; 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 Ar