Corinne clasped her hands in mute wonder and amaze as the boats shot off from shore, bearing straight down upon the great fire raft—­the most formidable of all the fleet—­which was spouting flame and lead, and blazing like a live volcano, roaring the while like a veritable wild beast, as though animated by a demon of fury.

“They never can go near it; they will be burned alive!” cried the girl, in affright.

But the midshipmen watched the tactics of the boats with eyes full of eager comprehension.

“They will tackle it somehow, you will see,” cried Peter.  “See, they are getting round to the leeward of it, and they will lie off till it has finished its most deadly spouting.  But it is drifting down upon the ships at anchor.  They will never let it get amongst them.  You will see—­you will see!  O brave jack tars, show the mettle you are made of in the eyes of all Quebec this night!”

Corinne could scarcely bear to look, and yet she could not turn her eyes away.  The English sailors, laughing and joking the while, swarmed round the fiery monster in their boats, singing out to one another, and at favourable moments flinging their grappling irons and sheering off again.

“All’s well! all’s well!” they kept calling out, as one after another they fixed their hold; then with united and manful effort, and with a sing-song sound which came rolling over the water with strange effect, they commenced towing their blazing prize away from the ships she was nearing rather too threateningly, whilst great shouts and rounds of cheering went up from those afloat and ashore.

“Oh, well done, well done, brave men!” cried Corinne, roused to a keen enthusiasm; and in one of the pauses of the cheering, when silence had fallen upon the spectators owing to a sudden vicious outrush of flame, which seemed for a moment as though it must overwhelm the gallant English tars, a voice came from one of the tow boats, calling out to a companion in another: 

“I say, Jack, didst thou ever take hell in tow afore?”

The monster raft, flaming and sputtering, together with the other fire ships beyond, was coolly towed ashore by the intrepid sailors, and all were left to burn away harmlessly upon the strand, where they could hurt nothing; whilst peals of laughter and cheering went up from the English camp.

“Poor Monsieur de Vaudreuil!” exclaimed Colin, as he prepared to sail back to the dark city, “I wonder if he has seen the fate of his vaunted fire ships?”

Chapter 4:  Hostilities.

“Alas! alas!” wailed the townsfolk, when the news of the fiasco of the fire ships was made known, “those dogs of English are too much for us upon the water; but let them attempt to meet us on land, and we will show them what we can do!”

“Do they think French soldiers are the only ones who can fight?” asked Arthur, with a note of wondering scorn in his voice, as the sense of these words came to him.  “Well, they will have their wish fast enough, I doubt not!  Wolfe is here; and if he cannot fight, write me down an ass!  They have seen what the sailors can do; now we will show them what our soldiers are good for!”