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<h2> XXIII. WITH WOLFE AT MONTMORENCI. </h2>
<p>At Louisburg we found that Admiral Saunders and General Wolfe were gone to
Quebec. They had passed us as we came down, for we had sailed inside some
islands of the coast, getting shelter and better passage, and the fleet
had, no doubt, passed outside. This was a blow to me, for I had hoped to
be in time to join General Wolfe and proceed with him to Quebec, where my
knowledge of the place should be of service to him. It was, however, no
time for lament, and I set about to find my way back again. Our prisoners
I handed over to the authorities. The two Provincials decided to remain
and take service under General Amherst; Mr. Stevens would join his own
Rangers at once, but Clark would go back with me to have his hour with his
hated foes.</p>
<p>I paid Mr. Stevens and the two Provincials for their shares in the
schooner, and Clark and I manned her afresh, and prepared to return
instantly to Quebec. From General Amherst I received correspondence to
carry to General Wolfe and Admiral Saunders. Before I started back, I sent
letters to Governor Dinwiddie and to Mr. (now Colonel) George Washington,
but I had no sooner done so than I received others from them through
General Amherst. They had been sent to him to convey to General Wolfe at
Quebec, who was, in turn, to hand them to me, when, as was hoped, I should
be released from captivity, if not already beyond the power of men to free
me.</p>
<p>The letters from these friends almost atoned for my past sufferings, and I
was ashamed that ever I had thought my countrymen forgot me in my worst
misery; for this was the first matter I saw when I opened the Governor’s
letter:</p>
<p>By the House of Burgesses.<br/></p>
<p>Resolved, That the sum of three hundred pounds be paid to Captain Robert
Moray, in consideration of his services to the country, and his singular
sufferings in his confinement, as a hostage, in Quebec.</p>
<p>This, I learned, was one of three such resolutions.</p>
<p>But there were other matters in his letter which much amazed me. An
attempt, he said, had been made one dark night upon his strong-room, which
would have succeeded but for the great bravery and loyalty of an old
retainer. Two men were engaged in the attempt, one of whom was a
Frenchman. Both men were masked, and, when set upon, fought with
consummate bravery, and escaped. It was found the next day that the safe
of my partner had also been rifled and all my papers stolen. There was no
doubt in my mind what this meant. Doltaire, with some renegade Virginian
who knew Williamsburg and myself, had made essay to get my papers. But
they had failed in their designs, for all my valuable documents—and
those desired by Doltaire among them—remained safe in the Governor’s
strong-room.</p>
<p>I got away again for Quebec five days after reaching Louisburg. We came
along with good winds, having no check, though twice we sighted French
sloops, which, however, seemed most concerned to leave us to ourselves. At
last, with colours flying, we sighted Kamaraska Isles, which I saluted,
remembering the Chevalier de la Darante; then Isle aux Coudres, below
which we poor fugitives came so near disaster. Here we all felt new
fervour, for the British flag flew from a staff on a lofty point, tents
were pitched thereon in a pretty cluster, and, rounding a point, we came
plump upon Admiral Durell’s little fleet, which was here to bar advance of
French ships and to waylay stragglers.</p>
<p>On a blithe summer day we sighted, far off, the Island of Orleans and the
tall masts of two patrol ships of war, which in due time we passed,
saluting, and ran abreast of the island in the North Channel. Coming up
this passage, I could see on an eminence, far distant, the tower of the
Chateau Alixe.</p>
<p>Presently there opened on our sight the great bluff at the Falls of
Montmorenci, and, crowning it, tents and batteries, the camp of General
Wolfe himself, with the good ship Centurion standing off like a sentinel
at a point where the Basin, the River Montmorenci, and the North Channel
seem to meet. To our left, across the shoals, was Major Hardy’s post, on
the extreme eastern point of the Isle Orleans; and again beyond that, in a
straight line, Point Levis on the south shore, where Brigadier-General
Monckton’s camp was pitched; and farther on his batteries, from which
shell and shot were poured into the town. How all had changed in the two
months since I left there! Around the Seigneur Duvarney’s manor, in the
sweet village of Beauport, was encamped the French army, and redoubts and
batteries were ranged where Alixe and I and her brother Juste had many a
time walked in a sylvan quiet. Here, as it were, round the bent and broken
sides of a bowl, war raged, and the centre was like some caldron out of
which imps of ships sprang and sailed to hand up fires of hell to the
battalions on the ledges. Here swung Admiral Saunders’s and Admiral
Holmes’s divisions, out of reach of the French batteries, yet able to
menace and destroy, and to feed the British camps with men and munitions.
