For four hours the fierce fight raged, sustained with the utmost bravery by both combatants. The forests were shaken with the unwonted thunder, whose roar was heard at Crown Point, forty miles away, and the autumnal haze grew thick with sulphurous smoke. General Waterbury, commanding the Washington galley, was in the hottest of it, and only brought his shattered vessel out of the fight when all but two of his officers were killed or wounded. One of the American schooners was burnt, a gondola sunk, and several other vessels much injured; while the British had two gondolas sunk, and one blown up with sixty men on board. Toward nightfall, Captain Pringle withdrew the vessels engaged, and anchored his whole fleet across the channel to prevent the escape of the Americans. Escape was all that Arnold hoped for now, and in the darkness of night he silently got his vessels around the north end of Valcour,[69] and, making all speed southward, was out of sight of his enemy when daylight came. The British gave chase, and overtaking the Americans at Split Rock, about noon of the 13th, at once began firing on them. The sorely crippled Washington was forced to strike her colors after receiving a few broadsides. Arnold fought his flagship, the Congress galley, with desperate courage, while, within musket-shot, the Inflexible poured broadsides into her, and two schooners raked her from astern. He effectually covered the retreat of his escaping vessels with the Congress and four gondolas, and then ran ashore in the shoal head of a little bay on the eastern side of the lake. He set fire to the vessels, and keeping his flag flying on the Congress, which he did not quit till she was enveloped in flames, got all his men landed but one wounded lieutenant, who, forgotten in the confusion, was blown up with his vessel. Of the American fleet, only two galleys, two schooners, a sloop, and gondola had escaped; and toward Ticonderoga, whither these had fled, Arnold retreated with his stranded crews, barely escaping an Indian ambuscade. Joined by the few and now defenseless settlers, they toiled along the rough forest road, behind them rolling the irregular boom of the cannon, exploding as the fire heated them, and at intervals the thunder of a bursting magazine. Throughout that long, unequal combat, as in many another in the same good cause, Arnold bore himself with cool, intrepid valor, still preserved by an unkind fate from honorable death to achieve everlasting infamy. The land-locked bay, where may yet be seen the oaken skeletons of his brave little craft,[70] bears his name, nowhere else honorably commemorated in all his native land.