* * * *

They were getting at close quarters now. The redan was less than fifty
yards above.

He was calling to those nearest him to hold their fire a moment, to
prepare to rush the enemy and use their bayonets, when, from a thorn
thicket, an Ohio scout, Wilklow by name, one of Moseley's riflemen,
stepped forward, and, singling out his victim, deliberately aimed at the
General. Several of the 49th, noticing the man's movement, fired--but
too late. The rifleman's bullet entered our hero's right breast, tore
through his body on the left side, close to his heart, leaving a gaping
wound.

* * * * *

[Illustration: BROCK'S COAT, WORN AT QUEENSTON HEIGHTS]

Brock sank slowly to the ground, quite sensible of his grievous fate. A
grenadier, horribly mutilated, fell across him. To those who ran to aid
our hero, anxious to know the nature of his injury, he murmured a few
broken sentences and--turned to die.

He tried to frame messages to loved ones, and then, more audibly, as he
gallantly strove to raise his head to give emphasis to his last
faltering words--the same Isaac Brock, unmindful of self and still
mindful of duty--he said, "My fall must not be noticed, nor impede my
brave companions from advancing to victory."

And with a sigh--expired.

* * * * *

Thus died General Sir Isaac Brock, defender and saviour of Upper Canada.
Died the death he would have selected, the most splendid death of
all--that of the hero in the hour of victory, fighting for King and
country, for you and me, and with his face to the foe.

* * * * *

Our hero had passed his _last_ milestone.

* * * * *

For a brief space the body of Isaac Brock rested where it had fallen,
about one hundred yards west of the road that leads through Queenston,
and a little eastward of an aged thorn bush.

* * * * *

Above the dead soldier's head, clouds, sunshine and rustling foliage;
beneath it, fallen forest leaves, moist and fragrant. About the
motionless body swayed tussocks of tall grass and the trampled heads of
wild-flowers. The shouts of the regulars, the clamor of the militia, the
shrill war-cry of the Mohawks, and the organ notes of battle, were his
requiem. Then the corpse was hurriedly borne by a few grief-stricken men
of the 49th to a house in the village, occupied b