nine o'clock the attacking lines
had lost more than five hundred men, and as many Canadians had fallen
on the hill. The dead and mangled lay literally in heaps. As darkness
deepened, lit only by the wan light of a fitful moon and the awesome
flare of volley after volley, the fearful screams of the dying could be
heard above the roar of the Falls and the whistle of cannon ball.
Riall, the commander of the Canadians, had been wounded and captured.
Of his sixteen hundred Canadians, Drummond had now left only one
thousand, and he was himself bleeding from a deep wound in the neck.
Half the American officers had been carried from the field injured, and
still the command was repeated to rush the hill before Scott's
reenforcements came, and each time the advancing line was driven back
shattered and thinned, Canadians dashing in pursuit, cheering and
whooping, till both armies were so inextricably mixed it was impossible
to hear or heed commands. It was in one of these melees that Riall,
the Canadian, found himself among the American lines and was captured
to the wild and jubilant shouting of the boys in blue and gray. Pause
fell at nine o'clock. The Americans were mustering for the final
terrible rush. The moon had gone behind a cloud, and the darkness was
inky. Then a shout from the Canadian side split the very welkin.
Hercules Scott had arrived with his twelve hundred men on a run,
breathless and tired from a march and countermarch of twenty miles.
The Americans took up the yell; for fresh reserves had joined them,
too, and Lundy's Lane became a bedlam of ear-shattering sounds,--heavy
artillery wagons forcing up the hill at a gallop over dead and dying,
bombs from the Canadian guns exploding in the darkness, horses taking
fright and bolting from their riders, carrying American guns clear
across the lines among the Canadians. A wild yell of triumph told that
the Americans had captured the hill. For the next two hours it was a
hand-to-hand fight in pitchy darkness. Drummond, the Englishman, could
be heard right in the midst of the {375} American lines, shouting,
"Stick to them, men! stick to them! Don't give up! Don't turn! Stick
to them! You 'll have it!" And American officers were found amidst
Canadian battalions, shouting stentorian command: "Level low! Fire at
their flashes! Watch the flash, and fire at their flashes!"

[Illustration: MONUMENT AT LUNDY'S LANE]

The Americans have captured the Canadian gu