the attack on
Quebec! It needed the most exquisite combinations to bring the attacking
force to that point from three separate quarters, in the gloom of night,
at a given moment, and without a sound that could alarm the enemy. Wolfe
withdrew his force from the Montmorenci, embarked them on board his
ships, and made every sign of departure. Montcalm mistrusted these
signs, and suspected Wolfe would make at least one more leap on Quebec
before withdrawing. Yet he did not in the least suspect Wolfe's real
designs. He discussed, in fact, the very plan Wolfe adopted, but
dismissed it by saying, "We need not suppose that the enemy have wings."
The British ships were kept moving up and down the river front for
several days, so as to distract and perplex the enemy. On September 12
Wolfe's plans were complete, and he issued his final orders. One
sentence in them curiously anticipates Nelson's famous signal at
Trafalgar. "Officers and men," wrote Wolfe, "_will remember what their
country expects of them_." A feint on Beauport, five miles to the east
of Quebec, as evening fell, made Montcalm mass his troops there; but it
was at a point five miles west of Quebec the real attack was directed.

At two o'clock at night two lanterns appeared for a minute in the maintop
shrouds of the _Sunderland_. It was the signal, and from the fleet, from
the Isle of Orleans, and from Point Levi, the English boats stole
silently out, freighted with some 1700 troops, and converged towards the
point in the black wall of cliffs agreed upon. Wolfe himself was in the
leading boat of the flotilla. As the boats drifted silently through the
darkness on that desperate adventure, Wolfe, to the officers about him,
commenced to recite Gray's "Elegy":--

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

"Now, gentlemen," he added, "I would rather have written that poem than
take Quebec." Wolfe, in fact, was half poet, half soldier. Suddenly
from the great wall of rock and forest to their left broke the challenge
of a French sentinel--"_Qui vive_?" A Highland officer of Fraser's
regiment, who spoke French fluently, answered the challenge. "_France_."
"_A quel regiment_?" "_De la Reine_," answered the Highlander. As it
happened the French expected a flotilla of provision boats, and after a
little further dialogue, in