but we must not anticipate the catastrophe of our story, whose truth is indicated by more than one silent

memento.

The western militia, large bodies of which had been drafted into Wayne's army, were never remarkable for military subordination, of which, not to mention the Indian war of 1732, the more notable campaigns with the British afforded many an instance. They are a gallant set of men, but they have an invincible propensity each man to "fight on his own hook;" and not merely that, but when not employed upon immediate active service, it is almost impossible to keep them together. They become disgusted with the monotony of military duties; revolt at their exacting precision, and though full of fight when fight is to be had, are eager to disperse upon the least intermission of active service, and come and go as individual caprice may lead them. General Wayne's camp, indeed, was for awhile a complete caravanserai, where not merely one or two, but whole troops of volunteers could be seen arriving and departing at any hour. This, to the spirit of an old soldier, who had been bred in the armies of Washington, was unendurable. But as these flitting gentry constituted the sharpshooters, upon whom he chiefly depended, the veteran officer bore with them as long as possible, in the hope that by humouring the volunteers, he might best attach them to the service for which this species of force was allimportant.

At length, however, matters reached such a pass, that the army was in danger of complete disorganisation, and a new system must necessarily be adopted. "Mad Antony," as Wayne's men called him, (who when he really took a thing in hand, never did it by halves,) established martial law in its most rigid form, and proclaimed that every man on his muster roll, of whatsoever rank, who should pass beyond his lines without a special permit from himself, should be tried as a deserter, and suffer accordingly. The threatened severity seemed only to multiply the desertions; but so keen were the backwoods militia-men in making their escape from what they

now considered an outrageous tyranny, that with all the vigilance of the regular officers, it was impossible to seize any to make a military example of them.

Fresh volunteers, however, occasionally supplied the place of those who thus absented themselves without leave, and one morning, in particular, quite a sensation was created throughout the camp by the arrival of a new body of levies, which though numerically small, struck every one as the finest company that had yet been mustered beneath the standard of Wayne. The troop consisted of mounted riflemen, thoroughly armed and equipped after the border fashion, and clad in the belted hunting-frock, which is the most graceful of modern costumes. Both horses and men seemed picked for special service, and their make and movement exhibited that union of strength and agility, which alike in man and beast constitutes the perfection of that amphibious force-the dragoon; whose original character is only represented in modern armies by the mounted rangers of our western prairies.

The commandant of this corps seemed worthy to be the leader of so gallant a band. His martial figurethe horse he rode, and all his personal equipments were in every respect complete, and suited to each other. The eagle feather in his wolf-skin cap, told of a keen eye and a long shot; the quilled pouch, torn, with the wampum belt which sustained his hatchet and pistols, from the body of some swarthy foeman-spoke of the stout heart and the strong hand; while the panther skin which formed the housings of his sable roan betrayed that the rider had vanquished a foe more terrible than the red savage himself. His horse bore himself as if proud of so gallant a master; and as the fringed legging pressed his flank, while the young officer faced the general in passing in salute before him, he executed his passages with all the graceful precision of a charger trained in the manège.

A murmur of admiration ran along the ranks as this gallant cavalier passed slowly in front of the soldiery, and reined up his champing steed be

fore the line of his tall followers, as they were at length marshalled upon the parade. But the sensation which his air and figure excited, was almost equally shared by another individual, who had hitherto ridden beside him in the van, but who now drew up his rough Indian pony apart from the rest, as if claiming no share in the lot of the new-comers. It was a sunburnt youth, whose handsome features afforded so exact a counterpart of those of the leader of the band, that were it not for the difference of their equipments, either of the two might at first be taken for the other: and even upon a narrow inspection, the dark locks and more thoughtful countenance of Ernest would alone have been distinguished from the brown curls and animated features of his sanguine and high-spirited brother. The former, as we have mentioned, had drawn off from the corps, the moment it halted and formed for inspection. He now stood leaning upon his rifle, his plain leather hunting-shirt contrasting not less with the gay-coloured frocks of his companions, than did the shaggy coat of his stunted pony with the sleek hides of their clean-limbed coursers. His look, too, was widely different from the blithe and buoyant one which lighted their features; and his eye and lip betrayed a mingled expression of sorrow and scorn, as he glanced from the lithe and noble figure of his brother to the buckram regulars, whose platoons were marshalled near.

