The Lords of the Wild Part 33

Meanwhile Langy saluted Montcalm with the great respect that his successes had won from all the French. When the Marquis turned his keen eye upon him he knew at once that his message, whatever it might be, was of supreme importance.

"What is it, Monsieur Langy?"

"A report on the movements of the enemy."

"Come to my tent and tell me of it fully, and do you, St. Luc and Bourlamaque, come with me also. You should hear everything."

They went into the tent and all sat down. St. Luc's eyes never left the partisan, Langy. He saw that the man was full of his news, eager to tell it, and was impressed with its importance. He knew Langy even better than Montcalm did. Few were more skillful in the forest, and he had a true sense of proportion that did not desert him under stress.

His eyes traveled over the partisan's attire, and there his own great skill as a ranger told him much. His garments were disarranged. Burrs and one or two little twigs were clinging to them. Obviously he had come far and in haste. The thoughts of St. Luc, and, in truth, the thoughts of all of them, went to the Anglo-American army.

"Speak, Monsieur Langy," said Montcalm. "I can see that you have come swiftly, and you would not come so without due cause."

"I wish to report to you, sir," said Langy, "that the entire army of the enemy is now embarked on the Lake of the Holy Sacrament, and is advancing against us."

Montcalm's eyes sparkled. His warlike soul leaped up at the thought of speedy battle that was being offered. A flame was lighted also in St. Luc's blood, and Bourlamaque was no less eager. It was no lack of valor and enterprise that caused the French to lose their colonies in North America.

"You know this positively?" asked the commander-in-chief.

"I have seen it with my own eyes."

"Tell it as you saw it."

"I lay in the woods above the lake with my men, and I saw the British and Americans go into their boats, a vast flock of them. They are all afloat on the lake at this moment, and are coming against us."

"Could you make a fair estimate of their numbers?"

"I obtained the figures with much exact.i.tude from one or two stragglers that we captured on the land. My eyes confirm these figures. There are about seven thousand of the English regulars, and about nine thousand of the American colonials."

"So many as that! Five to one!"

"You tell us they are all in boats," said St. Luc. "How many of these boats contain their artillery?"

"They have not yet embarked the cannon. As nearly as we can gather, the guns will not come until the army is at Ticonderoga."

"What?"

"It is as I tell you," replied Langy to St. Luc. "The guns cannot come up the lake until a day or two after the army is landed. Their force is so great that they do not seem to think they will need the artillery."

St. Luc, his face glowing, turned to Montcalm.

"Sir," he said, "I made to you the prophecy that some chance, some glorious chance, would yet help us, and that chance has come. Their very strength has betrayed them into an error that may prove fatal.

Despising us, they give us our opportunity. No matter how great the odds, we can hold earthworks and abattis against them, unless they bring cannon, or, at least we may make a great attempt at it."

The swarthy face of Montcalm was illumined by the light from his eyes.

"I verily believe that your gallant soul speaks truth, Chevalier de St. Luc!" he exclaimed. "I said once that we would stand and I say it again. We'll put all to the hazard. Since they come without cannon we do have our chance. Go, Langy, and take your needed rest. You have served us well. And now we'll have the others here and talk over our preparations."

The engineers Lotbiniere and Le Mercier were, as before, zealous for battle at Ticonderoga, and their opinion counted for much with Montcalm. De Levis, held back by the vacillating Vaudreuil, had not yet come from Montreal, and the swiftest of the Canadian paddlers was sent down Lake Ticonderoga in a canoe to hurry him on. Then the entire battalion of Berry went to work at once with spade and pick and ax to prepare a breastwork and abattis, stretching a line of defense in front of the fort, and not using the fort itself.

Robert saw the Frenchmen attack the trees with their axes and the earth with their spades, and he divined at once the news that Langy had brought. The Anglo-American army was advancing. His heart throbbed. Victory and rescue were at hand.

"Mr. Tilden," he said to the hunter, "listen to the ring of the ax and the thud of the spade!"

"Aye, I hear 'em," was the apathetic reply; "but they don't interest me. I'm a prisoner."

"But it may mean that you won't be a prisoner much longer. The French are fortifying, and they've gone to work with so much haste and energy that it shows an imminent need. There's only one conclusion to be drawn from it. They're expecting our army and a prompt attack."

Tilden began to show interest.

"On my life, I think you're right," he said.

