286 A Story of the Plague of Gibraltar. [MARCH, 



soon disappeared among the tents ; but I frequently returned to look 

 out ; and once I thought I heard the stroke of oars which was not im- 

 possible, as the night was quite calm, and my tent was on the western 

 side of the encampment. 



I was awoke at five o'clock by the morning gun. This was the hour 

 at which the piquets are broken up ; and in a few minutes I saw 

 Courtenay enter. He seated himself near me, without speaking ; and 

 the dawn was yet too imperfect to permit me to augur any thing from 

 his countenance. His silence, however, was ominous of evil, and I 

 waited patiently until he should break it. 



" Seymour," said he at length, " my story is brief; but I cannot 

 utter it. Caroline " 



" Is well, I trust," said I. 



Courtenay half rose, and bending over me, whispered in my ear, in 

 an articulate whisper, that will never pass from my memory " THE 

 PLAGUE ;" and with a deep-smothered groan of intense agony he fell 

 to the ground. 



I knew the meaning of these words Caroline was about to be a 

 victim. I raised Courtenay from the ground, but I had no consolation 

 to offer him. I could only say, " It is not always mortal ; you may yet 

 both live to be happy." 



" You do not yet know all," said he; "my hours, as well as her's, 

 are numbered, and for that mercy I thank God. I believe, Seymour, 

 my absence is known." 



" Then, indeed," said I, " all is lost." And as the dreadful and 

 inevitable consequence of Courtenay' s indiscretion rose fully before me, 

 I almost prayed that the plague might spare Caroline the far greater 

 misery that awaited a deliverance from it. 



At this moment the curtain of my tent was drawn aside, and a ser- 

 geant appeared with an order to conduct Courtenay to the colonel. I 

 accompanied him. The colonel was a well-known disciplinarian, and a 

 blunt man. " I am sorry to hear it is true," said he ; " we must go 

 through the forms of a court ; but I cannot give you any hope. Pri- 

 vate Donovan was shot yesterday for the same offence, and distinctions 

 won't do in the service/' 



Early in the forenoon a court-martial met. I was a member of it ; 



and Brigadier-General L , of the Artillery, presided. Courtenay 



had been mistaken in his estimate of the men who composed the piquet ; 

 one of the men, upon whose good feeling he had calculated, owed him 

 a grudge. Upon a former occasion this man had been tried, for what 

 offence I am unable to recollect ; and Courtenay, from the best motives, 

 exerted himself in his behalf, and having stated some palliating circum- 

 stances that had come to his knowledge, obtained a mitigation of the 

 sentence, which was changed, from death, to that other punishment that 

 still so deeply disgraces the code of our martial law. This man, while 

 in confinement, had levelled the bitterest curses against Courtenay, and 

 swore he would never forgive him ; and, like most other men who have 

 once suffered a disgraceful punishment, his heart hardened under its 

 infliction ; and though the scars of his body were healed, the laceration 

 of his mind grew into a sore, that festered, and at length cankered every 

 thought, and poisoned all the sources of feeling. This man gave infor- 

 mation against Courtenay the moment the piquet was dismissed. 



Courtenay said nothing in his defence upon his trial ; he admitted 



