discouraging order not to fire except when necessary to keep the enemy in check, or when the chance of hitting him should be unusually good. Such of the sick men as were strong enough aided the defence by casting bullets and buckshot. The outrageous noise lasted till towards nine in the evening, when the assailants greeted the fort with a general war-whoop, and repeated it three or four times; then a line of sentinels was placed around it to prevent messengers from carrying the alarm to Albany or Deerfield. The evening was dark and cloudy. The lights of a camp could be seen by 246 the river towards the southeast, and those of another near the swamp towards the west. There was a sound of axes, as if the enemy were making scaling-ladders for a night assault; but it was found that they were cutting fagots to burn the wall. Hawks ordered every tub and bucket to be filled with water, in preparation for the crisis. Two men, John Aldrich and Jonathan Bridgman, had been wounded, thus farther reducing the strength of the defenders. The chaplain says: “Of those that were in health, some were ordered to keep the watch, and some lay down and endeavored to get some rest, lying down in our clothes with our arms by us.... We got little or no rest; the enemy frequently raised us by their hideous outcries, as though they were about to attack us. The latter part of the night I kept the watch.” Rigaud spent the night in preparing for a decisive attack, “being resolved to open trenches two hours before sunrise, and push them to the foot of the palisade, so as to place fagots against it, set them on fire, and deliver the fort a prey to the fury of the flames.”[261] It began to rain, and he determined to wait till morning. That the commander of seven hundred French and Indians should resort to such 247 elaborate devices to subdue a sergeant, seven militia-men, and a minister,--for this was now the effective strength of the besieged,--was no small compliment to the spirit of the defence.