een an ominous sight,--the English squadron standing under
full sail out of Tadoussac, and steering downwards as if to intercept
the advancing succor. He had only escaped them by dragging his boat up
the beach and hiding it; and scarcely were they out of sight when the
booming of cannon told him that the fight was begun.

Racked with suspense, the starving tenants of Quebec waited the result;
but they waited in vain. No white sail moved athwart the green solitudes
of Orleans. Neither friend nor foe appeared; and it was not till long
afterward that Indians brought them the tidings that Roquemont's crowded
transports had been overpowered, and all the supplies destined to
relieve their miseries sunk in the St. Lawrence or seized by the
victorious English. Kirke, however, deceived by the bold attitude of
Champlain, had been too discreet to attack Quebec, and after his victory
employed himself in cruising for French fishing-vessels along the
borders of the Gulf.

Meanwhile, the suffering at Quebec increased daily. Somewhat less than a
hundred men, women, and children were cooped up in the fort, subsisting
on a meagre pittance of pease and Indian corn. The garden of the
Heberts, the only thrifty settlers, was ransacked for every root or
seed that could afford nutriment. Months wore on, and in the spring the
distress had risen to such a pitch that Champlain had wellnigh resolved
to leave to the women, children, and sick the little food that remained,
and with the able-bodied men invade the Iroquois, seize one of their
villages, fortify himself in it, and sustain his followers on the buried
stores of maize with which the strongholds of these provident savages
were always furnished.

Seven ounces of pounded pease were now the daily food of each; and,
at the end of May, even this failed. Men, women, and children betook
themselves to the woods, gathering acorns and grubbing up roots. Those
of the plant called Solomon's seal were most in request. Some joined the
Hurons or the Algonquins; some wandered towards the Abenakis of
Maine; some descended in a boat to Gaspe, trusting to meet a French
fishing-vessel. There was scarcely one who would not have hailed the
English as deliverers. But the English had sailed home with their booty,
and the season was so late that there was little prospect of their
return. Forgotten alike by friends and foes, Quebec was on the verge of
extinction.

On the morning of the nineteenth of July, an Ind