Little was spoken by the General or his subordinates.  Wolfe had been suffering much during the past days from acute rheumatism, and from the inward malady which gave him little rest night or day.  His face looked very thin and drawn, but the fire in his eyes was unquenchable, and it was plain that his mind was not with himself, but with the enterprise, carefully thought out and courageously planned, which was to be attempted that night.

“Take me as near to the town batteries as is safe,” he said; and the boat’s head was directed towards the northern shore.

“I believe it will be done,” he said, after a keen inspection of the batteries through his glass.  “The guns are almost all pointed towards Point Levi.  If the ships make good way with wind and tide, as they should, they will glide so fast along that, even if sighted, they will almost have passed before the guns can be depressed sufficiently to be dangerous.”

Then they made for Point Levi, and Wolfe stepped ashore, to be received by Moncton, who escorted him to the batteries to see their preparations.  The three friends, released from attendance upon him, took up a position from which they could command a view of what passed, in so far as the darkness of night should permit them any view.  A pall of cloud hung in the sky, and the shades of evening fell early.  Yet it seemed long to the anxious watchers before the darkness blotted out the view of the distant city, and of the panorama of dancing water beneath.

Generally the guns from Point Levi boomed all day, but were silent at night, leaving the camp to repose.  But though they had ceased to fire at sundown, darkness had no sooner fallen than the iron mouths opened in a prolonged and terrific roar, a blaze of yellow light glowed along the batteries, and the watchers from the strand heard the huge shells screaming overhead as they hurtled through the air, carrying with them their terrible messages of death and destruction.

The noise was terrific; the sight was terrible in its fierce grandeur.  The three companions had seen many strange and fearful things during the past years, but perhaps they had never before been quite so near to a battery spouting out its leaden rain in great broad flashes of lambent flame.

Julian and Fritz could not turn their eyes from the magnificent sight; but Humphrey, after one glance, turned his upon the dark waterway, and it was his voice that spoke at last in accents of keen emotion.

“Here come the ships.”

The others could not see for a while—­their eyes were dazzled; and in the roar and rattle of artillery overhead nothing could be heard of the silent advance of those darkened hulls as they slipped like ghosts through the water.  They were as close to the south bank as it was safe to keep, and followed Killick’s sloop with as much precision as possible.  The strong tide beneath them, and the light, favouring wind, bore them past at a rate that the spectators