Three other principal chiefs followed, each with a gourd rattle in his
hand, to the cadence of which the whole party sang and shouted at the
full stretch of their lungs an invocation to the spirits for help and
pity. They were conducted to the parade, where the French and the allied
chiefs were already assembled, and Pemoussa thus addressed them:--

"My father, and all the nations here present, I come to ask for life. It
is no longer ours, but yours. I bring you these seven women, who are my
flesh, and whom I put at your feet, to be your slaves. But do not think
that I am afraid to die; it is the life of our women and children that I
ask of you." He then offered six wampum belts, in token that his
followers owned themselves beaten, and begged for mercy. "Tell us, I
pray you,"--these were his last words,--"something that will lighten the
hearts of my people when I go back to them."

Dubuisson left the answer to his allies. The appeal of the suppliant
fell on hearts of stone. The whole concourse sat in fierce and sullen
silence, and the envoys read their doom in the gloomy brows that
surrounded them. Eight or ten of the allied savages presently came to
Dubuisson, and one of them said in a low voice: "My father, we come to
ask your leave to knock these four great chiefs in the head. It is they
who prevent our enemies from surrendering without conditions. When they
are dead, the rest will be at our mercy."

Dubuisson told them that they must be drunk to propose such a thing.
"Remember," he said, "that both you and I have given our word for their
safety. If I consented to what you ask, your father at Montreal would
never forgive me. Besides, you can see plainly that they and their
people cannot escape you."

The would-be murderers consented to bide their time, and the wretched
envoys went back with their tidings of despair.

"I confess," wrote Dubuisson to the governor, a few days later, "that I
was touched with compassion; but as war and pity do not agree well
together, and especially as I understood that they were hired by the
English to destroy us, I abandoned them to their fate."

The firing began once more, and the allied hordes howled round the camp
of their victims like troops of ravenous wolves. But a surprise awaited
them. Indians rarely set guards at night, and they felt sure now of
their prey. It was the nineteenth day of the siege.[284] The night
closed dark and rainy, and when morning came, the enemy were g