He was followed by two of the Acadians, and two or three
of the more prudent of the Micmacs; but the rest of his party, fired
with blind fury by the liquor which they had found among the village
stores, remained to fight with a drunken recklessness and fell to a man
beneath the steel of the avengers.
Left masters of the field, the rescue party gazed with horror on the
ruin they had come too late to avert. With a grim, poetic justice they
cast the bodies of their slain foes into the fires which had already
consumed the victims of their ferocity. While this was going on the
leader of the party, a young lieutenant, stood apart in deepest dejection.
"What's the matter with the general?" inquired a soldier, pointing
with his thumb in the direction of his sorrowing chief.
"I'm afeard as how that little niece of his'n, as you've seed him
a-danderin' many a time in Halifax, was visitin' folks here. If so be
what I've hearn be true, them yellin' butchers has done for her, sure
pop. I tell ye, Bill, she was a little beauty, an' darter of the cap'n
they murdered last September down to Fort Lawrence."
"I ricklecs the child well" replied Bill, shaking his head slowly.
"It _was_ a purty one, an' _no_ mistake! An' Cap'n Howe's darter,
too. I swan!"
In a little while the careless-hearted soldiers were asleep amid the
ashes of Kenneticook village, while the young lieutenant lay awake,
his heart aching for his golden-haired pet, his widowed sister's child.
The next day he gave his men a long rest, for they had done some severe
forced marching.
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