With prisoners, ship, cannon, and ammunition, but with few provisions for food, the French now set sail westward across the Bay for Albany, La Chesnaye no doubt bearing in mind that a large quantity of beaver stored there would compensate him for his losses at Nelson two years before when the furs collected by Jean Chouart on behalf of the Company of the North had been seized by the English. The wind proved perverse. Icefloes, driving towards the south end of the Bay, delayed the sloops. Again Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville could not constrain patience to await the favour of wind and weather. With crews of voyageurs he pushed off from the ship in two canoes. Fog fell. The ice proved brashy, soft to each step, and the men slithered through the water up to the armpits as they carried the canoes. D'Iberville could keep his men together only by firing guns through the fog and holding hands in a chain as the two crews portaged across the soft ice. By August 1 the French voyageurs were in camp before Albany, and a few days later de Troyes arrived with the prisoners and the big sloop. Before Albany, Captain Outlaw's ship, the _Success_, stood anchored; but the ship seemed deserted, and the fort was fast sealed, like an oyster in a shell. Indians had evidently carried warning of the raid to Sargeant, and Captain Outlaw had withdrawn his crew inside the fort. The Le Moynes, acting as scouts, soon discovered that Albany boasted forty-three guns. If Jean Péré were prisoner here in durance vile, his rescue would be a harder matter than the capture of Moose or Rupert. If the French had but known it, bedlam reigned inside the fort. While the English had guns, they had very little ammunition. Gunners threw down their fuses and refused to stand up behind the cannon till old Sargeant drove them back with his sword hilt. Men on the walls threw down muskets and declared that while they had signed to serve, they had not signed to fight, 'and if any of us lost a leg, the Company could not make it good.' The Chevalier de Troyes, with banner flying and fifes shrilling, marched forward, and under flag of truce pompously demanded, in the name of the Most Christian Monarch, Louis XIV, King of France, the instant release of Monsieur Jean Péré. Old Sargeant sent out word that Mister Parry had long since sailed for France by way of England. This, however, did not abate the demands of the Most Christian King of France. Bombs began to sing overhead. Bridgar came under flag of truce to Sargeant and told him the French were desperate. It was a matter of life and death. They must take the fort to obtain provisions for the return to Quebec. If it were surrendered, mercy would be exercised. If taken forcibly, no power could restrain the Indians from massacre. Sargeant, as has been explained before, had his family in the fort. Just at this moment one of the gunners committed suicide from sheer terror, and Captain Outlaw came