f possessed of
superhuman strength. The Highlanders, with their strange cries and
yells, pressed ever on and on. But the raking fire from behind the
abattis swept their ranks, mowed them down, and strewed the ground
with dying and dead.

Like a rock stood Campbell of Inverawe, his eyes everywhere,
directing, encouraging, cheering on his men, who needed not his
words to inspire them with unquenchable fury.

Suddenly his tall figure swayed forward. Without so much as a cry
he fell. There was a rush towards him of his own clansmen. They
lifted him, and bore him from the scene of action. It was the end
of the assault. The Highlanders who had scaled the rampart had all
been bayoneted within. Nearly two thousand men, wounded or dead,
lay in that terrible clearing. It was hopeless to fight longer. All
that man could do had been done. The recall was sounded, and the
brave troops, given over to death and disaster by the incompetence
of one man, were led back to the camp exhausted and despairing; the
Rangers still doing good service in carrying off the wounded, and
keeping up a steady fire whilst this task was being proceeded with.

General Abercromby's terror at the result of the day's work was as
pitiful as his mismanagement had been. There was no talk now of
retrieving past blunders; there was nothing but a general rout--a
retreat upon Fort Edward as fast as boats could take them. One
blunder was capped by another. Ticonderoga was left to the French,
when it might have been an easy prey to the English. The day of
disaster was not yet ended, though away in the east the star of
hope was rising.

It was at Fort Edward that the wounded laird of Inverawe breathed
his last. His wound had been mortal, and he was barely living when
they landed him on the banks of Lake George.

"Donald, you are avenged!" he said once, a few minutes before his
death. "We have met at Ticonderoga!"

Book 4: Wolfe.

Chapter 1: A Soldier At Home.

He lay upon a couch beneath the shade of a drooping lime tree,
where flickering lights and shadows played upon his tall, slight
figure and pale, quaint face. There was nothing martial in the
aspect of this young man, invalided home from active service on the
Continent, where the war was fiercely raging between the European
powers. He had a very white skin, and his hair was fair, with a
distinct shade of red in it. It was cut short in front, and lightly
powdered when the young man was in full dres