"Look out! the ladder is a fallin' wi'
ye!"
Then all the lurking crowd shouted as one man, and, sure enough,
down came a ladder--men and all in a crashing heap.
"Silence! silence!" Beverley commanded; but he could not check the
wild jeering and laughing, while the bruised and frightened scouts
hastily erected their ladder again, fairly tumbling over one
another in their haste to ascend, and so cleared the wall, falling
into the stockade to join the garrison.
"Ventrebleu!" shrieked Oncle Jazon. "They've gone to bed; but
we'll wake 'em up at the crack o' day an' give 'em a breakfas' o'
hot lead!"
Now the fighting was resumed with redoubled spirit and noise, and
when morning came, affording sufficient light to bring out the
"bead sights" on the Kentucky rifles, the matchless marksmen in
Clark's band forced the British to close the embrasures and
entirely cease trying to use their cannon; but the fight with
small arms went merrily on until the middle of the forenoon.
Meantime Gaspard Roussillon had tied Francis Maisonville's hands
fast and hard with the strap of his bullet-pouch.
"Now, I'll scalp you," he said in a rumbling tone, terrible to
hear. And with his words out came his hunting knife from its
sheath.
"O have mercy, my dear Monsieur Roussillon!" cried the panting
captive; "have mercy!"
"Mercy! yes, like your Colonel's, that's what you'll get.
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