about nine in the evening
Susquesus paddled the canoe , unaided by us , who were too much fatigued with the toil of the day , to labour much , as soon as we found ourselves in a place of safety . Even Jaap lay down and slept for several hours , the sleep of the weary . I do not think any of us , however , actually slept for the first hour or two , the scenes through which we had just passed , and that , indeed , through which we were then passing , acting as preventives to such an indulgence . It must have been about nine in the evening , when our canoe quitted the ill-fated shore at the south end of Lake George , moving steadily and silently along the eastern margin of the sheet . By that time , fully five hundred boats had departed for the head of the lake , the retreat having commenced long before sunset . No order was observed in this melancholy procession , each batteau moving off as her load was completed . All the wounded were on the placid bosom of the ` Holy Lake , ' as some writers have termed this sheet of limpid water , by the time we ourselves got in motion ; and the sounds of parting boats told us that the unhurt were following as fast as circumstances would allow .