“O Colin, what have you seen?”

In a few moments more he was able to speak.

“I have seen the battle!” he gasped; “I have seen it all.  I could not have believed it would have been fought so soon.  I have seen something that these people would rejoice to know, but I shall not tell them.  I have seen the fall of General Wolfe!”

Madame Drucour uttered a short exclamation of dismay.

“General Wolfe killed!  Colin, art thou sure?”

“Not sure that he is dead, only that he fell, and was carried away by his men.  He was heading the charge, as a brave General should.  Oh, had you seen how that battle was directed, you could not but have admired him, whether friend or foe!  It teaches one what war can be to see such generalship as that.”

“He is a great man,” said Madame Drucour softly; “I have always maintained that.  Pray Heaven his life be spared, for he will be a merciful and gallant victor; and if he fall, we may not meet such generous, chivalrous kindness from others.”

“Here come the soldiers!” cried Corinne, who from a little vantage ground could see over the battlements.  “Ah, how they run! as though the enemy were at their heels.

“Are you men? are you soldiers?  For shame! for shame!  To run like sheep when none pursues!  Now indeed will I call myself French no longer; I will be a British subject like my mother.  It is not willingly that I desert a losing cause; but I cannot bear such poltroonery.  When have the English ever fled like this before us?  Oh, it is a shame! it is a disgrace!”

“Ah, if you could have seen the English soldiers!” cried Colin, with eager enthusiasm; “I never heard a volley delivered as theirs was!  They never wasted a shot.  They stood like a rock whilst the French charged across to them, firing all the time.  And when they did fire, it was like a cannon shot; and after that, our men seemed to have no spirit left in them.  When the smoke of the second volley cleared off, I could scarce believe my eyes.  The dead seemed to outnumber the living; and these were flying helter-skelter this way and that!”

“But did not the General strive to rally them?”

“Doubtless he did.  Our Marquis is a brave soldier and an able General; but what can one man do?  Panic had seized the troops; and if you had heard the sound of cheering from the ranks of the English, and that strange yell from those wild Highlanders as they dashed in pursuit, you would have understood better what the soldiers felt like.  They ran like sheep—­they are running still.  I saw that if I were to have a chance of bringing you the news, I must use all my powers, or I should be jammed in the mass of flying humanity making for the city; and since the English are not very far behind, I had need to make good my retreat.”

It was plain that Colin was only a little in advance of a portion of the defeated army, whose soldiers were now flocking back to the city, spreading panic everywhere.