Chapter 26 - Page 2

attract her notice. His attire was strictly in conformity to
the prescribed rules of the service to which he belonged; but while his
air was erect and military, his fingers trifled with a kind of
convulsive and unconscious motion, with a bit of crape that entwined the
hilt of the sword on which his body partly reclined, and which, like
himself, seemed a relic of older times. There were the workings of an
unquiet soul within; but his military front blended awe with the pity
that its exhibition excited. His associates were officers selected from
the eastern troops, who held the fortresses of West Point and the
adjacent passes; they were men who had attained the meridian of life,
and the eye sought in vain the expression of any passion or emotion on
which it might seize as an indication of human infirmity. In their
demeanor there was a mild, but a grave, intellectual reserve. If there
was no ferocity nor harshness to chill, neither was there compassion nor
interest to attract. They were men who had long acted under the dominion
of a prudent reason, and whose feelings seemed trained to a perfect
submission to their judgments.

Before these arbiters of his fate Henry Wharton was ushered under the
custody of armed men. A profound and awful silence succeeded his
entrance, and the blood of Frances chilled as she noted the grave
character of the whole proceedings. There was but little of pomp in the
preparations, to impress her imagination; but the reserved, businesslike
air of the whole scene made it seem, indeed, as if the destinies of life
awaited the result. Two of the judges sat in grave reserve, fixing their
inquiring eyes on the object of their investigation; but the president
continued gazing around with uneasy, convulsive motions of the muscles
of the face, that indicated a restlessness foreign to his years and
duty. It was Colonel Singleton, who, but the day before, had learned the
fate of Isabella, but who stood forth in the discharge of a duty that
his country required at his hands. The silence, and the expectation in
every eye, at length struck him, and making an effort to collect
himself, he spoke, in the tones of one used to authority.

"Bring forth the prisoner," he said, with a wave of the hand.

The sentinels dropped the points of their bayonets towards the judges,
and Henry Wharton advanced, with a firm step, into the center of the
apartment. All was now anxiety and eager curiosity. Frances turned for a
moment in grateful emotion, as the deep and perturbed breathing of
Dunwoodie reached her ears; but her brother again concentrated all her
interest in one feeling of intense care. In the background were arranged
the inmates of the family who owned the dwelling, and behind them,