"It is a wonder I escaped at all," said Sergeant Shenstone. "I was nearly caught by the explosion. I was helping a wounded comrade to escape, when, looking over the ramparts, I beheld the enemy so close that I could see their teeth as they bit the cartridges, and General Pike, on the right wing, cheering them on--so gallant and bold. I was a-feared I would be nabbed as a prisoner, and sent to eat Uncle Sam's hard-tack in the hulks at Sackett's Harbour, when, all of a sudden, the ground trembled like the earthquakes I have felt in the West Indies; then a volcano of fire burst up to the sky, and, in a minute, the air seemed raining fire and brimstone, as it did at Sodom and Gomorrah. It seemed like the judgment-day. I was thrown flat on the ground, and when I tried to get up I was all bruised and burnt with the falling clods and splinters, and my comrade was dead at my side. I crawled away as soon as I could-- there was no thought then of making prisoners." "But what gar'd the magazine blaw up? Was it an accident?" asked old Allan McPherson, the Highland piper, who had listened eagerly to the tragic story. "No accident was it. Sergeant Marshall, of the artillery, a desperate fellow, who swore the enemy should lose more than they would gain by taking the fort, laid and fired the train. The General had already given the order to retreat, and knew nothing of it." "God forgie him!" exclaimed the old Scotchman. "Yon's no war ava-- it's rank murder. I can thole a fair and square stan up fecht, but yon's a coward trick." "Ye'd say so," said Private McIntyre, Shenstone's comrade, "gin ye saw the hale place reeking like a shawmbles, an' the puir' wretches lying stark and scaring like slaughtered sheep. I doubt na it was a gran' blunder as weel as a gran' crime. Forbye killing some o' oor ain folk it will breed bad bluid through the hale war. I doubt na it will mak it waur for ye, for Fort George's turn mun come next." "I hear Dearborn swore to avenge the death of General Pike. All the vessels' flags were half-mast, and the minute-guns boomed while they rowed his dead body, wrapped in the stars and stripes, to the flag-ship; and Chauncey carried off all the public property, even to the mace and Speaker's wig from the Parliament House, and the fire-engine of the town." [Footnote: These were conveyed to Sackett's Harbour and deposited in the dockyard storehouse, where they were exhibited as trophies of the conquest.] "How did you get away with the despatches?" asked Jonas Evans. "I should think Chauncey would try to take us by surprise, but the Lord would not let him."