The house of Reverend John Williams was assaulted at the beginning of the attack. Awakened from sleep, Mr. Williams leaped from his bed, and running to the door found the enemy entering. Calling to two soldiers who lodged in the house, he sprang back to his bedroom, seized a pistol, cocked it, and presented it at the breast of an Indian who had followed him. It missed fire, and it was well, for the room was thronged in an instant, and he was seized, bound without being allowed the privilege of dressing, and kept standing in the cold for an hour. Meanwhile, the savages amused themselves by taunting him, swinging their hatchets over him and threatening him. Two of his children and a negro woman were then taken to the door and butchered. Mrs. Williams was allowed to dress, and she and her five children were taken captives. Other houses in the village were likewise attacked, one of them being defended by seven men, for whom the women inside cast bullets while the fight was in progress. But the attacking force was an overpowering one, and De Rouville and his men had by sunrise done their work most successfully with torch and tomahawk. The blood of forty-nine murdered men, women and children reddened the snow. Twenty-nine men, twenty-four women, and fifty-eight children were made captive, and in a few hours the spoil-encumbered enemy were en route for Canada. Through the midwinter snow which covered the fields the poor captives marched out on their terrible pilgrimage. Two of the prisoners succeeded in escaping, whereupon Mr. Williams was ordered to inform the others that if any more slipped away death by fire would be visited upon those who remained. The first night's lodgings were provided for as comfortably as circumstances would permit, and all the ablebodied among the prisoners were made to sleep in barns. On the second day's march Mr. Williams was permitted to speak with his poor wife, whose youngest child had been born only a few weeks before, and to assist her on her journey. "On the way," says the pastor, in his famous book, "The Redeemed Captive", "we discoursed on the happiness of those who had a right to an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; and God for a father and friend; as also it was our reasonable duty quietly to submit to the will of God, and to say, 'The will of the Lord be done.'" Thus imparting to one another their heroic courage and Christian strength and consolation, the captive couple pursued their painful way.