The mischief was, he could not be gainsaid. Major Etherington explained--at first in English, to his General, and again, at his General's request, in the best French he could command, for the benefit of all, that he had indeed heard the recall blown, and had with difficulty drawn off his men from the scaling-ladders, persuading them (as he himself was persuaded) that the fort had surrendered. He knew nothing of the white flag at the gateway, but had formed his conclusions from the bugle-calls and the bare flagstaff above the tower. "Nevertheless, we had not capitulated," persisted M. Etienne. The Major continued that, albeit he had tried his best, the Indians were not to be restrained. They had poured into the fort, and, although he had obeyed the bugles and kept his men back, it had cost him grave misgivings. But when the Ojibway called down so urgently from the summit of the tower, he had risked disobedience, hoping to prevent the massacre which he knew to be afoot. He appealed to his General to approve, or at least condone, this breach of orders. For undoubtedly massacre had been prevented. Witness the crowd he had found jammed in the stairway, and fighting ferociously. Witness the scene that had met him at the head of the stairs. Here he swung round upon John and beckoned him to stand out from the listening group of red-coats. "It can be proved, sir," he went on, addressing M. Etienne, "that the lady--your niece, is she not?--owes her life, and more than her life perhaps, to this savage. I claim only that, answering his call, I led my men with all possible speed to the rescue. Up there on the leads I found your brother lying dead, with a sergeant dead beside him; and their wounds again will prove to you that they had perished by the bursting of a shell. But this man alone stood on the hatchway and held it against a dozen Iroquois, as your niece will testify. What you suppose yourself to owe him, I won't pretend to say; but I tell you--and I tell you, General--that cleaner pluck I never saw in my life." John, the soldiers pushing him forward, stood out with bent head. He prayed that there might be no Ojibway interpreter at hand; he knew of none in the fort but Father Launoy, now busy in the chapel laying out the Commandant's body. Of all the spectators there was but one-- the General himself--who had not known him either as Ensign John a Cleeve or as the wounded sergeant from Ticonderoga. He had met Captain Muspratt at Albany, and remembered him well on the march up the Hudson to Lake George. With Major Etherington he had marched, messed, played at cards, and lived in close comradeship for months together--only two years ago! It was not before their eyes that he hung his head, but before the thought of two eyes that in the chapel yonder were covered by the hands of a kneeling girl. M. Etienne stepped forward and took his hand. "I thank you, my friend--if you can understand my thanks."