The flying figure seemed to know that some deadly pursuit was meant; for he, too, never turned nor swerved, but dashed on and on.  He gained the frozen lake; but the treacherous, slippery ice seemed to yield beneath his feet.  He had struck the lake at the point where it was broken up to obtain water for the fort.

A yell of horror escaped him.  He flung up his arms and disappeared.

But his pursuer dashed on and on, a wild laugh escaping him as he saw what had happened.  The next minute he was bending down over the yawning hole, and had put his long, strong arm through it into the icy water beneath.

He touched nothing.  The hapless man had sunk to rise no more.  Once sucked beneath the deep waters of the frozen lake, exhausted as he was, there was no hope for him.  Charles cut and hacked at the ice blocks, regardless of his own personal safety; and after long labour he succeeded in moving some of them, and in dragging out the lifeless corpse, already frozen stiff, of the man he had sworn to slay.

The French were flying over the frozen ice, the Rangers in pursuit.  They came upon the strange spectacle, and stopped short in amaze.  A dead man lay upon the ice of the lake where it was broken and dangerous, his dead face turned up to the moonlight, his hands clinched and stiff and frozen.  Beside the corpse sat Charles, his glassy eyes fixed upon the dead face, himself almost as stiff and stark.

They came up and spoke to him; but he only pointed to the corpse.

“That is he—­that is he!” he cried hoarsely.  “I saw him, and he saw me.  We fought, and he fled.  I have been running after him over ice and snow for years and years.  He is dead now—­dead, dead, dead!  The Lord has delivered him into my hand.  My work is done!”

He stood up suddenly, threw up his arms, and then fell heavily forward face downwards upon the ice.

When they lifted him up and carried him within the fort, it was to find that Charles Angell the Ranger was dead.

Book 3:  Disaster.

Chapter 1:  A Tale Of Woe.

The intrepidity of the officer in command, and the alertness and courage of the Rangers, had saved Fort William Henry from one threatened disaster.

When the French had fairly retreated, after having been forced to content themselves with the burning of the boats and the unfinished sloop and certain of the surrounding huts and buildings, the English found out from their prisoners how great their peril had been.  For the French force sent against them had been a strong one, well equipped, and hopeful of surprising the place and carrying it by a coup de main.

Failing in this, they had made a show of hostility, but had not really attempted anything very serious.  The season was against anything like a settled siege, and they had retreated quickly to their own quarters.

But this attack was only to be the prelude to one on a very different scale already being organized at headquarters.  The English heard disquieting rumours from all quarters, and turned eager eyes towards England and their own colonies from whence help should come to them, for their numbers were terribly thinned by disease, and death in many forms had taken off pretty well a third of their number.