“Very well, Nat, I will do it,” James said.  “It’s a chance, but I think it’s a better chance than staying here, and if I should get into a row about it, I can’t help it.  I am doing it for the best.”

The corps were quietly mustered, and marched out through the gate of the intrenchments, on the side of the lake.  No questions were asked, for the corps had several times gone out on its own account, and driven back the Indians and French pickets.  The men had, from their first arrival at the fort, laid aside their heavy boots, and taken to moccasins as being better fitted for silent movement in the forest.  Therefore not a sound was heard as, under Nat’s guidance, they made their way down the slope into the swamp.

Here they were halted, for the moment, and told to move with the greatest care and silence, and to avoid snapping a bough or twig.  This, however, was the less important, as the cannon on both sides were still firing, and a constant rattle of musketry was going on round the fort.

Presently, they reached the point where the canoes were hauled up, and were told off, three to a canoe.

“Follow my canoe in single file,” James said.  “Not a word is to be spoken, and remember that a single splash of a paddle will bring the redskins down upon us.  Likely enough there may be canoes out upon the lake—­there are sure to be Indians in the wood.”

“I don’t think there’s much fear, captain,” Nat whispered.  “There’s no tiring a redskin when he’s out on the scout on his own account, but when he’s acting with the whites he’s just as lazy as a hog, and, as they must be sure the fort can’t hold out many hours longer, they will be too busy feasting, and counting the scalps they mean to take, to think much about scouting tonight.”

“We shall go very slowly.  Let every man stop paddling the instant the canoe ahead of him stops,” were James’s last instructions, as he stepped into the stern of a canoe, while Nat and Jonathan took the paddles.  Edwards was to take his place in the last canoe in the line.

Without the slightest sound, the canoes paddled out into the lake, and then made for the east shore.  They were soon close to the trees, and, slowly and noiselessly, they kept their way just outside the screen afforded by the boughs drooping down, almost into the water.  Only now and then the slightest splash was to be heard along the line, and this might well have been taken for the spring of a tiny fish feeding.

Several times, when he thought he heard a slight sound in the forest on his right, Nat ceased paddling, and lay for some minutes motionless, the canoes behind doing the same.  So dark was it, that they could scarce see the trees close beside them, while the bright flashes from the guns from fort and batteries only seemed to make the darkness more intense.  It was upwards of an hour before James felt, from the greater speed with which the canoe was travelling, that Nat believed that he had got beyond the spot where any Indians were likely to be watching in the forest.