“They scalped them one by one, yelling and shouting and dancing.  They cared not whether they were dead or not.  Oh, it was horrible, horrible!  They lighted a fire to burn some of the prisoners, and danced around it yelling and jeering as their victims died.  Oh, I can never forget the sight!  Every moment I thought they would find me.  I thought of all the things I had heard that savages did to their prisoners.  If I had had my sword, I would have run it through my heart.  But I had nothing, and presently I suppose I fainted, for I can remember no more; and when I woke they had all gone, and only the bodies lay about beside me.  They had taken off their own dead; but I durst not come out, lest they should come back and find me, and I did not know where I was.

“There was water in the brook, or I should have died; and I used to crawl out and drink, and go and hide myself again.  And last of all I heard English voices, and called out; and that is all I can tell you.”

They made a litter and carried the lad back to the fort, where he lay tossing in fever for many a long day to come.  It was evil news that they had for their comrades; and it was not more cheering when stragglers from the scouting party came back by twos and threes, all with the same tale.  The Indians were overrunning all the forests and lakes.  They had mustered around the French camp by hundreds and thousands, and were scouring the woods everywhere, under no sort of discipline, excited, rebellious, rapacious, yet too useful as allies not to be humoured by those who had summoned them to their aid.

All had horrid tales to tell of cannibal feasts, and of the savage treatment of prisoners.  Some declared they had seen French officers and ecclesiastics striving to interfere, but that the Indians paid no manner of heed to them.

“There was a young priest who saw them eating human flesh at their fire, and he came up and rebuked them.  I was sitting by.  I had a cord round my neck.  Sweat was pouring from me, for I knew I should be the next victim.  They looked at the priest, and one young Indian cried out in French, ’You have French taste, I have Indian; this is good meat for me.  Taste it yourself, and see if you cannot learn to like it too!’ Whereat all the rest laughed aloud.  But the priest rebuked them again, and offered money if they would give me up; and presently they did, though rather against their will.  They were sending some prisoners to Montreal, and I was to have gone there, too; but in the night I escaped, and as I knew something of the forest, I have got back safe and sound.”

Tales like these came pouring in as the survivors struggled back to the fort.  All were agreed that the Indians were very numerous and very fierce, and it was said by all that the muster of the French seemed to be very strong.

Anxiety and fear reigned throughout the fort.  Fritz almost lived upon the lake in his boat, watching for the first signs of the enemy’s approach.  That a great part of it would come by water he did not doubt.  And sometimes he would leave his boat in a creek, and climb some adjacent height, from whence he could scan the surface of the lake, and see what was stirring there.