ing the French withdrew and the New Englanders made
their way towards the St. Charles, where vessels were to meet them,
and protect them as they crossed the river and attacked the town in the
rear--help that never came. For Phips, impatient, spent his day in a
terrible cannonading, which did no great damage to the town--or the
cliff. It was a game of thunder, nothing worse, and Walley and Gering
with their men were neglected.

The fight with the ships began again at daybreak. Iberville, seeing
that Walley would not attack, joined Sainte-Helene and Maricourt at
the battery, and one of Iberville's shots brought down the admiral's
flagstaff, with its cross of St. George. It drifted towards the shore,
and Maurice Joval went out in a canoe under a galling fire and brought
it up to Frontenac.

Iberville and Sainte-Helene concentrated themselves on the Six
Friends--the admiral's ship. In vain Phips's gunners tried to dislodge
them and their guns. They sent ball after ball into her hull and through
her rigging; they tore away her mainmast, shattered her mizzenmast, and
handled her as viciously as only expert gunners could. The New Englander
replied bravely, but Quebec was not destined to be taken by bombardment,
and Iberville saw the Six Friends drift, a shattered remnant, out of his
line of fire.

It was the beginning of the end. One by one the thirty-four craft drew
away, and Walley and Gering were left with their men, unaided in the
siege. There was one moment when the cannonading was greatest and the
skirmishers seemed withdrawn, that Gering, furious with the delay,
almost prevailed upon the cautious Walley to dash across the river and
make a desperate charge up the hill, and in at the back door of the
town. But Walley was, after all, a merchant and not a soldier, and would
not do it. Gering fretted on his chain, sure that Iberville was with the
guns against the ships, and would return to harass his New Englanders
soon. That evening it turned bitter cold, and without the ammunition
promised by Phips, with little or no food and useless field-pieces,
their lot was hard.

But Gering had his way the next morning. Walley set out to the Six
Friends to represent his case to the admiral. Gering saw how the men
chafed, and he sounded a few of them. Their wills were with him they had
come to fight, and fight they would, if they could but get the chance.
With a miraculous swiftness the whispered word went through the lines.
Gerin