CHAPTER XI.

ST. EUSTACHE STORMED.

We have no intention of keeping the reader in suspense.

The shot fired at Roland had missed him, and only barked a tree; for though he was so close, recent potations had rendered "the Colonel's" aim a very unsteady one; but his intended victim, inspired by a sudden idea born of his own coolness and decision of purpose, gripped the horse with his knees, and, feigning death to escape further firing, fell back on the crupper of his saddle, and in this way was carried safely to the rear, followed by the yells and derisive laughter of the insurgents.

Believing their favourite officer slain, a shout of rage burst from the Royals, and every man made a forward step in eager anticipation of the order to advance.

"A flag of truce fired on!" exclaimed old Sir John Colborne, starting in his stirrups with honest grief and indignation. "Forward, Wetherall, to the attack and lead your column up the central street!"

"I have escaped, General, by a miracle and a ruse," said Roland, reining in his horse and sitting erect in his saddle, to the surprise of all who saw him; "and now I shall rejoin my company."

He resigned the steed to its owner, and the attack at once began--indeed it had begun, for the artillery had already opened fire, and stone and timber were alike going crashing down beneath it.

Covered by the Montreal Rifle Corps, the First Royals advanced, steadily firing up the central street, and seized all the most defensible houses. Logan was then despatched by Colonel Wetherall, with orders to bring up some of the artillery; but he was driven back by the fire of the rebels from the lower windows of the church of St. Eustache, till the officer commanding the artillery had promptly conceived where his services were wanted, and galloping into the village by the rear, endeavoured to blow or burst open the door of the sacred edifice, but completely failed to do so, so dense and heavy was the barricade of earth behind it; but some companies of the Royals and Rifles from the neighbouring houses opened a terrible fire of musketry upon the occupants of the church, whose shrieks and yells came through the windows, which were almost instantly divested of every vestige of glass.

After an hour of heavy cross-firing, and the door still defying every effort of our troops, the Scots Royals attacked the presbytery, which was full of men, forced an entrance, led by their officers, sword in hand, and now ensued a terrible scene, for they bayoneted nearly every man in the place, and then set it in flames, while scores of desultory combats were going on in the streets without.

There, in many places, streams and pools of crimson blood dyed the pure white snow; in others, by repeated footsteps and struggles, it was trod to slush and snowy mire, wherein the dead and dying lay weltering--the breath of the latter, in many instances their last respiration, curling away like steam upon the frosty air of the keen Canadian winter day, while on all hands were heard strange cries, oaths, and yells.

"Vive la République Canadien! A bas les Anglais!" cried the French Colonists.

"A bas la Reine! A bas la Ligne!"

"Vive Papineau!"

"Down with British rule; death to old Colborne and his red-coats!"

Such were the shouts on one side; on the other, only the din of the heavy file firing, and at times that ringing united cheer, the import or instinct of which there is no mistaking.

By this time the smoke of the blazing presbytery had enveloped the whole church, which, as a wooden edifice, it was supposed would soon catch fire. Now Roland remembered the supposition of the French peasant, that Aurelia might be there, and we may imagine the sensations with which he beheld the dark smoke-wreaths eddying around its taper spire!

"Carry the church by storm!" was now the order of Sir John Colborne; and while a straggling fire was poured upon the column, from the house of the seigneur and others, Wetherall ordered his grenadiers--we had such soldiers still--to lead the van, the post of honour and peril being ever theirs by traditional right.

The blood of all the troops was fairly up, and as the column went forward surging and storming, and firing with the bayonets pointed upward at an angle, the soldiers of the Royal Regiment raised the shout of "Scotland for ever!"--a _cri de guerre_ first used by the Greys at Waterloo, and last by the Duke of Albany's Highlanders at the storming of Kotah in 1858.

Pouring in by the shattered windows, leaping over every obstacle, and plunging like a torrent among the armed crowd within the church, the Royals made a terrible havoc, and among those who fought here was Roland, as yet untouched, and amid all the carnage and mad confusion around him, having but one thought in his heart.

At the same time, some other of the battalion companies, led by Major Ward and Captain Bell (afterwards Sir George and colonel of the regiment in 1868), a Peninsular officer who in this war commanded the fort and garrison of Coteau du Lac, an important post on the frontier, and received the thanks of Sir John Colborne for his exertions in recovering all the 24-pound guns and 4000 shot from the bottom of the river, and getting them in position amid the winter snows to face the rebels--led these and other officers we say, the rest of the Royals gradually fought their way into the church by the rear, and bayoneting all who resisted, set it on fire, and the corpses were consumed in the flames.

One hundred and eighteen men taken prisoners.

"_Quartier! Quartier! Je me livre a vous!_" (I yield myself up to you) was now the cry of the French colonists.

"Quarter for the love of God, and her Majesty the Queen!" echoed the British rebels, on finding that all was over.

Papineau, if there, was nowhere to be found; and Smash, though seen often, had disappeared.

In the apartment where we left her, Aurelia Darnel had heard all the dreadful uproar around her--the myriad horrible sounds of a combat on which she dared not look, and she lay in a corner, gathered, as it were, in a heap, though on her knees, unable even to form a prayer, stunned, crushed, and bewildered, with but one thought--"Roland dead!"

Steps, sounds rather, drew near the room; the door was flung open and Ithuriel Smash, pale as death, bleeding from more than one wound in his body, and with a dreadful rattle-snake expression in his eyes--an expression of agony, madness, and rage, staggered in; then he fell on his hands, and came crawling slowly, panting and groaning, towards her, leaving a track of his own blood--"the trail of the serpent" behind him on the floor.

His long knife was clenched in his teeth; his murderous intention was plain--to slay her would be his last effort, and in the corner where she crouched, Aurelia could not escape him!

She uttered a low wail of despair, ending in an involuntary shriek for help--help for the love of God! And help came.

Poetic and dramatic justice would require that the obnoxious Colonel Smash should perish by the hand of Roland; but responsive to her cry, there burst into the room, Logan of Logan Braes and a few of the Royals, by whom he was speedily bayoneted like a reptile or mad dog, and he died, biting at the bayonets, like a dog or a savage.

Logan tenderly raised the half-dead girl from the floor, and in a few minutes after, the caressing arms of Roland, caressing and reassuring, were around her--and she felt safe then--doubly safe with him and her mother.