Again did Montcalm pledge his sacred word for the safety of the garrison,
which was to be escorted to Fort Edward by a detatchment of French troops.
The sick and wounded were to be taken under his own protection until their
recovery, when they were to be permitted to return to their own camp.
Such were the terms of capitulation; terms which were honourable, to the
victor, and which the vanquished could accept without ignominy. How were
these terms carried out? No sooner were the garrison well clear of the fort
than the shrill war-whoop of the Indians was heard, and there ensued a
slaughter so terrible, so indiscriminate, and so inconceivably hideous in
all its details that even the history of pioneer warfare hardly furnishes
any parallel to it. Nearly a thousand victims were slain on the spot, and
hundreds more were carried away into hopeless captivity. No more graphic or
historically accurate description of that scene has ever been written than
is to be found in "The Last of the Mohicans," where we read that no sooner
had the war-whoop sounded than upwards of two thousand raging savages burst
from the forest and threw themselves across the plain with instinctive
alacrity.
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