ed up to form a high platform or _terre-plein_, whence six
guns, mounted in embrasures, commanded the river. Hither John had
crept, with the support of a stick, to enjoy the sunshine and the
view, and here the Commandant had found him and held him in talk,
walking him to and fro, with pauses now and again beside a gun for a
few minutes' rest.

"But touching this polygon of M. de Montcalm's, he would doubtless
follow Courmontaigne rather than Vauban. The angles, you say, were
boldly advanced?"

"So they appeared to me, monsieur; but you understand that I took no
part--"

"By advancing the angles boldly"--here the Commandant pressed his
finger-tips together by way of illustration--"we allow so much more
play to enfilading fire. I speak only of defence against direct
assault; for of opposing such a structure to artillery the General
could have had no thought."

"Half a dozen six-pounders, well directed, could have knocked it
about his ears in as many minutes."

"That does not detract from his credit. Every general fights with
two heads--his own and his adversary's; and, for the rest, we have to
do what we can do with our material." The Commandant halted and
gazed down whimsically upon the courtyard, in the middle of which his
twenty-five militiamen were being drilled by M. Etienne and Sergeant
Bedard. "My whole garrison, sir! Eh? you seem incredulous.
My whole garrison, I give you my word! Five-and-twenty militiamen to
defend a post of this importance; and up at Fort Frontenac, the very
key of the West, my old friend Payan de Noyan has but a hundred in
command! I do not understand it, sir. Stores we have in abundance,
and ammunition and valuable presents to propitiate the Indians who no
longer exist in this neighbourhood. Yes, and--would you believe
it?--no longer than three months ago the Governor sent up a boatload
of women. It appeared that his Majesty had forwarded them all the
way from France, for wives for his faithful soldiers. I packed them
off, sir, and returned them to M. de Vaudreuil. 'With all submission
to his Majesty's fatherly wisdom,' I wrote, 'the requirements of New
France at this moment are best determined by sterner considerations';
and I asked for fifty regulars to man our defences. M. de Vaudreuil
replied by sending me up one man, and _he_ had but one arm! I made
Noyan a present of him; his notions of fortification were
rudimentary, not to say puerile."

The Commandant paused