Tired with dancing, and rather oppressed with the heat, Eleanor quitted the crowded ball-room, and stood for a few minutes quite alone in a solitary part of the verandah, which, covered with lovely flowers, ran round the house. The music in the ball-room sounded in the distance as if borne by the night breeze in softened harmony over the distant hills. The moon was at the full, and lit up nearly the whole garden with the refulgence of a milder day. At that moment a cold chill crept over the heart and frame of Eleanor, causing her breath to come thick and gaspingly. Why, she knew not, for there was nothing visible to cause it, save that, in one part of the garden, a cluster of dark shrubs, only partly illuminated by the rays of the moon, seemed suddenly to have assumed the shape of a funeral bier, covered with a military pall. At the same moment the music in the ball-room seemed changed to the low wailing plaint and muffled drums, the military homage to some mighty dead. And if it were indeed but excited fancy, it had a strange effect, for Eleanor fainted on the marble floor.
That same afternoon Colonel Fortescue, with some picked men, had set off to discover the track of some marauding natives, who for some days had been observed hovering about the neighborhood. Military ardor carried him farther than he intended, and it was nearly night, when entering a narrow defile, a large body of the enemy burst upon them, and a desperate contest ensued. The defile was so hemmed in with rock and mountain, that though not very distant from the fort, the noise of the engagement had not been distinguished. Captain Cameron was quietly sitting with his wife and elder children, awaiting without any forebodings the return of the colonel. Though it was late, Ellen's fears had been so visible, that Mrs. Cameron could not send her to bed; the child seemed so restless and uneasy that the captain had tried to laugh her out of her cowardice, as he called it, declaring that her father would disown her if she could not be more brave. Hasty footsteps were at length heard approaching, and Ellen started from her seat and sprung forward, as the door opened; but it was not the colonel, only a sergeant, who had accompanied him, and whose face caused Captain Cameron to exclaim, in alarm, "How now, Sergeant Allen, returned, and alone; what has chanced?"