The new levies were duly mustered, and after the rules and articles of war had been read aloud to them, several camp regulations were promulgated, and among the rest the recent order of the commander-in-chief, whereby a breach of discipline in going beyond the chain of sentinels, incurred the penalty of desertion.

"No, by heaven!" shouted Ernest, when this was read. "Rupert, Rupert, my brother, you shall never bear such slavery. Away-away from this roofless prison, and if your life is what they want, let them have it in the woods-in your own way. But bind not yourself to these written laws, that bear chains and death in every letter. Away, Rupert, away from this accursed thraldom." And leaping into his

saddle before half these words were uttered, he seized the bridle-rein of his brother, and nearly urged him from the spot, while pouring out his passionate appeal.

66

ear.

"By the soul of Washington," roared old Wayne, "what mad youngster is this? Nay, seize him not," added he good-humouredly, seeing that Rupert did not yield to his brother's violence, and that the other checked himself and withdrew abashed from the parade, as a coarse laugh, excited by his Quixotism, stung his "By the soul of Washington," cried the general, repeating his favorite oath, "but ye're a fine brace of fellows, and Uncle Sam has so much need of both of you, that he has no idea of letting one go;" and calling Rupert to his side, he spoke with a kindness to the young officer, that was probably meant to secure a new recruit in his brother; who had, however, disappeared from the scene.

The parade was now dismissed, and so soon as Rupert had taken possession of his quarters and seen that his men and horses were all properly taken care of, he parted from his comrades to take his farewell of Ernest, who awaited him in a clump of trees upon the bank of the river, a short distance from the camp. Ernest seemed to have fully recovered his equanimity; but though, youth-like, ashamed of the fit of heroics which had placed his brother in a somewhat ridiculous position a few hours before, he had not altered the views which he had entertained from the first, about Rupert's taking service under General Wayne.

"You will not start homeward tonight?" cried Rupert, at length changing a subject it was useless to discuss.

"Yes; to-night I must be off, and that soon, too, Rupert. Little Needji must pace his thirty miles before midnight. I don't know that I have done wisely in coming so far with you; but, in truth, I wanted to see how our hunters would look among the continentals Mad Antony has brought with him."

"Wait till we come to the fighting, Ernest, and the old general will soon find out who's who. His regulars may do with the British, but a man must

"Ay, ay, that's it; a hound may do for deer that isn't worth a powderhorn stopper upon a panther track. But you must remember," continued his brother, fixing his eyes sadly upon Rupert, "that you will have to fight just in the way the General tells you -which means, I take it, that real manhood must go for nothing. Why there's not a drummer in the ranks that will not know his duty better than you; ay, and for aught I see, be able to do it, too, as well." A flush of pride-perhaps of pain-crossed the countenance of the young officer as his brother thus spoke, and laying his hand upon his arm, added, with the indignant tone of a caged hunter"Why, Rupert, you must not dare even, soldier that you now are, to take the bush, and keep your hand in by killing a buck occasionally."

"Believe it not, Ernest! My men will never stand that, for all the Mad Antonies or mad devils in the universe.' "You must, you must, my brother," answered Ernest, shaking his head; "and now you begin to see why I would not volunteer upon this service. I am quieter than you, and therefore saw farther into matters than you did, when you chose to come hither rather than give up the command of your company. But where's the use of looking back upon a cold trail; you are now one of Uncle Sam's men, and heaven knows when he will let go his grip upon you."

Conversing thus, the brothers had walked some distance. The moon was shining bright above them, and a silver coil of light trailing along the rippling Obio, seemed to lure them onward with the river's course. But at length the more considerate Ernest deemed it prudent that they should part, and catching the pony, which had hitherto followed him like a dog, he mounted, and prepared to move off. But Rupert would not yet leave his brother and retrace his steps to camp. It might be long before they should meet again-they who had never before thus parted-who had been always inseparable, alike in counsel and in action, and who were now about for the first time to be severed, when stout hearts

"I don't think I will leave you just yet, Ernest. I may as well walk with you as far as the branch; and we are hardly without shot of the soldier who is standing sentry yonder. What a mark the fellow's cap would be from that clump of pawpaws!"

