hould be useful to me, Captain Moray. What do you suggest
concerning this siege of ours?"

"Has any attack been made from above the town, your Excellency?"

He lifted his eyebrows. "Is it vulnerable from there? From Cap Rouge,
you mean?"

"They have you at advantage everywhere, sir," I said. "A thousand men
could keep the town, so long as this river, those mud-flats, and those
high cliffs are there."

"But above the town--"

"Above the citadel there is a way--the only way: a feint from the basin
here, a sham menace and attack, and the real action at the other door of
the town."

"They will, of course, throw fresh strength and vigilance above, if our
fleet run their batteries and attack there; the river at Cap Rouge is
like this Montmorenci for defense." He shook his head. "There is no way,
I fear."

"General," said I, "if you will take me into your service, and then give
me leave to handle my little schooner in this basin and in the river
above, I will prove that you may take your army into Quebec by entering
it myself, and returning with something as precious to me as the taking
of Quebec to you."

He looked at me piercingly for a minute, then a sour sort of smile
played at his lips. "A woman!" he said. "Well, it were not the first
time the love of a wench opened the gates to a nation's victory."

"Love of a wife, sir, should carry a man farther."

He turned on me a commanding look. "Speak plainly," said he. "If we are
to use you, let us know you in all."

He waved farther back the officers with him.

"I have no other wish, your Excellency," I answered him. Then I told him
briefly of the Seigneur Duvarney, Alixe, and of Doltaire.

"Duvarney! Duvarney!" he said, and a light came into his look. Then he
called an officer. "Was it not one Seigneur Duvarney who this morning
prayed protection for his chateau on the Isle of Orleans?" he asked.

"Even so, your Excellency," was the reply; "and he said that if Captain
Moray was with us, he would surely speak for the humanity and kindness
he and his household had shown to British prisoners."

"You speak, then, for this gentleman?" he asked, with a dry sort of
smile.

"With all my heart," I answered. "But why asks he protection at this
late day?"

"New orders are issued to lay waste the country; hitherto all property
was safe," was the General's reply. "See that the Seigneur Duvarney's
suit is granted," he added to his officer, "and say it is by Captain
Mora