"Stand by your colours, comrades, till death!" were his last words. "Farewell, dear Charters--may God protect you for your Emmy's sake--we'll meet again!"
"Yes--again--in heaven!" he answered, and expired with his sword in his hand, like a brave and pious soldier.
The Red men were like incarnate fiends, and, amid groans, yells, prayers, and entreaties, were seen on their knees in frenzy, drinking blood from the spouting veins and bleeding scalps of their victims. The combat was a mere massacre, and seemed as if all hell had burst its gates and held jubilee in that wild forest of the savage West. The Provincials were destroyed. Grant, with nineteen officers, fell into the hands of the French; and of his Highlanders only 150 succeeded in effecting a retreat to Loyal Henning, under the command of Louis Charters, to whose skill, bravery, and energy, they unanimously attributed their escape. Many of their comrades who were captured died under agonies such as Indians, Turks, or devils alone could have devised; and the story of one--Private Allan MacPherson--who escaped a cruel death by pretending that his _neck_ was sword-proof, as related by the Abbé Reynal, and General Stewart of Garth, is well known.
James Grant of Ballindalloch died a general in the army in 1806; but he never forgot the horrors of his rashness at Fort du Quesne, which was abandoned to Brigadier Forbes on the 24th November; by this he was deprived of a revenge, and to win it Charters had volunteered to lead the forlorn hope. Poor General Forbes died on the retreat.
Charters's regiment served next in General Ambent's army at Ticonderoga, at Crown Point, and on the Lake Expedition, where he saved the life of Ensign Grant--now known as Alaster the One-handed--by bearing him off the field when wounded; but during all those desultory and sanguinary operations, he never heard from Emmy, nor did she hear from him. He suffered much; he nearly perished in the snow on one occasion with a whole detachment; he was wounded in the left shoulder on that night of horrors at Ticonderoga, and had a narrow escape from a cannon-ball in the fight with a French ship, when proceeding on the expedition to Dominique under Lord Rollo and Sir James Douglas; but though the ball spared his head, the wind of it raised a large inflamed spot, which gave him great trouble and pain. He was with his corps at the conquest of the Havannah; he was at the capture of Newfoundland with the 46th and the Highlanders of Fraser, and he served with honour in a hundred minor achievements of the brave Highlanders of Montgomery.