he hope of
fifteen thousand men lies broken and sightless, dead of purpose, far
from home. They assure us that nothing in this world perishes, nor
in the firmament above it: but we look up at the black space where a
star has been quenched and know that something has failed us which
to-morrow will not bring again.

It was learnt afterwards that he had been killed by the first shot in
the campaign. Montcalm had thrown out three hundred rangers
overnight under Langy to feel the British advance: but so dense was
the tangle that even these experienced woodmen went astray during the
night and, in hunting for tracks, blundered upon Howe's light
infantry at unawares. In the moment of surprise each side let fly
with a volley, and Howe fell instantly, shot through the heart.

The British bivouacked in the woods that night. Toward dawn John a
Cleeve stretched himself, felt for his arms, and lay for a while
staring up at a solitary star visible through the overhanging boughs.
He was wondering what had awakened him, when his ears grew aware of a
voice in the distance, singing--either deep in the forest or on some
hillside to the northward: a clear tenor voice shaken out on the
still air with a _tremolo_ such as the Provencals love. It sang to
the army and to him:--

Malbrouck s'en-va-t'en guerre:
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!
Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre:
--Ne sais quand reviendra!

CHAPTER II.

A BIVOUAC IN THE FOREST.

Through the night, meanwhile, Montcalm and his men had been working
like demons.

The stone fort of Ticonderoga stood far out on a bluff at the head of
Lake Champlain, its base descending on the one hand into the still
lake-water, on the other swept by the river which the British had
been trying to follow, and which here, its rapids passed, disembogues
in a smooth strong flood. It stood high, too, over these meeting
waters; but as a military position was next to worthless, being
dominated, across the river on the south, by a loftier hill called
Rattlesnake Mountain.

Such was Ticonderoga; and hither Montcalm had hurried up the
Richelieu River from the north to find Bourlamaque, that good
fighter, posted with the regiments of La Reine, Bearn, and Guienne,
and a few Canadian regulars and militia. He himself had brought the
battalions of La Sarre and De Berry--a picked force, if ever there
was one, but scarcely above three thousand strong.

A couple of miles abov