"Yes," said Ernest, lifting his rifle from his lap as the musket gleamed in the moonlight; "I am almost tempted to pick that shining smoothbore out of his fingers, just to show how ridiculous it is to carry such shooting-irons as that into the forest. But come; the time has gone by for such jokes. If you will go farther with me, let us push on." They reached the "branch," or brook, and crossed it; and still they continued increasing the distance between themselves and the camp.

"Well, I suppose we must now really bid good-bye," exclaimed Rupert at last, seizing the hand of his brother. "But here, Ernest, I wish you would carry home my Indian belt and these other fixings; they will remind you of old times if I'm kept away long, and the sutler will give me something to wear more in camp fashion." As he spoke thus, he tied the wampum sash around the waist of his brother, and while throwing the Indian pouch over his shoulder, their arms met in the fold of brotherhood, and the twins parted with that silent embrace. Rupert, rapidly retracing his steps towards the camp, soon reached the brook, and a half hour's walk might yet have enabled him to regain his quarters in safety, but the finger of Fate was upon him, and he, who had already been led away from duty by the strong lure of affection, was still further induced to violate it by an instinct not less impulsive in the bosom of a borderer.

Pausing to drink at the rivulet, Rupert, in stooping over the bank, thought that he discovered a fresh mocassinprint, and bending down the branches which embowered the spot, so as to bring the rays of the moon full upon it, a more thorough examination fully satisfied him that an Indian had lately passed that way. A regular soldier, upon thus discovering traces of a spy in the neighbourhood of the camp,

would at once have reported it to the officer of the day, and allowed his superiors to take measures accordingly. But such an idea never occurred to the backwoods ranger. He had discovered an Indian trail, and there were but two things, in his opinion, to be done; first to find out its direction, and then to follow it to the death. A sleuth-hound upon the scent of blood could not be impelled by a more irresistible instinct than that which urged the fiery Rupert on that fatal chase.

It boots not to tell the various chances of his hunt; how here he missed the trail upon rocky ground, where the mocassin had left no print; how there he was obliged to feel for it in some tangled copse, where no betraying moonbeam fell; and how, at last, when the stars grew dim and the grey dawn had warmed into ruddy day, he for the first time rested his wearied limbs upon the banks of a stream, where the trail disappeared entirely.

Let us now follow the fortunes of the doomed Ernest, who, like the hero of classic story, bore about his person the fatal gifts that were to work his destruction. Not a half hour elapsed from the time that he had parted from his brother, before he found himself the prisoner of a serjeant's guard, which had been despatched to "take or slay the deserter, Rupert Dewitt.' Apprehending no ill, Ernest had allowed himself to be seized; the equipments he had just received from Rupert, not less than the similitude of likeness to his twin brother, in the opinion of the party that captured him, fully established his identity; and the horror which he felt at discovering how Rupert had forfeited his life, was almost counterbalanced by a thrill of joy, as it suggested itself to the highsouled Ernest that he might so far keep up the counterfeit, as to become a sacrifice in place of the brother on whom he doated. The comrades of Rupert, who might have detected the imposition, chanced to be off upon fatigue parties in different directions; and this, together with the summary mode of proceeding that was adopted upon his reaching camp, favoured his design. A drum-head court-martial was instantly called to decide upon the fate

of a prisoner, to whose guilt there seemed to be, alas! too many witnesses. The road that he had taken, the distance from camp, the time of night he had chosen to wander so far from the lines, nay, the fact of his leaving his blood-horse at the stable, as if fearing detection through him, and stealing off upon an Indian pony

all seemed to make out a flagrant case of desertion. But why dwell upon these painful details of an affair, which was so amply canvassed in all its bearings, throughout the western country, long afterward? Let the reader be content with the bare historical fact, that the ill-starred militiaman was condemned to be shot to death as a deserter, under the circumstances as we have stated them. It seemed a terrible proceeding when these attending circumstances were afterwards reviewed; but though at the time General Wayne was much censured for signing that young man's death-warrant, yet both military men and civilians, who knew the condition of his army, have agreed that it was this one example alone which prevented that army from falling to pieces.

