"The express from Fort Prince George," Demeré replied, his voice tense, excited, with the realization of an impending crisis. CHAPTER X Demeré was not a man to consider an omen and attach weight to trifling chances, yet he was in some sort prepared for disaster. Within the hall a pair of candles stood on the table where it was the habit to transact official business,--to write letters; to construct maps of the country from the resources of the information of the officers and the descriptions of the Indians; to make out reports and the accounts of the post. Writing materials were kept in readiness here for these purposes--a due array of quills, paper, inkhorn, wafers, sealing-wax, sand-box, and lights. As the door was opened the candles flickered in the sudden draught, bowed to the wicks grown long and unsnuffed, and in another moment were extinguished, leaving the place in total darkness, with the papers on which hung such weighty interests of life and death, of rescue or despair, unread in his hand. "The tinder-box--the flint--where are they? Cannot you strike a spark?" he demanded, in agitated suspense, of Stuart, who made more than one fruitless effort before the timorous flame was started anew on the old and drooping wicks, which had to be smartly snuffed before they would afford sufficient light to discern the hasty characters, that looked as if they might have been written on a drumhead--as in fact they were. "Here--read them, John--I can't," said Demeré, handing the package to Stuart, and throwing himself into a chair to listen. Although the suspense had been of the kind that does not usually herald surcease of anxiety, he was not prepared for the face of consternation with which Stuart silently perused the scrawled lines. "From Montgomery!" he exclaimed. "But our dispatches evidently have never reached him."