ere hard on our way. Now the batteries were silent.
By the General's orders, the bombardment ceased while the exchange
was being effected, and the French batteries also were still. A sudden
quietness seemed to settle on land and sea, and there was only heard,
now and then, the note of a bugle from a ship of war. The water in the
basin was moveless, and the air was calm and quiet. This heraldry of war
was all unnatural in the golden weather and sweet-smelling land.

I urged the rowers to their task, and we flew on. We passed another boat
loaded with men, singing boisterously a disorderly sort of song, called
"Hot Stuff," set to the air "Lilies of France." It was out of touch with
the general quiet:

"When the gay Forty-Seventh is dashing ashore,
While bullets are whistling and cannons do roar,
Says Montcalm, 'Those are Shirleys--I know the lapels.'
'You lie,' says Ned Botwood, 'we swipe for Lascelles!
Though our clothing is changed, and we scout powder-puff,
Here's at you, ye swabs--here's give you Hot Stuff!'"

While yet we were about two miles away, I saw a boat put out from the
admiral's ship, then, at the same moment, one from the Lower Town, and
they drew towards each other. I urged my men to their task, and as we
were passing some of Admiral Saunders's ships, their sailors cheered us.
Then came a silence, and it seemed to me that all our army and fleet,
and that at Beauport, and the garrison of Quebec, were watching us;
for the ramparts and shore were crowded. We drove on at an angle, to
intercept the boat that left the admiral's ship before it reached the
town.

War leaned upon its arms and watched a strange duel. There was no
authority in any one's hands save my own to stop the boat, and the two
armies must avoid firing, for the people of both nations were here in
this space between--ladies and gentlemen in the French boat going to the
town, Englishmen and a poor woman or two coming to our own fleet.

My men strained every muscle, but the pace was impossible--it could not
last; and the rowers in the French boat hung over their oars also
with enthusiasm. With the glass of the officer near me--Kingdon of
Anstruther's Regiment--I could now see Doltaire standing erect in the
boat, urging the boatmen on.

All round that basin, on shore and cliff and mountains, thousands of
veteran fighters--Fraser's, Otway's, Townsend's, Murray's; and on the
other side the splendid soldiers of La Sarre, Languedoc, B