“I can curb my impatience, sir,” returned Dillon, with hypocritical meekness, and great self-command, though his eyes were gleaming with savage exultation. “I beg pardon of Captain Borroughcliffe, if, in my desire to render the civil authority superior to the military, I have trespassed on your customs.” “You see, Borroughcliffe!” exclaimed the colonel, exultingly, “the lad is ruled by an instinct in all matters of law and justice. I hold it to be impossible that a man thus endowed can ever become a disloyal subject. But our breakfast waits, and Mr. Fitzgerald has breathed his horse this cool morning; let us proceed at once to the examination.” Borroughcliffe motioned to the sergeant to open the door, when the whole party entered the vacant room. “Your prisoner has escaped!” cried the cornet, after a single moment employed in making sure of the fact. “Never! it must not, shall not be!” cried Dillon, quivering with rage, as he glanced his eyes furiously around the apartment; “here has been treachery! and foul treason to the king!” “By whom committed, Mr. Christopher Dillon?” said Borroughcliffe, knitting his brow, and speaking in a suppressed tone: “dare you, or any man living, charge treason to the --th!” A very different feeling from rage appeared now to increase the shivering propensities of the future judge, who at once perceived it was necessary to moderate his passion; and he returned, as it were by magic, to his former plausible and insinuating manner, as he replied: “Colonel Howard will understand the cause of my warm feelings, when I tell him that this very room contained, last night, that disgrace to his name and country, as well as traitor to his king, Edward Griffith, of the rebel navy.” “What!” exclaimed the colonel, starting, “has that recreant youth dared to pollute the threshold of St. Ruth with his footstep? but you dream, Kit; there would be too much hardihood in the act.” “It appears not, sir,” returned the other; “for though in this very apartment he most certainly was, he is here no longer. And yet from this window, though open, escape would seem to be impossible, even with much assistance.” “If I thought that the contumelious boy had dared to be guilty of such an act of gross impudence,” cried the colonel, “I should be tempted to resume my arms, in my old age, to punish his effrontery. What! is it not enough that he entered my dwelling in the colony, availing himself of the distraction of the times, with an intent to rob me of my choicest jewel--ay! gentlemen, even of my brother Harry's daughter--but that he must also invade this hallowed island with a like purpose, thus thrusting his treason, as it were, into the presence of his abused prince! No, no, Kit, thy loyalty misleads thee; he has never dared to do the deed!”