The heart of Ernest was so thoroughly made up to meet the fate which was intended for his brother, that his pulses did not change in a single throb, when he was told that he had but an hour to prepare himself for death. "The sooner that it be over the better for Rupert," exclaimed he, mentally. And then, man as he was, his eyes filled with tears when he thought of the anguish which that darling brother would suffer at learning the fate which had overtaken him.

"O God!" he cried aloud, clasping his hands above his head, as he paced the narrow guard-room in which he was now immured, "God of Heaven! that they would but place us together with our rifles in the forest, and send this whole army to hunt us down." And the features of the wild bushfighter lighted up with a grim smile as he thought of keeping a battalion at bay in the greenwood, and crippling it with his single arm. The proud thought seemed to bear with it a new train of views. "If Rupert knew," said he, pausing in his walk-" if he but dreamed how matters were going,

he could soon collect a score of rifles to strike with, and take me from beneath their very bayonets. But this is madness

"Ay! that it is, my fine fellow," answered the sentry, who guarded his door, and who now hearing the last words uttered, while the steps of those who where to have the final charge of the prisoner were heard upon the stair, thought it incumbent upon him to remind the youth where he was. Ernest compressed his lip, and drawing himself to his full height, as he wheeled and faced his escort, motioned to them to lead on. He was at once conducted to the esplanade in front of the camp, upon the river's bluff.

The morning was gusty and drizzling, as if Nature shuddered in tears at the sacrifice of one who from his infancy had worshipped her so faithfully. The young hunter gazed inquiringly about him, as he stepped forward to take the fatal position from which he was never to move more. He looked to see if there was one in all that array of formal faces, who would exchange one glance of recognition or sympathy with him; but of the many in his brother's band who so often had echoed his own shout upon the joyous hunt, or pealed his charging cry in the Indian onslaught, there was now not one to look upon the dying youth. Considerations of feeling, or the fear, perhaps, of exciting a mutinous spirit among those hot-headed levies, had induced the general to keep the comrades of the twin brothers at a distance from the fatal scene. They had originally been detached upon some fatigue duty, which took them to a distance from the camp, and measures had been since adopted to prolong their absence until the catastrophe was over. Ernest felt a sinking of the heart to think there was near no home-loved friend, who could witness that he died like a man; and yet, when he remembered that one such witness might, by identifying him, prevent his sacrifice and jeopard the life of Rupert, he was content that it should be thus.

A platoon of regulars was now drawn up in front of him, and waited but the word of their officer-when suddenly a murmur ran along the column, which was displayed upon the ground in

order to give solemnity to the scene. It was mistaken for a symptom of mutiny, and precipitated the fatal moment.

"FIRE!" cried the officer-and, even as he spoke, a haggard figure, in a torn hunting-shirt-with ghastly look-and tangled hair that floated on the breeze-leaped before the line of deadly muzzles! He uttered one piercing shriek-whether of joy or agony it were impossible to tell-and then fell staggering, with one arm across the bosom of Ernest, who breathed out his life while springing forward to meet the embrace of his brother.

They were buried in one grave, and the voyager upon the Ohio, whose boat may near the north-western shore, where the traces of Wayne's encampment are still visible, still sees the shadowy buckeye, beneath which repose THE TWIN-DOOMED FORESTERS OF DEANE.

VIOLANTA CESARINI. (Continued from page 328.)

THE frowning battlements of St. Angelo were brightened with the glare of lamps across the Tiber, and the dark breast of the river was laced with bars of gold, like the coat of a captain of dragoons. Here and there lay a boat in mid-stream, and while the drift of the current was counteracted by an occasional stroke at the oar, the boatman listened to the heavenly strains of a waltz, dying and triumphing in alternate cadences upon the breath of night and the pope's band. A platform was built out over the river, forming a continuation of the stage, the pit was floored over, and all draped like a Persian harem; and thus began a masquerade at the Teatro delia Pergola at Rome, which stands, if you will take the trouble to remember, close by the bridge and castle of St. Angelo upon the bank of the "yellow Tiber."

The entrance of the crowd to the theatre was like a procession, intended to represent the things of which we are commanded not to make graven images, nor to bow down and worship them. There was the likeness of everything in heaven above and on the