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As they raged against each other no less desperately than against their human adversaries, the issue of the war was never in doubt. The Hillmen stood together solidly, fought with all their cunning of pitfall and ambuscade, and overwhelmed the mightiest by sheer weight of numbers. But again the victory was dearly bought.
"I do not know," answered Israel. "I have heard that only six of our men were killed or wounded. When we all started toward Lexington they might have chased us all the way and taken the fort there, because there was nobody left to fight for it." "How many Indians were in that ambuscade?" asked Peleg. "I hear there were three hundred." "How did you get to the fort?"
Few of the enemy escaped from the ambuscade; all the booty was recovered; thus the return of the consul Quintius to the city put a termination to the justitium, which lasted only four days. A census was then held, and the lustrum was closed by Quintius: the number of citizens rated are said to have been one hundred and twenty-four thousand two hundred and fourteen, besides orphans of both sexes.
Affairs were conducted with distinguished success by the other consul; who, having attacked the enemy, where he knew that they would arrive, laden with booty, and therefore marching with their army the more encumbered, caused their depredation to prove their destruction. Few of the enemy escaped from the ambuscade; all the booty was recovered.
It were better that they who had recounted them to him should, with their own lips, recount them also to the King, and to this end he resolved that Donnacona and his chiefs should go with him to court. He lured them therefore to the fort, and led them into an ambuscade of sailors, who, seizing the astonished guests, hurried them on board the ships.
For a while, in the night and the black water that was deep as to his saddle-girths, he wrought with his staff like a smith at his stithy, and great was the sound of oaths and blows. With that the ambuscade was burst, and he rode for home with a pistol-ball in him, three knife wounds, the loss of his front teeth, a broken rib and bridle, and a dying horse.
For as generals in waging wars do not always march their armies over pleasant plains, but often must climb rugged hills, must lay siege to forts and castles raised on steep rocks and mountains, and fortified both by nature and by art: so an orator will be pleased with an opportunity to make great excursions, and when he engages on champion ground, he will display all his forces so as to make an exceedingly fine appearance; but if under the necessity of unraveling the intricacies of some points of law, or placing truth in a clear light from amidst the obscurity thrown around it, he will not then ostentatiously ride about, nor will he use a shower of pointed sentences, as missive weapons; but he will carry on his operations by frustrating his enemy; by mines, by ambuscade, and by stratagem: all of which are not much to be commended while they are being used, but after they have been practised.
They accepted our thanks in an off-hand sort of way, only replying which was certainly true "that we would have done the same for them." It was in endeavouring to assist assumed sufferers that our party fell into the ambuscade laid for them. They waited whilst we got the dray and horses ready, and we all journeyed on together, till the Black Forest was far behind us.
Fortunately by this time we had taken over the 6th Kentucky and 9th Tennessee of my brigade aggregating nearly six hundred men and also the two pieces of artillery. These regiments were moved beyond Burkesville and placed in a position which served all the purposes of an ambuscade. When the enemy approached, one or two volleys caused his column to recoil in confusion.
D'Artagnan slipped out of the cathedral and placed himself in ambuscade at the corner of the Rue des Canettes; it was impossible that Bazin should go out of the cathedral without his seeing him. In five minutes Bazin made his appearance, looking in every direction to see if he were observed, but he saw no one. Calmed by appearances he ventured to walk on through the Rue Notre Dame.
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