Amherst's orders to Rogers, after reminding him of the "barbarities committed by the enemy's Indian scoundrels," and bidding him to "take his revenge," had enjoined that "no women or children shall be killed or hurt;" but if this command was heeded at first, it was presently disregarded. If there was any touch of mercy in the hearts of the rangers when the assault began, the last vestige of it was swept away when daylight revealed hundreds of scalps of their own people displayed on poles, silvered locks of age, tresses of women's hair, golden ringlets of childhood, all ghastly trophies of New England raids. Old and young, warrior, squaw, and pappoose, alike suffered their vengeance, till of the three hundred inhabitants two thirds were killed and twenty taken prisoners, fifteen of whom were soon "let go their way." The church, adorned with plate and an image of silver, and the well-furnished dwellings, were plundered and burned, and the morning sun shone upon a scene of desolation as complete as these savages themselves had ever wrought. When the work of destruction was finished, Rogers assembled his men, of whom only one had been killed and six slightly wounded, and after an hour's rest began the return march with the prisoners, five recaptured English captives, and what provisions and booty could be carried. The route taken was up the St. Francis and to the eastward of Lake Memphremagog, the objective point being the Coos Meadows, where it was expected that the relief party with provisions would be met. They were followed by the enemy, and had lost seven men by their attacks, when Rogers formed an ambuscade upon his own track, into which they fell and suffered so severely that they desisted from further pursuit. When ten days had elapsed, and Rogers and his men had come some distance within the bounds of what is now Vermont, they began to suffer much from lack of food, and it was thought best to divide the force into small parties, each to make its way as best it could to the expected succor at Coos, or to the English settlements farther down the Connecticut. While its autumnal glories faded and the primeval forest grew bare and bleak, the little bands struggled bravely on over rugged mountains, through tangled windfalls, and swamps whose miry pools were treacherously hidden beneath the fallen leaves, fighting hour after hour and day after day against fatigue and famine, foes more persistent, insidious, and unrelenting than Awahnock[18] and Waubanakee. Such small game as they could kill, and the few edible roots that they found, were their only subsistence; and they would gladly have bartered the silver image and the golden candlesticks brought from the church, and all their booty, for one day's supply of the coarsest food. They buried the treasure, with scant hope that they might ever unearth it, and cast away unheeded the useless burdens of less valuable plunder.