Brock saw that resistance would be madness.  To save the gun and escape capture must be the “double event.”  Seizing a ramrod, he ordered an artilleryman to spike the gun, gave the command to retreat, telling the men to “duck their heads,” fearing another discharge, and, leading his horse, followed by Macdonell and Glegg and the firing squad of eight artillerymen, rushed down the slope.

* * * * *

For a clearer understanding of the situation—­a better conception even than our hero had when, to escape capture and save the lives of his men, he was compelled to abandon the redan—­we must visit Van Rensselaer’s camp at Lewiston.

CHAPTER XXVII.

VAN RENSSELAER’S CAMP.

After midnight, on the morning of the 11th, the American general, Van Rensselaer, believing, as he wrote, “that Brock, with all his disposable forces, had left for Detroit,” launched from the Lewiston landing, under cover of the pitch darkness, thirteen boats capable of carrying 340 armed men.

To Lieutenant Sims, “the man of the greatest skill in the American service,” was entrusted the command.  Sims entered the leading boat, and vanished in the gloom.  Whether he had taken all the oars with him, as reported, or whether the furious storm and the sight of the whirling black waters had frozen the hearts of the troops, must remain a mystery.  The other boats did not follow.

Meanwhile, 350 additional regulars and thirty boats had arrived from Four Mile Creek.  Flying artillery came from Fort Niagara, with still more regulars, and part of Smythe’s brigade from Buffalo.  Troops, as Brock’s spies had truly reported, now overflowed the United States army headquarters—­three more complete regiments from New York and another from Fort Schlosser.  Lewiston bristled with bayonets.  The entire expeditionary force was in command of Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, a militiaman, between whom and the officers commanding the regular troops much jealousy and great friction existed.  Both branches of the service were determined to monopolize whatever credit might ensue.  A storm, more furious than ever, prevailed for twenty-eight hours.  The men sulked in their tents.

On the night of the 12th, the storm having abated, though the sky was black as ink, added numbers having developed greater courage, Van Rensselaer resolved on another attempt.  He secretly notified Brigade-Major Smythe, in command at Buffalo, that in accordance with the letter reproduced in a previous chapter, he would storm the Heights of Queenston that night.  With experienced river men as pilots, with picked crews, and protected by the big guns at Fort Gray, 600 men, with two pieces of light artillery, in thirteen boats, in the grim darkness of the morning of the 13th—­a sinister coincidence—­drew up in silence on the wharf.  They comprised the first detachment of 850 regulars and 300 militia, the advance attacking party—­“the flower of Wadsworth’s army”—­embarked to “carry the Heights of Queenston and appal the minds of Canadians.”