But nothing could
restrain the ungovernable Hurons. They abandoned their mantelets, and,
deaf to every command, swarmed out like bees upon the open field,
leaped, shouted, shrieked their war-cries, and shot off their arrows;
while the Iroquois, yelling defiance from their ramparts, sent back a
shower of stones and arrows in reply. A Huron, bolder than the rest, ran
forward with firebrands to burn the palisade, and others followed with
wood to feed the flame. But it was stupidly kindled on the leeward side,
without the protecting shields designed to cover it; and torrents of
water, poured down from the gutters above, quickly extinguished it. The
confusion was redoubled. Champlain strove in vain to restore order. Each
warrior was yelling at the top of his throat, and his voice was drowned
in the outrageous din. Thinking, as he says, that his head would split
with shouting, he gave over the attempt, and busied himself and his men
with picking off the Iroquois along their ramparts.
The attack lasted three hours, when the assailants fell back to their
fortified camp, with seventeen warriors wounded. Champlain, too, had
received an arrow in the knee, and another in the leg, which, for the
time, disabled him. He was urgent, however, to renew the attack; while
the Hurons, crestfallen and disheartened, refused to move from their
camp unless the five hundred allies, for some time expected, should
appear.
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