There was no French ship in sight—only two old hulks with guns in
the mouth of the St. Charles River, to protect the road to the palace gate—that
is, at the Intendance.</p>
<p>It was all there before me, the investment of Quebec, for which I had
prayed and waited seven long years.</p>
<p>All at once, on a lull in the fighting which had lasted twenty-four hours,
the heavy batteries from the Levis shore opened upon the town, emptying
therein the fatal fuel. Mixed feelings possessed me. I had at first
listened to Clark’s delighted imprecations and devilish praises with a
feeling of brag almost akin to his own—that was the soldier and the
Briton in me. But all at once the man, the lover, and the husband spoke:
my wife was in that beleaguered town under that monstrous shower! She had
said that she would never leave it till I came to fetch her. For I knew
well that our marriage must become known after I had escaped; that she
would not, for her own good pride and womanhood, keep it secret then; that
it would be proclaimed while yet Gabord and the excellent chaplain were
alive to attest all.</p>
<p>Summoned by the Centurion, we were passed on beyond the eastern point of
the Isle of Orleans to the admiral’s ship, which lay in the channel off
the point, with battleships in front and rear, and a line of frigates
curving towards the rocky peninsula of Quebec. Then came a line of buoys
beyond these, with manned boats moored alongside to protect the fleet from
fire rafts, which once already the enemy had unavailingly sent down to
ruin and burn our fleet.</p>
<p>Admiral Saunders received me with great cordiality, thanked me for the
dispatches, heard with applause of my adventures with the convoy, and at
once, with dry humour, said he would be glad, if General Wolfe consented,
to make my captured schooner one of his fleet. Later, when her history and
doings became known in the fleet, she was at once called the Terror of
France; for she did a wild thing or two before Quebec fell, though from
first to last she had but her six swivel guns, which I had taken from the
burnt sloop. Clark had command of her.</p>
<p>From Admiral Saunders I learned that Bigot had recovered from his hurt,
which had not been severe, and of the death of Monsieur Cournal, who had
ridden his horse over the cliff in the dark. From the Admiral I came to
General Wolfe at Montmorenci.</p>
<p>I shall never forget my first look at my hero, my General, that flaming,
exhaustless spirit, in a body so gauche and so unshapely. When I was
brought to him, he was standing on a knoll alone, looking through a glass
towards the batteries of Levis. The first thing that struck me, as he
lowered the glass and leaned against a gun, was the melancholy in the
lines of his figure. I never forget that, for it seemed to me even then
that, whatever glory there was for British arms ahead, there was tragedy
for him. Yet, as he turned at the sound of our footsteps, I almost
laughed; for his straight red hair, his face defying all regularity, with
the nose thrust out like a wedge and the chin falling back from an
affectionate sort of mouth, his tall straggling frame and far from
athletic shoulders, challenged contrast with the compact, handsome,
graciously shaped Montcalm. In Montcalm was all manner of things to charm—all
save that which presently filled me with awe, and showed me wherein this
sallow-featured, pain-racked Briton was greater than his rival beyond
measure: in that searching, burning eye, which carried all the distinction
and greatness denied him elsewhere. There resolution, courage, endurance,
deep design, clear vision, dogged will, and heroism, lived: a bright
furnace of daring resolves and hopes, which gave England her sound desire.</p>
<p>An officer of his staff presented me. He looked at me with piercing
intelligence, and then, presently, his long hand made a swift motion of
knowledge and greeting, and he said:</p>
<p>“Yes, yes, and you are welcome, Captain Moray. I have heard of you, of
much to your credit. You were for years in durance there.”</p>
<p>He pointed towards the town, where we could see the dome of the cathedral
shine, and the leaping smoke and flame of the roaring batteries.</p>
<p>“Six years, your Excellency,” said I.</p>
<p>“Papers of yours fell into General Braddock’s hands, and they tried you
for a spy—a curious case—a curious case! Wherein were they
