, seeing every moment their comrades falling about them,
killed by an unseen foe. I turned sick at heart as I looked at them. Hell
could hold no worse.

Hotter and hotter grew the fire, and I realized that it was not the
French attacking us at all, but only their Indian allies. Not half a
dozen Frenchmen had been seen. It was by the savages of the forest that
the best troops in Europe were being slaughtered. Sir Peter Halket was
dead, shot through the heart, and his son, stooping to pick him up, fell
a corpse across his body. Shirley was shot through the brain. Poison was
dead. Totten, Hamilton, Wright, Stone, were dead. Spendelow had fallen,
pierced by three bullets. The ground was strewn with dead and wounded.
Horses, maddened by wounds, dashed through the ranks and into the forest,
often bearing their riders to an awful death. The Indians, growing
bolder, stole from the ravines, and scalped the dead and wounded almost
before our eyes. I began to think it all a hideous nightmare. Surely such
a thing as this could not really be!

Colonel Burton had succeeded in turning some of his men about to face a
hill at our right, where the enemy seemed in great number, and we of
Waggoner's company joined him. A moment later, Colonel Washington, who
alone of the general's aides was left unwounded, galloped up and ordered
us to advance against the hill and carry it. With infinite difficulty, a
hundred men were collected who would still obey the order. As we
advanced, the enemy poured a galling fire upon us. A ball grazed my
forehead and sent a rush of blood into my eyes. I staggered forward, and
when I had wiped the blood away and looked about me, I saw with amazement
that our men had faced about and were retreating. I rushed after them and
joined two or three other officers who were trying to rally them. But
they were deaf to our entreaties and would not turn.

As I glanced back up the slope down which we had come, I saw a sight
which palsied me. Colonel Burton had fallen, seemingly with a wound in
the leg, and was slowly dragging himself back toward the lines. Behind
him, an Indian was dodging from tree to tree, intent on getting his
scalp. Burton saw the savage, and his face grew livid as he realized how
rapidly he was being overtaken. In an instant I was charging up the
slope, and ran past Burton with upraised sword. The Indian saw me coming,
and waited calmly, tomahawk in air. While I was yet ten or twelve paces
from him, I