ousand British and British-Colonials ringed about
all that remained of New France, ready to end her by stroke of sword
if Vaudreuil would not by stroke of pen.

Next morning Bougainville sought Amherst's tent and presented a bulky
paper containing fifty-five articles of capitulation. Amherst read
them through, and came to the demand that the troops should march out
with arms, cannon, flags, and all the honours of war. "Inform the
Governor," he answered, "that the whole garrison of Montreal, and
all other French troops in Canada, must lay down their arms, and
undertake not to serve again in this war." Bougainville bore his
message, and returned in a little while to remonstrate; but in vain.
Then Levis tried his hand, sending his quartermaster-general to plead
against terms so humiliating--"terms," he wrote, "to which it will
not be possible for us to subscribe." Amherst replied curtly that
the terms were harsh, and he had made them so intentionally; they
marked his sense of the conduct of the French throughout the war in
exciting their Indian allies to atrocity and murder.

So Fort William Henry was avenged at length, in the humiliation of
gallant men; and human vengeance proved itself, perhaps, neither more
nor less clumsy than usual.

Vaudreuil tried to exact that the English should, on their side, pack
off their Indians. He represented that the townsfolk of Montreal
stood in terror of being massacred. Again Amherst refused.
"No Frenchman," said he, "surrendering under treaty has ever suffered
outrage from the Indians of our army." This was on the 7th of
September.

Early on the 8th Vaudreuil yielded and signed the capitulation.
Levis, in the name of the army, protested bitterly. "If the Marquis
de Vaudreuil, through political motives, believes himself obliged to
surrender the colony at once, we beg his leave to withdraw with the
troops of the line to Isle Sainte-Helene, to maintain there, on our
own behalf, the honour of the King's arms." To this, of course, the
Governor could not listen. Before the hour of surrender the French
regiments burnt their flags.

On the southern shore of the St. Lawrence, in the deepest recess of a
small curving bay, the afternoon sun fell through a screen of
bulrushes upon a birch canoe and a naked man seated in the shallows
beside it. In one hand he held out, level with his head, a lock of
hair, dark and long and matted, while the other sheared at it with a
razor. Th