wrong and you justified, and why was all exchange refused?”</p>
<p>I told him the main, the bare facts, and how, to force certain papers from
me, I had been hounded to the edge of the grave. He nodded, and seemed
lost in study of the mud-flats at the Beauport shore, and presently took
to beating his foot upon the ground. After a minute, as if he had come
back from a distance, he said: “Yes, yes, broken articles. Few women have
a sense of national honour, such as La Pompadour none! An interesting
matter.”</p>
<p>Then, after a moment: “You shall talk with our chief engineer; you know
the town you should be useful to me, Captain Moray. What do you suggest
concerning this siege of ours?”</p>
<p>“Has any attack been made from above the town, your Excellency?”</p>
<p>He lifted his eyebrows. “Is it vulnerable from there? From Cap Rouge, you
mean?”</p>
<p>“They have you at advantage everywhere, sir,” I said. “A thousand men
could keep the town, so long as this river, those mud-flats, and those
high cliffs are there.”</p>
<p>“But above the town—”</p>
<p>“Above the citadel there is a way—the only way: a feint from the
basin here, a sham menace and attack, and the real action at the other
door of the town.”</p>
<p>“They will, of course, throw fresh strength and vigilance above, if our
fleet run their batteries and attack there; the river at Cap Rouge is like
this Montmorenci for defense.” He shook his head. “There is no way, I
fear.”</p>
<p>“General,” said I, “if you will take me into your service, and then give
me leave to handle my little schooner in this basin and in the river
above, I will prove that you may take your army into Quebec by entering it
myself, and returning with something as precious to me as the taking of
Quebec to you.”</p>
<p>He looked at me piercingly for a minute, then a sour sort of smile played
at his lips. “A woman!” he said. “Well, it were not the first time the
love of a wench opened the gates to a nation’s victory.”</p>
<p>“Love of a wife, sir, should carry a man farther.”</p>
<p>He turned on me a commanding look. “Speak plainly,” said he. “If we are to
use you, let us know you in all.”</p>
<p>He waved farther back the officers with him.</p>
<p>“I have no other wish, your Excellency,” I answered him. Then I told him
briefly of the Seigneur Duvarney, Alixe, and of Doltaire.</p>
<p>“Duvarney! Duvarney!” he said, and a light came into his look. Then he
called an officer. “Was it not one Seigneur Duvarney who this morning
prayed protection for his chateau on the Isle of Orleans?” he asked.</p>
<p>“Even so, your Excellency,” was the reply; “and he said that if Captain
Moray was with us, he would surely speak for the humanity and kindness he
and his household had shown to British prisoners.”</p>
<p>“You speak, then, for this gentleman?” he asked, with a dry sort of smile.</p>
<p>“With all my heart,” I answered. “But why asks he protection at this late
day?”</p>
<p>“New orders are issued to lay waste the country; hitherto all property was
safe,” was the General’s reply. “See that the Seigneur Duvarney’s suit is
granted,” he added to his officer, “and say it is by Captain Moray’s
intervention.—There is another matter of this kind to be arranged
this noon,” he continued: “an exchange of prisoners, among whom are some
ladies of birth and breeding, captured but two days ago. A gentleman comes
from General Montcalm directly upon the point. You might be useful
herein,” he added, “if you will come to my tent in an hour.” He turned to
go.</p>
<p>“And my ship, and permission to enter the town, your Excellency?” I asked.</p>
<p>“What do you call your—ship?” he asked a little grimly.</p>
<p>I told him how the sailors had already christened her. He smiled. “Then
let her prove her title to Terror of France,” he said, “by being pilot to
the rest of our fleet, up the river, and you, Captain Moray, be guide to a
footing on those heights”—he pointed to the town. “Then this army
and its General, and all England, please God, will thank you. Your craft
shall have commission as a rover—but if she gets into trouble?”</p>
<p>“She will do as her owner has done these six years, your Excellency: she
will fight her way out alone.”</p>
<p>He gazed long at the town and at the Levis shore. “From above, then, there
is a way?”</p>
<p>“For proof, if I come back alive—”</p>
<p>“For proof that you have been—” he answered meaningly, with an
