1763, June.] A NIGHT OF ANXIETY. 283 



again raised, when a soldier, at imminent risk of 

 his life, tore off the burning shingles and averted 

 the danger. 



By this time it was evening. The garrison had 

 had not a moment's rest since the sun rose. Dark- 

 ness brought little relief, for guns flashed all night 

 from the Indian intrenchments. In the morning, 

 however, there was a respite. The Indians were 

 ominously quiet, being employed, it seems, in push- 

 ing their subterranean approaches, and preparing 

 fresh means for firing the blockhouse. In the 

 afternoon the attack began again. They set fire 

 to the house of the commanding officer, which stood 

 close at hand, and which they had reached by means 

 of their trenches. The pine logs blazed fiercely, 

 and the wind blew the flame against the bastion of 

 the blockhouse, which scorched, blackened, and at 

 last took fire ; but the garrison had by this time 

 dug a passage to the well, and, half stifled as they 

 were, they plied their water-buckets with such good 

 will that the fire was subdued, while the blazing 

 house soon sank to a glowing pile of embers. The 

 men, who had behaved throughout with great spirit, 

 were now, in the words of their officer, " exhausted 

 to the greatest extremity ; " yet they still kept up 

 their forlorn defence, toiling and fighting without 

 pause within the wooden walls of their dim prison, 

 where the close and heated air was thick with the 

 smoke of gunpowder. The firing on both sides 

 lasted through the rest of the day, and did not cease 

 till midnight, at which hour a voice was heard to 

 call out, in French, from the enemy's intrenchments, 



