They passed twelve days there waiting for the time when Lieutenant-colonel Hamilton should have occupied the defiles of the mountains. The 13th of February had been fixed on as the fatal day; the Highlanders had felt some uneasiness, but their guests had reassured them, "If there was any danger," Glenlyon had said to the chiefs eldest son, "should I not have warned your brother and his wife?" At the appointed hour Hamilton had not yet arrived; nevertheless the massacre began. Under every roof, beside every hearth, Glenlyon's soldiers shot down their hosts, men, women and children; the Master of Stair's orders had allowed them to spare old men above seventy. In their bloody intoxication the troops gave no quarter; the aged Glencoe perished among the first. His wife, assassinated beside him, was stripped of her jewelry, and did not expire till the next day. At every door was seen a corpse. When Hamilton appeared at the head of his troops, they plundered all the houses, and long lines of cattle were driven down the mountain passes by the light of the flames which were consuming the villages. God does not suffer crime, though cleverly conceived, to gain a complete triumph. The passes had not been guarded; the murderers had not all arrived in time, and a large number of the Macdonalds of Glencoe succeeded in escaping, at the cost of new sufferings--exposed to hunger, cold, and unceasing dangers. They repaired to the midst of their mountains, above their ruined houses and their blood stained hearths. The cry of their calamity mounted slowly to Heaven. The Jacobites assisted in spreading it abroad: they had eagerly seized this weapon against King William. When the latter, far away and imperfectly informed, wished to open an inquiry into the authors of the crime, so many and so important persons were compromised in it, that the Master of Stair alone was removed for a time from public life. The massacre of Glencoe has remained a dark stain on the reign of William III., a sad contrast to the leniency and humanity which usually characterized his government. {47} Hardly had the king left England before the nation, as well as Queen Mary, was a prey to serious uneasiness. Louvois had died suddenly on the 17th of July, 1691, without Louis XIV., with whom his influence had been decreasing, appearing particularly distressed at his loss. "Tell the King of England that I have lost a good minister," was the answer he had made to King James's condolences, "but that his affairs and mine will fare none the worse for it."