But everything miscarried.  Though the cavalier was constructed, the allies threw aside the wooden shields which Champlain had caused to be made as a defence against the arrows of the Iroquois while the fire was being kindled.  Only a small supply of wood had been collected, and even this was so placed that the flames blew away from the palisade instead of towards it.  On the failure of this attempt to fire the fort all semblance of discipline was thrown to the winds.  ’There also rose such disorder among them,’ says Champlain, ’that one could not understand another, which greatly troubled me.  In vain did I shout in their ears and remonstrate to my utmost with them as to the danger to which they exposed themselves by their bad behaviour, but on account of the great noise they made they heard nothing.  Seeing that shouting would only burst my head and that my remonstrances were useless for putting a stop to the disorder, I did nothing more, but determined, together with my men, to do what we could and fire upon such as we could see.’

The fight itself lasted only three hours, and the casualties of the attacking party were inconsiderable, since but two of their chiefs and fifteen warriors were wounded.  In addition to their repulse, the Hurons suffered a severe disappointment through the failure to join them of five hundred allies who had given their solemn promise.  Although Champlain had received two severe wounds, one in the leg and another in the knee, he urged a second and more concerted attack.  But in vain.  The most the Hurons would promise was to wait four or five days for the expected reinforcements.  At the end of this time there was no sign of the five hundred, and the return began.  ’The only good point,’ says Champlain, ’that I have seen in their mode of warfare is that they make their retreat very securely, placing all the wounded and aged in their centre, being well armed on the wings and in the rear, and continuing this order without interruption until they reach a place of security.’

Champlain himself suffered tortures during the retreat, partly from his wounds, but even more from the mode of transportation.  The Indian method of removing the wounded was first to bind and pinion them ’in such a manner that it is as impossible for them to move as for an infant in its swaddling-clothes.’  They were then carried in a kind of basket, ‘crowded up in a heap.’  Doubtless as a mark of distinction, Champlain was carried separately on the back of a savage.  His wound was so severe that when the retreat began he could not stand.  But the transportation proved worse than the wound.  ’I never found myself in such a gehenna as during this time, for the pain which I suffered in consequence of the wound in my knee was nothing in comparison with that which I endured while I was carried bound and pinioned on the back of one of our savages.  So that I lost my patience, and as soon as I could sustain myself got out of this prison, or rather gehenna.’