ound. At length, their spirits dashed, the warriors drew back. A
canoe was hastily sent down the river to call to their aid five
hundred Iroquois who were mustered near the mouth of the Richelieu.

Meanwhile, the defenders of the fort were harassed night and day with
a spattering fire and a constant menace of attack. Thus five days
passed. Hunger, thirst, and want of sleep wrought fatally on the
strength of the French and their allies, who, pent up together in a
narrow prison, fought and prayed by turns. Deprived as they were of
water, they could not swallow the crushed Indian corn which was their
only food. Some of them, under cover of a brisk fire, ran down to the
river and filled such small vessels as they had. But this meagre
supply only tantalised their thirst, and they now dug a hole in the
fort, to be rewarded at last by a little muddy water oozing through
the clay.

On the fifth day an uproar of unearthly yells from seven hundred
savage throats, mingled with a clattering salute of musketry, told the
Frenchmen that the expected reinforcement had come. Soon a crowd of
warriors mustered for the attack. Cautiously they advanced,
screeching, leaping, and firing as they came on; but the French were
at their posts, and every loophole darted its tongue of fire. Besides
muskets, they had heavy musketoons of large calibre, which, scattering
scraps of lead and iron among the throng of savages, often maimed
several of them at one discharge. The Iroquois, astonished at the
persistent vigour of the defence, fell back discomfited. The fire of
the French had told upon them with deadly effect. Three days more wore
away in a series of futile attacks; and during all this time Daulac
and his men, reeling with exhaustion, fought and prayed, sure of a
martyr's reward.

At length the Iroquois determined upon a grand final assault. Large
and heavy shields, four or five feet high, were made by lashing
together three split logs with the aid of cross-bars, and covered with
these mantelets a chosen band advanced, followed by the motley throng
of warriors. In spite of a brisk fire they reached the palisade, and
crouching below the range of shot, hewed furiously with their hatchets
to cut their way through. Daulac had crammed a large musketoon with
powder, and lighting a fuse, he tried to throw it over the barrier, to
burst like a grenade among the savages without; but it struck the
ragged top of one of the palisades, fell back among the