batteries, it rose
above the edge of the battlements and climbed half-way up the mast,
or a little short of half-way. There it stopped--climbed a few feet
higher--and stopped again--climbed yet another foot--and slowly, very
slowly, fluttered downward.

With a dreadful surmise Diane started to run across the courtyard
toward the door at the foot of the tower; and even as she started a
yell went up from the rear of the fort, followed by a random volley
of musketry and a second yell--a true Iroquois war-whoop.

In the gateway Captain Muspratt called promptly to his bugler.
The first yell had told him what was happening; that the men of the
Forty-sixth, sent round for the feint attack, had found the rear wall
defenceless and were escalading, in ignorance of the parley at the
gate.

Quick as thought the bugler sounded the British recall, and its notes
were taken up by bugle after bugle down the slope. The Major
commanding the feint attack heard, comprehended after a fashion, and
checked his men; and the Forty-sixth, as a well-disciplined regiment,
dropped off its scaling ladders and came to heel.

But he could not check his Indian guides. Once already on their
progress down the river they had been baulked of their lust to kill;
and this restraint had liked them so little that already
three-fourths of Sir William Johnson's Iroquois were marching back to
their homes in dudgeon. These dozen braves would not be cheated a
second time if they could help it. Disregarding the shouts and the
bugle-calls they swarmed up the ladders, dropped within the fort, and
swept through the Commandant's quarters into the courtyard.

In the doorway at the foot of the flagstaff tower a woman's skirt
fluttered for an instant and was gone. They raced after it like a
pack of mad dogs, and with them ran one, an Ojibway, whom neither
hate nor lust, but a terrible fear, made fleeter than any.

Six of them reached the narrow doorway together, snarling and
jostling in their rage. The Ojibway broke through first and led the
way up the winding stairway, taking it three steps at a time, with
death behind him now--though of this he recked nothing--since he had
clubbed an Oneida senseless in the doorway, and these Indians,
Oneidas all, had from the start resented his joining the party of
guides.

Never a yard separated him from the musket-butt of the Indian who
panted next after him; but above, at the last turning of the stair
under a trap-do