y a projecting point of land. Canoes and bateaux were
drawn up on the beach, and the united forces made their bivouac
together.

The earthen mounds of Fort William Henry still stand by the brink of
Lake George; and seated at the sunset of an August day under the pines
that cover them, one gazes on a scene of soft and soothing beauty, where
dreamy waters reflect the glories of the mountains and the sky. As it
is to-day, so it was then; all breathed repose and peace. The splash of
some leaping trout, or the dipping wing of a passing swallow, alone
disturbed the summer calm of that unruffled mirror.

About ten o'clock at night two boats set out from the fort to
reconnoitre. They were passing a point of land on their left, two miles
or more down the lake, when the men on board descried through the gloom
a strange object against the bank; and they rowed towards it to learn
what it might be. It was an awning over the bateaux that carried Roubaud
and his brother missionaries. As the rash oarsmen drew near, the
bleating of a sheep in one of the French provision-boats warned them of
danger; and turning, they pulled for their lives towards the eastern
shore. Instantly more than a thousand Indians threw themselves into
their canoes and dashed in hot pursuit, making the lake and the
mountains ring with the din of their war-whoops. The fugitives had
nearly reached land when their pursuers opened fire. They replied; shot
one Indian dead, and wounded another; then snatched their oars again,
and gained the beach. But the whole savage crew was upon them. Several
were killed, three were taken, and the rest escaped in the dark
woods.[506] The prisoners were brought before Montcalm, and gave him
valuable information of the strength and position of the English.[507]

[Footnote 506: _Lettre du Pere Roubaud, 21 Oct. 1757_. Roubaud, who saw
the whole, says that twelve hundred Indians joined the chase, and that
their yells were terrific.]

[Footnote 507: The remains of Fort William Henry are now--1882--crowded
between a hotel and the wharf and station of a railway. While I write, a
scheme is on foot to level the whole for other railway structures. When
I first knew the place the ground was in much the same state as in the
time of Montcalm.]

The Indian who was killed was a noted chief of the Nipissings; and his
tribesmen howled in grief for their bereavement. They painted his face
with vermilion, tied feathers in his hair, hung pendants in