the less poignant from being confined within his own breast, and although it gratified him to find that flattering mention was frequently made of his brother at the mess-table, coupled with regret for his absence, it was reserved for his hours of privacy and abstraction to dwell upon the fears which daily became more harassing and perplexing. On the present occasion, even while his brother officers had thought nor ear but for the terrible tempest that raged without, and at one moment threatened to bury them beneath its trembling roof, the mind of Henry was full of his absent brother, whom, more than ever, he now seemed to regret, from the association of the howling tempest with the wild element on which he had last beheld him; and so complete at last had become the ascendancy of his melancholy, that when the storm had been in some degree stilled, and the rain abated, he took an early leave of his companions, with a view to indulge in privacy the gloomy feelings by which he felt himself oppressed. In passing through the gate of the fort, on his way into the town, his attention was arrested by several groups of persons, consisting of soldiers, Indians, and inhabitants, who, notwithstanding the inclemency of the hour, were gathered on the high bank in front of the _demi-lune_ battery, eagerly bending their gaze upon the river. Half curious to know what could have attracted them in such weather from shelter, Henry advanced and mingled in the crowd, which gave way at his approach. Although the fury of the tempest had spent itself, there was still wind enough to render it a matter of necessary precaution that the bystander should secure a firm footing on the bank, while the water, violently agitated and covered with foam, resembled rather a pigmy sea than an inland river--so unusual and so vast were its waves. The current, moreover, increased in strength by the sudden swelling of the waters, dashed furiously down, giving its direction to the leaping billows that rode impatiently upon its surface; and at the point of intersection by the island of Bois Blanc, formed so violent an eddy within twenty feet of the land, as to produce the effect of a whirlpool, while again, between the island and the Canadian shore, the current, always rapid and of great force, flew boiling down its channel, and with a violence almost quadrupled.