Next morning word was brought that Phips was coming steadily up, and
would probably arrive that day. All was bustle in the town, and prayers
and work went on without ceasing. Late in the afternoon the watchers
from the rock of Quebec saw the ships of the New England fleet slowly
rounding the point of the Island of Orleans.

To the eyes of Sir William Phips and his men the great fortress, crowned
with walls, towers, and guns, rising three hundred feet above the
water, the white banner flaunting from the chateau and the citadel, the
batteries, the sentinels upon the walls--were suggestive of stern work.
Presently there drew away from Phips's fleet a boat carrying a subaltern
with a flag of truce, who was taken blindfold to the Chateau St. Louis.
Frontenac's final words to the youth were these: "Bid your master do his
best, and I will do mine."

Disguised as a river-man, Iberville himself, with others, rowed the
subaltern back almost to the side of the admiral's ship, for by the
freak of some peasants the boat which had brought him had been set
adrift. As they rowed from the ship back towards the shore, Iberville,
looking up, saw, standing on the deck, Phips and George Gering. He had
come for this. He stood up in his boat and took off his cap. His long
clustering curls fell loose on his shoulders, and he waved a hand with
a nonchalant courtesy. Gering sprang forward. "Iberville!" he cried, and
drew his pistol.

Iberville saw the motion, but did not stir. He called up, however, in a
clear, distinct voice: "Breaker of parole, keep your truce!"

"He is right," said Gering quietly; "quite right." Gering was now hot
for instant landing and attack. Had Phips acted upon his advice the
record of the next few days might have been reversed. But the disease
of counsel, deliberation, and prayer had entered into the soul of
the sailor and treasure-hunter, now Sir William Phips, governor of
Massachusetts. He delayed too long: the tide turned; there could be no
landing that night.

Just after sundown there was a great noise, and the ringing of bells and
sound of singing came over the water to the idle fleet.

"What does it mean?" asked Phips of a French prisoner captured at
Tadousac.

"Ma foi! That you lose the game," was the reply. "Callieres, the
governor of Montreal, with his Canadians, and Nicholas Perrot with his
coureurs du bois have arrived. You have too much delay, monsieur."

In Quebec, when this contingent arrived,