amused flash of his eyes, though at the very moment a spasm of pain
crossed his face, for he was suffering from incurable disease, and went
about his great task in daily misery, yet cheerful and inspiring.</p>
<p>“For proof, my wife, sir,” said I.</p>
<p>He nodded, but his thoughts were diverted instantly, and he went from me
at once abstracted. But again he came back. “If you return,” said he, “you
shall serve upon my staff. You will care to view our operations,” he
added, motioning towards the intrenchments at the river. Then he stepped
quickly away, and I was taken by an officer to the river, and though my
heart warmed within me to hear that an attack was presently to be made
from the shore not far distant from the falls, I felt that the attempt
could not succeed: the French were too well intrenched.</p>
<p>At the close of an hour I returned to the General’s tent. It was
luncheon-time, and they were about to sit as I was announced. The General
motioned me to a seat, and then again, as if on second thought, made as
though to introduce me to some one who stood beside him. My amazement was
unbounded when I saw, smiling cynically at me, Monsieur Doltaire.</p>
<p>He was the envoy from Quebec. I looked him in the eyes steadily for a
moment, into malicious, unswerving eyes, as maliciously and unswervingly
myself, and then we both bowed.</p>
<p>“Captain Moray and I have sat at meat together before,” he said, with
mannered coolness. “We have played host and guest also: but that was ere
he won our hearts by bold, romantic feats. Still, I dared scarcely hope to
meet him at this table.”</p>
<p>“Which is sacred to good manners,” said I meaningly and coolly, for my
anger and surprise were too deep for excitement.</p>
<p>I saw the General look at both of us keenly, then his marvellous eyes
flashed intelligence, and a grim smile played at his lips a moment. After
a little general conversation Doltaire addressed me:</p>
<p>“We are not yet so overwhelmed with war but your being here again will
give a fillip to our gossip. It must seem sad to you—you were so
long with us—you have broken bread with so many of us—to see
us pelted so. Sometimes a dinner-table is disordered by a riotous shell.”</p>
<p>He bent on torturing me. And it was not hard to do that, for how knew I
what had happened? How came he back so soon from the Bastile? It was
incredible. Perhaps he had never gone, in spite of all. After luncheon,
the matter of exchange of prisoners was gone into, and one by one the
names of the French prisoners in our hands—ladies and gentlemen
apprehended at the chateau were ticked off, and I knew them all save two.
The General deferred to me several times as to the persons and positions
of the captives, and asked my suggestions. Immediately I proposed Mr.
Wainfleet, the chaplain, in exchange for a prisoner, though his name was
not on the list, but Doltaire shook his head in a blank sort of way.</p>
<p>“Mr. Wainfleet! Mr. Wainfleet! There was no such prisoner in the town,” he
said.</p>
<p>I insisted, but he stared at me inscrutably, and said that he had no
record of the man. Then I spoke most forcibly to the General, and said
that Mr. Wainfleet should be produced, or an account of him be given by
the French Governor. Doltaire then said:</p>
<p>“I am only responsible for these names recorded. Our General trusts to
your honour, and you to ours, Monsieur le General.”</p>
<p>There was nothing more to say, and presently the exchanges were arranged,
and, after compliments, Doltaire took his leave. I left the Governor also,
and followed Doltaire. He turned to meet me.</p>
<p>“Captain Moray and I,” he remarked to the officers near, “are old—enemies;
and there is a sad sweetness in meetings like these. May I—”</p>
<p>The officers drew away at a little distance at once before the suggestion
was made, and we were left alone. I was in a white heat, but yet in fair
control.</p>
<p>“You are surprised to see me here,” he said. “Did you think the Bastile
was for me? Tut! I had not got out of the country when we a packet came,
bearing fresh commands. La Pompadour forgave me, and in the King’s name
bade me return to New France, and in her own she bade me get your papers,
or hang you straight. And—you will think it singular—if need
be, I was to relieve the Governor and Bigot also, and work to save New
France with the excellent Marquis de Montcalm.” He laughed. “You can see
