Chapter 24

"Pale set the sun--the shades of evening fell,
The mournful night-wind sung their funeral knell;
And the same day beheld their warriors dead,
Their sovereign captive and their glory fled!"

MRS. HEMANS.

I shall never forget the journey of that fearful night. Susquesus paddled
the canoe, unaided by us, who were too much fatigued with the toil of the
day, to labour much, as soon as we found ourselves in a place of safety.
Even Jaap lay down and slept for several hours, the sleep of the weary. I
do not think any of us, however, actually slept for the first hour or two,
the scenes through which we had just passed, and that, indeed, through
which we were then passing, acting as preventives to such an indulgence.

It must have been about nine in the evening, when our canoe quitted the
ill-fated shore at the south end of Lake George, moving steadily and
silently along the eastern margin of the sheet. By that time, fully five
hundred boats had departed for the head of the lake, the retreat having
commenced long before sunset. No order was observed in this melancholy
procession, each batteau moving off as her load was completed. All the
wounded were on the placid bosom of the 'Holy Lake,' as some writers have
termed this sheet of limpid water, by the time we ourselves got in motion;
and the sounds of parting boats told us that the unhurt were following as
fast as circumstances would allow.

What a night it was! There was no moon, and a veil of dark vapour was drawn
across the vault of the heavens, concealing most of the mild summer stars,
that ought to have been seen twinkling in their Creator's praise. Down,
between the boundaries of hills, there was not a breath of air, though we
occasionally heard the sighings of light currents among the tree-tops,
above us. The eastern shore having fewer sinuosities than the western, most
of the boats followed its dark, frowning mass, as the nearest route, and we
soon found ourselves near the line of the retiring batteaux. I call it the
line, for though there was no order observed each party making the best of
its way to the common point of destination, there were so many boats in
motion at the same time, that, far as the eye could penetrate by that
gloomy light, an unbroken succession of them was visible. Our motion was
faster than that of these heavily-laden and feebly-rowed batteaux, the
soldiers being too much fatigued to toil at the oars, after the day they
had just gone through. We consequently passed nearly everything, and soon
got on a parallel course with that of the boats, moving along at a few rods
in-shore of them. Dirck remarked, however, that two or three small craft
even passed us. They went so near the mountain, quite within its shadows,