like a frightful nightmare from which
there was to be no awakening. Presently the cry rose:--

"All is finished!"

Then the Indians crowded into Langlade's house and inquired whether any
Englishmen were hid there. So thin was the attic floor of planks laid
across joists, that Henry could hear every word.

"I cannot say," answered the Frenchman. "You may examine for
yourselves."

Henry looked around the attic for some place to hide in. Moccasined feet
were already coming upstairs. Savage hands shook the attic door, and
impatient guttural voices demanded the key. While some one went for the
key, Henry crept into a kind of tunnel made by a heap of birch-bark
vessels, used in the maple-sugar season. The door was opening before he
could draw himself quite out of sight, and though the pile was in a dark
corner, he dreaded displacing some of the birch troughs and making a
noise.

The Indians trod so close to him he thought they must hear him breathe.
Their bodies were smeared with blood, which could be seen through the
dusk; and while searching they told Monsieur Langlade how many
Englishmen they had killed and the number of scalps they had taken.

Not finding any one, they went away and the door was again locked.
Henry crept out of hiding. There was a feather bed on the floor and he
stretched himself on it, so worn out by what he had seen and endured
that he fell asleep.

He was roused by the door opening again. Madame Langlade came in, and
she was surprised and frightened at finding him. It was nearly night and
a fierce summer rain beat upon the roof, dripping through cracks of the
heat-dried bark. Madame Langlade had come to stop a leak. She told Henry
that all the English except himself were killed, but she hoped he would
escape. She brought him some water to drink.

As darkness came on, he lay thinking of his desperate state. He was four
hundred miles from Detroit, which he did not then know was besieged,
and with all his stores captured or destroyed by the Indians, he had no
provisions. He could not stay where he was, and if he ventured out, the
first red man who met him would kill him.

By morning the Indians came to the house inquiring for Henry, whom they
had missed. Madame Langlade was in such fear that they might kill her
children if they found Henry sheltered in the house, that she told her
husband where he was and begged to have him given up. This the Frenchman
at first refused to do; but he finally le