how absurd that is. I have held my peace, and I keep my commission in my
pocket.”</p>
<p>I looked at him amazed that he should tell me this. He read my look, and
said:</p>
<p>“Yes, you are my confidant in this. I do not fear you. Your enemy is bound
in honour, your friend may seek to serve himself.” Again he laughed. “As
if I, Tinoir Doltaire—note the agreeable combination of peasant and
gentleman in my name—who held his hand from ambition for large
things in France, should stake a lifetime on this foolish hazard! When I
play, Captain Moray, it is for things large and vital. Else I remain the
idler, the courtier—the son of the King.”</p>
<p>“Yet you lend your vast talent, the genius of those unknown possibilities,
to this, monsieur—this little business of exchange of prisoners,” I
retorted ironically.</p>
<p>“That is my whim—a social courtesy.”</p>
<p>“You said you knew nothing of the chaplain,” I broke out.</p>
<p>“Not so. I said he was on no record given me. Officially I know nothing of
him.”</p>
<p>“Come,” said I, “you know well how I am concerned for him. You quibble;
you lied to our General.”</p>
<p>A wicked light shone in his eyes. “I choose to pass that by, for the
moment,” said he. “I am sorry you forget yourself; it were better for you
and me to be courteous till our hour of reckoning, Shall we not meet some
day?” he said, with a sweet hatred in his tone.</p>
<p>“With all my heart.”</p>
<p>“But where?”</p>
<p>“In yonder town,” said I, pointing.</p>
<p>He laughed provokingly. “You are melodramatic,” he rejoined. “I could hold
that town with one thousand men against all your army and five times your
fleet.”</p>
<p>“You have ever talked and nothing done,” said I. “Will you tell me the
truth of the chaplain?”</p>
<p>“Yes, in private the truth you shall hear,” he said. “The man is dead.”</p>
<p>“If you speak true, he was murdered,” I broke out. “You know well why.”</p>
<p>“No, no,” he answered. “He was put in prison, escaped, made for the river,
was pursued, fought, and was killed. So much for serving you.”</p>
<p>“Will you answer me one question?” said I. “Is my wife well? Is she safe?
She is there set among villainies.”</p>
<p>“Your wife?” he answered, sneering. “If you mean Mademoiselle Duvarney,
she is not there.” Then he added solemnly and slowly: “She is in no fear
of your batteries now—she is beyond them. When she was there, she
was not child enough to think that foolish game with the vanished chaplain
was a marriage. Did you think to gull a lady so beyond the minute’s
wildness? She is not there,” he added again in a low voice.</p>
<p>“She is dead?” I gasped. “My wife is dead?”</p>
<p>“Enough of that,” he answered with cold fierceness. “The lady saw the
folly of it all, before she had done with the world. You—you,
monsieur! It was but the pity of her gentle heart, of a romantic nature.
You—you blundering alien, spy, and seducer!”</p>
<p>With a gasp of anger I struck him in the face, and whipped out my sword.
But the officers near came instantly between us, and I could see that they
thought me gross, ill-mannered, and wild, to do this thing before the
General’s tent, and to an envoy.</p>
<p>Doltaire stood still a moment. Then presently wiped a little blood from
his mouth, and said:</p>
<p>“Messieurs, Captain Moray’s anger was justified; and for the blow he will
justify that in some happier time—for me. He said that I had lied,
and I proved him wrong. I called him a spy and a seducer—he sought
to shame, he covered with sorrow, one of the noblest families of New
France—and he has yet to prove me wrong. As envoy I may not fight
him now, but I may tell you that I have every cue to send him to hell one
day. He will do me the credit to say that it is not cowardice that stays
me.”</p>
<p>“If no coward in the way of fighting, coward in all other things,” I
retorted instantly.</p>
<p>“Well, well, as you may think.” He turned to go. “We will meet there,
then?” he said, pointing to the town. “And when?”</p>
<p>“To-morrow,” said I.</p>
<p>He shrugged his shoulder as to a boyish petulance, for he thought it an
idle boast. “To-morrow? Then come and pray with me in the cathedral, and
after that we will cast up accounts—to-morrow,” he said, with a
poignant and exultant malice. A moment afterwards he was gone, and I was
left alone.</p>
<p>Presently I saw a boat shoot out from the shore below, and he was in it.
