this was only to be done (if at all)
by some marked and extraordinary evidence of the peaceful disposition
of the English. Hence his determination to suffer the faithless chiefs
and their followers to depart unharmed from the fort, even at the
moment when the attitude assumed by the prepared garrison fully proved
to the assailants their designs had been penetrated and their schemes
rendered abortive.