But the battle was not over, nor had they yet forced all the watery pass. The northern Indians were numerous, hardy, and wild for triumph. The great mind and spirit of Timmendiquas, the White Lightning of the Wyandots, urged them on, and they swarmed in hundreds along either shore, standing in the water among the bushes and sending in an incessant rifle fire. Others waded beyond the bushes, and still others darted out in their light canoes, from which they sent bullets at the two dark lines of boats in the middle of the river. The rain came in gusts, and mingled with it was a wind which shrieked now and then like a human being, as it swept over the forests and the water. The thunder formed a bass note to all these noises, and the lightning at times fairly danced upon the water with dazzling brilliancy. It was a confused and terrible advance, in which the boats were in imminent danger from one another. Every one was compelled to move slowly lest it be sunk by the one behind it, and half the fighting force of the fleet was forced to pay its whole attention to the oars and sweeps and steering gear. Paul was dazed a little by the tremendous confusion and mingling of sights and sounds. He saw an Indian near the southern bank aiming his rifle at their boat, and he sought to aim his own in return, but the flash of lightning that had disclosed the warrior was gone, and for the moment he looked only into blank darkness. He shut his eyes, rubbed his hands over them, and then opened them again. The darkness was still there. He did not at that time feel fear. It was too unreal, too much like a hideous nightmare, and he did not realize its full import until afterward. "Shall we ever get through?" he asked, raising his voice above the tumult. "Some o' us will! most o' us, I hope!" shouted Shif'less Sol in reply. "Jumpin' Jehoshephat, but that bullet was close! I think I got a free shave on my left cheek. Did you ever hear sech a yellin' an' shriekin' an' whizzin' o' bullets!" "They are certainly making a determined attack," said Henry. "If they had the fires to go by they'd get us yet. Look, there goes a new fire that they've lighted on the southern bank." A high flame flared among the bushes, but the brass twelve pounder was promptly turned upon it, and after the second shot it disappeared. "It ain't healthy, lightin' fires to-night," said Long Jim grimly. The boats swung forward now at a slightly increased pace. On the _Independence_, Adam Colfax, Adolphe Drouillard, Thrale, Lyon and the others half stood, half knelt, looking steadily ahead, their minds attuned as only the minds of men can be concentrated at such a crisis. In this hour of darkness and danger the souls of the New Hampshire Puritan and of the Louisiana Frenchman were the same. One prayed to his Protestant God and the other to his Catholic God with like fervor and devotion, each praying that He would lead them through this danger, not for themselves, but for their suffering country.