When the young Indian had departed, not before renewing his strong persuasion to induce the officer to accompany him to his wife, Ronayne, determining that no mistake should occur in the compliance of both his directions to Corporal Collins, once more ascended to the bastion from which, he had soon the satisfaction to see Wau-nan-gee glide away in the direction of his encampment, until his figure was soon lost in the distance. CHAPTER XX. "Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed which his aspiring rider seemed to know." --_Richard II._ As if in mockery of the climax of trial they were to be made to undergo before its close, the 15th of August, 1812, dawned upon the inmates of Fort Dearborn with a brilliancy even surpassing that of the preceding day. Well do we, who chronicle these events, recollect it; for while the little garrison, in recording whose fate we take not less an interest than our readers can in the perusal, were preparing to march out of the fort--to abandon scenes and associations to which long habit had endeared them, and with the almost certainty of meeting death at every step, we stood at the battery which vomited destruction into the stronghold of him who had counselled and commanded the advance upon Fort Wayne. It has been a vulgar belief, fostered by his enemies, by those who were desirous of relieving themselves from the odium of participation, and of rising to power and consideration by the condemnation of their chief, that the position of General Hull was one fraught with advantage to himself and of disadvantage to his enemies. Nothing can be more incorrect. The batteries, to which we have alluded, had so completely attained the range of the Fort of Detroit, in the small area of which were cooped up a force of nearly twenty-five hundred men, that every shot that was fired told with terrible effect, and not less than three officers of the small regular force were killed or mutilated by one ball passing through the very heart of their private apartments, into which it had, as if searchingly and insidiously, found its way. To the left, moreover, was another floating battery of large ships of war, preparing to vomit forth their thunder, and distract the garrison and divide their fire, which could be returned only from their immediate front bearing on the river, that it soon became evident to the besiegers that their enemy had no power to arrest or effectually check the fury of their attack. But not this alone. Thousands of Indians had occupied the ground in the rear, and only waited the advance of the British columns, furnished also with artillery for an assault in another quarter, to rush with the immolating tomahawk upon the defenceless inhabitants of the town, and complete a slaughter to which there would have been no parallel in warfare. They could not have been restrained; their savage appetite for blood must have been appeased, and of this fact General Hull had been apprised.