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Each of the Frenchmen was in a separate canoe, convoyed by the Montagnais. At daylight each put on light armour and, armed with an arquebus, went ashore. Champlain was near enough the barricade to see nearly two hundred Iroquois, 'stout and rugged in appearance.
The officers in the same way seized what weapons they could lay hands on, and met their desperate assailants. In boarding, those who board, if they can take their opponents by surprise, have greatly the advantage. The Frenchmen reckoned on this, and were not disappointed.
They heard the music from a distance, and although they both hated Bonaparte, it had not a pleasant sound in their ears. It was the sound of triumph over Frenchmen, and, furthermore, with all their dislike to the tyrant, they were proud of his genius.
Presently they saw the Frenchmen coming down the hill, and when they had not yet set foot upon the plain ground, my Cid bade his people charge, which they did with a right good will, thrusting their spears so stiffly, that by God's good pleasure not a man whom they encountered but lost his seat.
There was a French captain Landais, who entered the service of the States and was given the command of a ship in what was dignified by the name of Jones's "squadron." Of all the excitable Frenchmen who have ever lived none can have been more hot-headed than this remarkable man.
"There he is, boys! there is our True Blue!" shouted Paul, and at the same moment he and his companions dashed on with redoubled energy from the check they had received, tumbled all the remaining Frenchmen down into the cockpit, and in another instant Paul had once more grasped his godson by the hand. "You deserve one thing, Billy, and you shall do it!" he exclaimed. "Follow me quick, though."
We then committed this affair to the management of the Frenchmen, and departed. Of our men who were hurt by the poisoned arrows, four died, and one had to have his arm cut off to save his life. Andrews, who was last hurt, lay long lame and unable to help himself, and only two recovered.
He then went below and released the other Frenchmen, who were so overjoyed at their escape from the English prison in which they expected in a few days to be lodged, that they rushed into the arms of their countrymen, and such a scene of hugging, and kissing, and shouting, and jabbering I never before beheld.
Fortunately the Frenchman's bowsprit broke right off, carrying away our mizen-mast, and with it the greater number of our assailants, who failed to regain their own ship. With our mizen-mast of course went our colours, but that the Frenchmen might not suppose that we had given in, Harry Barling, one of our quarter-masters, getting hold of a Union Jack, nailed it to the stump of the mizen-mast.
"Well, now, your honor, I had rare luck for it, as I must say, ever since I set eyes on you. There comes a son of mine as I thought were lost at sea; but not he, blow me! nearly all of him come back, with a handful of guineas, and the memory of his father. Lord! I could have cried; and he up and blubbered fairly, a trick as he learned from ten Frenchmen he had killed.
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