Let us trace the fulfilling of Van Rensselaer’s boast.

The regulars crossed first, almost out of the line of fire of the British batteries, and under cover of six of the enemy’s field-guns that completely commanded the Canadian shore.  Some of the boats of this flotilla effected, as we know, a landing above the rock, still visible at the water’s edge, under the suspension bridge.  Here they disembarked their fighting men—­the 13th regulars and some artillery—­and, under Van Rensselaer, attempted to form.  The empty boats recrossed the river to ferry over more soldiers.

* * * * *

A sentry of the 49th—­our hero’s regiment—­overheard voices and tramping of feet.  Scenting danger, he ran, without firing, to alarm the main guard.

In a few minutes Dennis advanced upon the landing place with forty-six men of his own company and a few militia, and discharged a murderous volley, leaving Colonel Van Rensselaer, with eight officers and forty-five men, killed or wounded.  The enemy retreated to the water’s edge for shelter, confused and shivering.  The Lewiston batteries at once opened fire on the redan on Queenston Heights.  The position of Dennis being thus revealed to Dearborn’s gunners, they immediately turned their battery of six field-pieces upon his handful of men, and the position proving untenable, he withdrew to the shelter of the village, on the lip of the hill, still continuing to fire downwards on the invaders.

Vrooman’s battery then opened fire, and Crowther brought his two “grasshoppers”—­small three-pounders—­to sweep the road leading to the river.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A FOREIGN FLAG FLIES ON THE REDAN.

It was the crackling of the grenadiers’ muskets, the bellowing of Vrooman’s big gun, the cannonade of the twenty-four-pounders of the Lewiston batteries, the roar of the eighteen-pounder in the British redan, and the streak of crimson light from the long line of beacons which rent the sky from Fort Erie to Pelham Heights, that had wakened the citizens of Niagara and aroused Brock from his brief repose.

Captain Wool, of the 13th U.S. regulars—­Van Rensselaer being wounded in six places—­hurried his men under the shelter of the overhanging rocks, keeping up an intermittent fire, and waited for reinforcements.  For almost two hours this desultory firing continued.  With the cessation of the storm and arrival of broad daylight, six more boats attempted to reach the Queenston landing.  One boat was sunk by a discharge of grape from Dennis’s howitzer; another, with Colonel Fenwick, of the U.S. artillery, was swept below the landing to a cove where, in the attack by Cameron’s volunteers that followed, Fenwick, terribly wounded, was, with most of his men, taken prisoner.  Another boat drifted under Vrooman’s, and was captured there, while others, more fortunate, landed two additional companies of the 13th, forty artillerymen and some militia.  The shouts of the fighters and screams of the wounded were heard by the hundreds of spectators who were parading the river bank at Lewiston, all ready to witness “the humiliation of Canada.”