ght; yet one watching might have seen smoke issuing from his chimney
toward the stars. The weary New England men did not forage through
these places, nor seek shelter in them. It was impossible to know
where Indians and Frenchmen did not lie in ambush. On the other side
of the blankets which muffled Gaspard's windows, however, firelight
shone with its usual ruddiness, showing the seignior of Beauport
prostrate on his old tenant's bed. Juchereau de Saint-Denis was
wounded, and La Hontan, who was with the skirmishers, and Gaspard had
brought him in the dark down to the farmhouse as the nearest hospital.
Baron La Hontan was skillful in surgery; most men had need to be in
those days. He took the keys, and groped into the seigniory house for
the linen chest, and provided lint and bandages, and brought cordials
from the cellar; making his patient as comfortable as a wounded man
who was a veteran in years could be made in the first fever and thirst
of suffering. La Hontan knew the woods, and crept away before dawn to
a hidden bivouac of Hurons and militia; wiry and venturesome in his
age as he had been in his youth. But Saint-Denis lay helpless and
partially delirious in Gaspard's house all Thursday, while the
bombardment of Quebec made the earth tremble, and the New England
ships were being splintered by Frontenac's cannon; while Sainte-Helene
and his brother themselves manned the two batteries of Lower Town,
aiming twenty-four-pound balls directly against the fleet; while they
cut the cross of St. George from the flagstaff of the admiral, and
Frenchmen above them in the citadel rent the sky with joy; while the
fleet, ship by ship, with shattered masts and leaking hulls, drew off
from the fight, some of them leaving cable and anchor, and drifting
almost in pieces; while the land force, discouraged, sick, and hungry,
waited for the promised help which never came.

Thursday night was so cold that the St. Charles was skimmed with ice,
and hoarfrost lay white on the fields. But Saint-Denis was in the fire
of fever, and Gaspard, slipping like a thief, continually brought him
fresh water from the spring.

He lay there on Friday, while the land force, refreshed by half
rations sent from the almost wrecked fleet, made a last stand,
fighting hotly as they were repulsed from New France. It was twilight
on Friday when Sainte-Helene was carried into Gaspard's house and
laid on the floor. Gaspard felt emboldened to take the blankets from