hotter.

April gave place to May, and the artillery fire continued on the
heights; but, as it grew noisier it grew also less important, for now
the eyes of both commanders were fastened on the river. Two fleets
were racing for Quebec, and she would belong to the first to drop
anchor within her now navigable river.

Then came a day when, as Murray sat brooding by the fire in his
quarters in St. Louis Street, an officer ran in with the news of a
ship of war in the Basin, beating up towards the city. "Whatever she
is," said the General, "we will hoist our colours." Weather had
frayed out the halliards on the flagstaff over Cape Diamond, but a
sailor climbed the pole and lashed the British colours beneath the
truck. By this time men and officers in a mob had gathered on the
ramparts of the Chateau St. Louis, all straining their eyes at a
frigate fetching up close-hauled against the wind.

Her colours ran aloft; but they were bent, sailor-fashion, in a tight
bundle, ready to be broken out when they reached the top-gallant
masthead.

An officer, looking through a glass, cried out nervously that the
bundle was white. But this they knew without telling. Only--what
would the flag carry on its white ground? The red cross? or the
golden fleurs-de-lys?

The halliards shook; the folds flew broad to the wind; and, with a
gasp, men leaped on the ramparts--flung their hats in the air and
cheered--dropped, sobbing, on their knees.

It was the red cross of England.

They were cheering yet and shouting themselves hoarse when the
_Lowestoffe_ frigate dropped anchor and saluted with all her
twenty-four guns. On the heights the French guns answered
spitefully. Levis would not believe. He had brought his
artillery at length into position, and began to knock the defences
vigorously. He lingered until the battleship _Vanguard_ and the
frigate _Diane_ came sailing up into harbour; until the _Vanguard_,
pressing on with the _Lowestoffe_, took or burned the vessels which
had brought his artillery down from Montreal. Then, in the night, he
decamped, leaving his siege-train, baggage, and sick men behind him.
News of his retreat reached Murray at nightfall, and soon the English
guns were bowling round-shot after him in the dusk across the Plains
of Abraham; but by daybreak, when Murray pushed out after him, to
fall on his rear, he had hurried his columns out of reach.

Three months had passed since the flying of the signal fr