And yet Montcalm changed his mind again at the last moment. Two veteran officers, Montguy and Bernes, pointed out to him that his present position was dominated by the adjacent heights, and in order to escape that danger he resolved to retreat a little. He broke up his camp late in the afternoon of the next day, part of the army fell back through the woods more than a mile, and the rest of it withdrew in boats on the lake to the same point.

Robert and his comrades were carried with the army on land to the fort. There he became separated from the others, and remained in the rear, but luckily for his wishes, on a mount where he could see most that was pa.s.sing, though his chance of escape was as remote as ever.

He stood on the rocky peninsula of Ticonderoga. Behind him the great lake, Champlain, stretched far into north and south. To the west the ground sloped gently upward a half mile and then sank again. On each side of the ridge formed thus was low ground, and the ridge presented itself at once to the military eye as a line of defense. Hugues, one of his officers, had already recommended it to Montcalm, and men under two of his engineers, Desandrouin and Pontleroy, were now at work there.

The final line of defense was begun at dawn, and Robert, whom no one disturbed, witnessed a scene of prodigious energy. The whole French army threw itself heart and soul into the task. The men, hot under the July sun, threw aside their coats, and the officers, putting their own hands to the work, did likewise. There was a continuous ring of axes, and the air resounded with the crash of trees falling in hundreds and thousands.

The tops and ends of the boughs were cut off the trees, the ends left thus were sharpened and the trees were piled upon one another with the sharp ends facing the enemy who was to come.

Robert watched as these bristling rows grew to a height of at least nine feet, and then he saw the men build on the inner side platforms on which they could stand and fire over the crest, without exposing anything except their heads. In front of the abattis more trees with sharpened boughs were spread for a wide s.p.a.ce, the whole field with its stumps and trees, looking as if a mighty hurricane had swept over it.

Robert was soldier enough to see what a formidable obstruction was being raised, but he thought the powerful artillery of the attacking army would sweep it away or level it. He did not know that the big guns were being left behind. In truth, Langy's first news that the cannon would not be embarked upon the lake was partly wrong. The loading of the cannon was delayed, but after the British and Americans reached their landing and began the march across country for the attack, the guns, although brought down the lake, were left behind as not needed. But the French knew all these movements, and whether the cannon were left at one point or another, it was just the same to them, so long as they were not used in the a.s.sault.

Robert's intense mortification that he should be compelled to lie idle and witness the efforts of his enemies returned, but no matter how he chafed he could see no way out of it. Then his absorption in what was going on about him made him forget his personal fortunes.

The setting for the great drama was wild and picturesque in the extreme. On one side stretched the long, gleaming lake, a lake of wildness and beauty a.s.sociated with so much of romance and peril in American story. Over them towered the crest of the peak later known as Defiance. To the south and west was Lake George, the Iroquois Andiatarocte, that gem of the east, and, on all sides, save Champlain, circled the forest, just beginning to wither under the fierce summer sun.

The energy of the French did not diminish. Stronger and stronger grew abattis and breastwork, the whole becoming a formidable field over which men might charge to death. But Robert only smiled to himself.

Abercrombie's mighty array of cannon would smash everything and then the brave infantry, charging through the gaps, would destroy the French army. The French, he knew, were brave and skillful, but their doom was sure. Once St. Luc spoke to him. The chevalier had thrown off his coat also, and he had swung an ax with the best.

"I am sorry, Mr. Lennox," he said, "that we have not had time to send you away, but as you can see, our operations are somewhat hurried.

Chance put you here, and here you will have to stay until all is over."

"I see that you are expecting an army," said Robert, "and I infer from all these preparations that it will soon be upon you."

"It is betraying no military secret to admit that it is even so.

Abercrombie will soon be at hand."

"And I am surprised that you should await him. I judge that he has sufficient force to overwhelm you."

"We are never beaten before battle. The Marquis de Montcalm would not stay, unless he had a fair chance of success."

Robert was silent and St. Luc quickly went back to his work. All day the men toiled, and when the sun went down, they were still at their task. The ring of axes and the crash of falling trees resounded through the dark. Part of the soldiers put their kettles and pots on the fires, but the others labored on. In the night came the valiant De Levis with his men, and Montcalm gave him a heartfelt welcome. De Levis was a host in himself, and Montcalm felt that he was just in time. He expected the battle on the morrow. His scouts told him that Abercrombie would be at hand, but without his artillery. The Marquis looked at the formidable abattis, the rows and rows of trees, presenting their myriad of spiked ends, and hope was alive in his heart. He regretted once more the absence of the Indians who had been led away by the sulky Tandakora, but victory, won with their help, demanded a fearful price, as he had learned at William Henry.