that he gave the enemy a
month or less to stay, but that he himself had no rest night or day, and
had not had his boots or clothes off for a fortnight. Another Frenchman
was informing his friends that what they knew of that "impetuous, bold,
and intrepid warrior, Monsieur Wolfe," gave them reason to suppose he
would not leave them without another attack.

A suspicious calm brooded over the British squadron off Cap Rouge as
Bougainville watched it from the shore throughout the whole of the 12th.
The men were under orders to drop into their boats at nine, and were
doubtless busy looking to their arms and accoutrements. By a
preconcerted arrangement the day was spent after a very different
fashion in the Basin of Quebec. Constant artillery fire and the
continual movement of troops against various parts of the Beauport lines
engaged the whole attention of Montcalm, who had, in fact, little notion
what a number of men had gone up the river with Wolfe.

When night fell upon the ruined city and the flickering campfires of the
long French lines, the tumult grew louder and the anxiety greater. The
batteries of Point Levis and the guns of Saunders' ships redoubled their
efforts. Amid the roar of the fierce artillery, served with an activity
not surpassed during the whole siege, Montcalm, booted and spurred, with
his black charger saddled at the door, awaited some night attack. The
horse would be wanted yet, but for a longer ride than his master
anticipated, and, as it so turned out, for his last one. Up the river at
Cap Rouge all was silence, a strange contrast to the din below. The
night was fine, but dark, and was some three hours old when a single
light gleamed of a sudden from the Sutherland's main-mast. It was the
signal for sixteen hundred men to drop quietly into their boats. A long
interval of silence and suspense then followed, till at two o'clock the
tide began to ebb, when a second lantern glimmered from Wolfe's ship.
The boats now pushed off and drifted quietly down in long procession
under the deep shadow of the high northern shore.

The ships followed at some distance with the remainder of the force
under Townshend, the Forty-eighth, it will be remembered, awaiting them
below. The distance to be traversed was six miles, and there were two
posts on the cliffs to be passed. French provision-boats had been in the
habit of stealing down in the night, and to this fact, coupled with the
darkness, it seems Wolfe trusted