Seeing me, he waved a hand in an ironical way. I paced up and down, sick
and distracted, for half an hour or more. I knew not whether he lied
concerning Alixe, but my heart was wrung with misery, for indeed he spoke
with an air of truth.</p>
<p>Dead! dead! dead! “In no fear of your batteries now,” he had said. “Done
with the world!” he had said. What else could it mean? Yet the more I
thought, there came a feeling that somehow I had been tricked. “Done with
the world!” Ay, a nunnery—was that it? But then, “In no fear of your
batteries now”—that, what did that mean but death?</p>
<p>At this distressful moment a message came from the General, and I went to
his tent, trying to calm myself, but overcome with apprehension. I was
kept another half hour waiting, and then, coming in to him, he questioned
me closely for a little about Doltaire, and I told him the whole story
briefly. Presently his secretary brought me the commission for my
appointment to special service on the General’s own staff.</p>
<p>“Your first duty,” said his Excellency, “will be to—reconnoitre; and
if you come back safe, we will talk further.”</p>
<p>While he was speaking I kept looking at the list of prisoners which still
lay upon his table. It ran thus:</p>
<p>Monsieur and Madame Joubert.<br/>
Monsieur and Madame Carcanal.<br/>
Madame Rousillon.<br/>
Madame Champigny.<br/>
Monsieur Pipon.<br/>
Mademoiselle La Rose.<br/>
L’Abbe Durand.<br/>
Monsieur Halboir.<br/>
La Soeur Angelique.<br/>
La Soeur Seraphine.<br/></p>
<p>I know not why it was, but the last three names held my eyes. Each of the
other names I knew, and their owners also. When I looked close, I saw that
where “La Soeur Angelique” now was another name had been written and then
erased. I saw also that the writing was recent. Again, where “Halboir” was
written there had been another name, and the same process of erasure and
substitution had been made. It was not so with “La Soeur Seraphine.” I
said to the General at once, “Your excellency, it is possible you have
been tricked.” Then I pointed out what I had discovered. He nodded.</p>
<p>“Will you let me go, sir?” said I. “Will you let me see this exchange?”</p>
<p>“I fear you will be too late,” he answered. “It is not a vital matter, I
fancy.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps to me most vital,” said I, and I explained my fears.</p>
<p>“Then go, go,” he said kindly. He quickly gave directions to have me
carried to Admiral Saunders’s ship, where the exchange was to be effected,
and at the same time a general passport.</p>
<p>In a few moments we were hard on our way. Now the batteries were silent.
By the General’s orders, the bombardment ceased while the exchange was
being effected, and the French batteries also were still. A sudden
quietness seemed to settle on land and sea, and there was only heard, now
and then, the note of a bugle from a ship of war. The water in the basin
was moveless, and the air was calm and quiet. This heraldry of war was all
unnatural in the golden weather and sweet-smelling land.</p>
<p>I urged the rowers to their task, and we flew on. We passed another boat
loaded with men, singing boisterously a disorderly sort of song, called
“Hot Stuff,” set to the air “Lilies of France.” It was out of touch with
the general quiet:</p>
<p>“When the gay Forty-Seventh is dashing ashore,<br/>
While bullets are whistling and cannons do roar,<br/>
Says Montcalm, ‘Those are Shirleys—I know the lapels.’<br/>
‘You lie,’ says Ned Botwood, ‘we swipe for Lascelles!<br/>
Though our clothing is changed, and we scout powder-puff,<br/>
Here’s at you, ye swabs—here’s give you Hot Stuff!’”<br/></p>
<p>While yet we were about two miles away, I saw a boat put out from the
admiral’s ship, then, at the same moment, one from the Lower Town, and
they drew towards each other. I urged my men to their task, and as we were
passing some of Admiral Saunders’s ships, their sailors cheered us. Then
came a silence, and it seemed to me that all our army and fleet, and that
at Beauport, and the garrison of Quebec, were watching us; for the
ramparts and shore were crowded. We drove on at an angle, to intercept the
boat that left the admiral’s ship before it reached the town.</p>
<p>War leaned upon its arms and watched a strange duel. There was no
