e fell. And there was more. A mysterious
visitor had called upon the Governor in the small hours. A long
conference had taken place between them. The Governor was in a towering
rage, and the stranger had departed upon another errand as singular as
that which had brought him to the Chateau. These and other more
fantastic rumors flew from mouth to mouth and from one end of the city
to the other. It is wonderful how near the truth of things above them
the ignorant crowd can come, and how powerful is the instinct of great
events in vulgar minds. By ten o'clock Quebec was in an uproar, and
Cathedral-square was full of people.

Facing the Square from the east was the barracks. But no signs of
commotion were visible there. Two sentries walked up and down their long
beats as quietly as if on parade. Privates who were off duty stood
leaning against the wall or the door-frames of the building, with their
hands in their pockets and one leg resting over the other. Some even
smoked their pipes with that half-blank, half-truculent expression which
people find so provoking in public officials at times of popular
excitement. Still a close inspection showed that the military were
busier than usual. Patrol guards issued from the courtyard at more
frequent intervals, and the knowing ones observed that they were
doubled. It was noticed also that more parts of the city were being
guarded than the day before. For instance, fully one hundred men were
detached for service along the line of the river where previously there
were few or none. Officers, too, were constantly riding to and from the
barracks, evidently carrying orders. Passing through the Square, they
moved slowly, but in the side streets accelerated their pace.

The forenoon thus wore away. The sky kept on thickening and lowering
until it broke into a snow-storm. A light east wind arose, and the white
flakes tossed and whirled, blotting out the lines of the horizon. The
heights of Levis melted in the distance, the bed of the river was
surmounted by a wall of vapor, and the tall rock of the citadel wavered
like a curtain of gauze. What a delicious sense of isolation is produced
by an abundant snowfall. It hems you in from all the world. You extend
your hand feeling for your neighbor, and you touch nothing but a
palpable mist. You raise your face to the heavens, and the soft touch of
the flossy drops makes you close your eyes as in a dream. The great
crowd in the Square was thus brok