"Are you men? are you soldiers? For shame! for shame! To run like sheep when none pursues! Now indeed will I call myself French no longer; I will be a British subject like my mother. It is not willingly that I desert a losing cause; but I cannot bear such poltroonery. When have the English ever fled like this before us? Oh, it is a shame! it is a disgrace!"
"Ah, if you could have seen the English soldiers!" cried Colin, with eager enthusiasm; "I never heard a volley delivered as theirs was! They never wasted a shot. They stood like a rock whilst the French charged across to them, firing all the time. And when they did fire, it was like a cannon shot; and after that, our men seemed to have no spirit left in them. When the smoke of the second volley cleared off, I could scarce believe my eyes. The dead seemed to outnumber the living; and these were flying helter-skelter this way and that!"
"But did not the General strive to rally them?"
"Doubtless he did. Our Marquis is a brave soldier and an able General; but what can one man do? Panic had seized the troops; and if you had heard the sound of cheering from the ranks of the English, and that strange yell from those wild Highlanders as they dashed in pursuit, you would have understood better what the soldiers felt like. They ran like sheep--they are running still. I saw that if I were to have a chance of bringing you the news, I must use all my powers, or I should be jammed in the mass of flying humanity making for the city; and since the English are not very far behind, I had need to make good my retreat."
It was plain that Colin was only a little in advance of a portion of the defeated army, whose soldiers were now flocking back to the city, spreading panic everywhere.
Suddenly there ran through the assembled crowd a murmur which gathered in volume and intensity, and changed to a strange sound as of wailing. Corinne, who had the best view, leaned eagerly forward to see, and her face blanched instantly.
A horseman was coming through the gate, supported on either side by a soldier; his face was deadly white, and blood was streaming from a wound in his breast.
Madame Drucour looked also and uttered a cry:
"Monsieur le Marquis est tue!"
It was indeed Montcalm, shot right through the body, but not absolutely unconscious, though dazed and helpless.