St.
John's, Chambly, Sorel. Montreal had capitulated without a blow.
And so success had swept him on to the cliffs of Quebec--there to
dash itself and fail as a spent wave.

He would not acknowledge this; not though smallpox had broken out
among his troops and they, remembering that their term of service
was all but expired, began to talk of home; not though his guns,
mounted on frozen mounds, had utterly failed to batter a way into the
city. As a subaltern he had idolised Wolfe, and here on the ground
of Wolfe's triumphant stroke he still dreamed of rivalling it.
In Quebec a cautious phlegmatic British General sat and waited,
keeping, as the moonless nights drew on, his officers ready against
surprise. For a week they had slept in their clothes and with their
arms beside them.

From the lower town of Quebec a road, altered since beyond
recognition, ran along the base of Cape Diamond between the cliff and
the river. As it climbed it narrowed to a mere defile, known as
Pres-de-Ville, having the scarped rock on one hand and on the other a
precipice dropping almost to the water's edge. Across this defile
the British had drawn a palisade and built, on the edge of the pass
above, a small three-pounder battery, with a _hangar_ in its rear to
shelter the defenders.

Soon after midnight on the last morning of the year, a man came
battling his way down from the upper town to the Pres-de-Ville
barrier. A blinding snow-storm raged through the darkness, and
although it blew out of the north the cliff caught its eddies and
beat them back swirling about the useless lantern he carried.
The freshly fallen snow encumbering his legs held him steady against
the buffets of the wind; and foot by foot, feeling his way--for he
could only guess how near lay the edge of the precipice--he struggled
toward the stream of light issuing from the _hangar_.

As he reached it the squall cleared suddenly. He threw back his
snow-caked hood and gazed up at the citadel on the cliff. The walls
aloft there stood out brilliant against the black heavens, and he
muttered approvingly; for it was he who, as Officer of the Works, had
suggested to the Governor the plan of hanging out lanterns and
firepots from the salient angles of the bastions; and he flattered
himself that, if the enemy intended an assault up yonder, not a dog
could cross the great ditch undetected.

But it appeared to him that the men in the _hangar_ were not watching
too aler