authority in any one’s hands save my own to stop the boat, and the two
armies must avoid firing, for the people of both nations were here in this
space between—ladies and gentlemen in the French boat going to the
town, Englishmen and a poor woman or two coming to our own fleet.</p>
<p>My men strained every muscle, but the pace was impossible—it could
not last; and the rowers in the French boat hung over their oars also with
enthusiasm. With the glass of the officer near me—Kingdon of
Anstruther’s Regiment—I could now see Doltaire standing erect in the
boat, urging the boatmen on.</p>
<p>All round that basin, on shore and cliff and mountains, thousands of
veteran fighters—Fraser’s, Otway’s, Townsend’s, Murray’s; and on the
other side the splendid soldiers of La Sarre, Languedoc, Bearn, and
Guienne—watched in silence. Well they might, for in this entr’acte
was the little weapon forged which opened the door of New France to
England’s glory. So may the little talent or opportunity make possible the
genius of the great.</p>
<p>The pain of this suspense grew so, that I longed for some sound to break
the stillness; but there was nothing for minute after minute. Then, at
last, on the halcyon air of that summer day floated the Angelus from the
cathedral tower. Only a moment, in which one could feel, and see also, the
French army praying, then came from the ramparts the sharp inspiring roll
of a drum, and presently all was still again. Nearer and nearer the boat
of prisoners approached the stone steps of the landing, and we were
several hundred yards behind.</p>
<p>I motioned to Doltaire to stop, but he made no sign. I saw the cloaked
figures of the nuns near him, and I strained my eyes, but I could not note
their faces. My men worked on ardently, and presently we gained. But I saw
that it was impossible to reach them before they set foot on shore. Now
their boat came to the steps, and one by one they hastily got out. Then I
called twice to Doltaire to stop. The air was still, and my voice carried
distinctly. Suddenly one of the cloaked figures sprang towards the steps
with arms outstretched, calling aloud, “Robert! Robert!” After a moment,
“Robert, my husband!” rang out again, and then a young officer and the
other nun took her by the arm to force her away. At the sharp instigation
of Doltaire, instantly some companies of marines filed in upon the place
where they had stood, leveled their muskets on us, and hid my beloved wife
from my view. I recognized the young officer who had put a hand upon
Alixe. It was her brother Juste.</p>
<p>“Alixe! Alixe!” I called, as my boat still came on.</p>
<p>“Save me, Robert!” came the anguished reply, a faint but searching sound,
and then no more.</p>
<p>Misery and mystery were in my heart all at once. Doltaire had tricked me.
“Those batteries can not harm her now!” Yes, yes, they could not while she
was a prisoner in our camp. “Done with the world!” Truly, when wearing the
garb of the Sister Angelique. But why that garb? I swore that I would be
within that town by the morrow, that I would fetch my wife into safety,
out from the damnable arts and devices of Master Devil Doltaire, as Gabord
had called him.</p>
<p>The captain of the marines called to us that another boat’s length would
fetch upon us the fire of his men. There was nothing to do, but to turn
back, while from the shore I was reviled by soldiers and by the rabble. My
marriage with Alixe had been made a national matter—of race and
religion. So, as my men rowed back towards our fleet, I faced my enemies,
and looked towards them without moving. I was grim enough that moment, God
knows; I felt turned to stone. I did not stir when—ineffaceable
brutality—the batteries on the heights began to play upon us, the
shot falling round us, and passing over our heads, and musket-firing
followed.</p>
<p>“Damned villains! Faithless brutes!” cried Kingdon beside me. I did not
speak a word, but stood there defiant, as when we first had turned back.
Now, sharply, angrily, from all our batteries, there came reply to the
French; and as we came on with only one man wounded and one oar broken,
the whole fleet cheered us. I steered straight for the Terror of France,
and there Clark and I, he swearing violently, laid plans.</p>
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