“It is naught,” answered Fritz, faintly but cheerfully; “I would care no whit but that it will keep me from the fight.

“I have left John Stark in command, sir,” he added to the General; “the men are perfectly steady when he directs their movements.”

Wolfe nodded.  He knew the intrepidity and cool courage of the Ranger.  There would be no blundering where Stark held the command.

“Care for your patient well,” said the young General to a surgeon who came hurrying up at the moment; “Captain Neville is too good a soldier and officer for us to lose.”

Then turning to Humphrey, who was acting in the capacity of aide-de-camp, he said in a quick undertone: 

“If anything should happen to me in the battle, let Brigadier Moncton know that I recommend Captain Neville for promotion.”

Then he turned his attention towards the oncoming tide of battle, knowing that the great crisis for which he had been waiting all these long months was now upon him.

The French were forming up along the opposite ridge, which hid the city from view.  Wolfe took in their disposition at a glance, and a grim smile formed itself upon his lips.  He saw that though the centre of the three bodies forming up into order was composed entirely of regular troops, both flanks were regulars intermixed with Canadians; and for the Canadian militia in the open he had an unbounded contempt.  Moreover, he noted that instead of waiting until they were in good and compact order, they began almost immediately to advance, and that without any of the method and precision so necessary in an attack upon a well-posted and stationary foe.

He passed along the word of command to his own officers, instructing them how to act, and stood watching with the breathless intensity of a man who knows that the crisis of a mighty destiny is at hand.

The moment the French soldiers got within range they commenced to fire; not as one man, in a crashing volley, but wildly, irregularly, excitedly, uttering cries and shouts the while—­a trick caught from their Indian allies, who used noise as one of their most effective weapons.

“Bah!” cried Wolfe, with a sudden exclamation of mingled contempt and amusement; “look there!  Saw you ever such soldiers as these?”

Those about him looked, and a hoarse laugh broke from them, and seemed to run along the ranks of immovable red-coats drawn up like a wall, and coolly reserving their fire.

The gust of laughter was called forth by the action of the Canadian recruits, who, immediately upon discharging their pieces, flung themselves down upon the ground to reload, throwing their companions into the utmost confusion, as it was almost impossible to continue marching without trampling upon their prostrate figures.

“I would sooner trust my whole fate to one company of regulars,” exclaimed Wolfe, “than attempt to fight with such soldiers as these!  They are fit only for their native forests; and were I in command, back they should go there, quick march.”