ned
with a bunch of painted feathers dangling from the top of his head. He
and his companions used the scalping-knife as freely as the Indians
themselves; nor were the New England rangers much behind them in this
respect, till an order came from Wolfe forbidding "the inhuman practice
of scalping, except when the enemy are Indians, or Canadians dressed
like Indians."

A part of the fleet worked up into the Basin, beyond the Point of
Orleans; and here, on the warm summer nights, officers and men watched
the cannon flashing and thundering from the heights of Montmorenci on
one side, and those of Pont Levi on the other, and the bombs sailing
through the air in fiery semicircles. Often the gloom was lighted up by
the blaze of the burning houses of Quebec, kindled by incendiary shells.
Both the lower and the upper town were nearly deserted by the
inhabitants, some retreating into the country, and some into the suburb
of St. Roch; while the Ursulines and Hospital nuns abandoned their
convents to seek harborage beyond the range of shot. The city was a prey
to robbers, who pillaged the empty houses, till an order came from
headquarters promising the gallows to all who should be caught. News
reached the French that Niagara was attacked, and that the army of
Amherst was moving against Ticonderoga. The Canadians deserted more and
more. They were disheartened by the defensive attitude in which both
Vaudreuil and Montcalm steadily persisted; and accustomed as they were
to rapid raids, sudden strokes, and a quick return to their homes, they
tired of long weeks of inaction. The English patrols caught one of them
as he was passing the time in fishing. "He seemed to be a subtle old
rogue," says Knox, "of seventy years of age, as he told us. We plied him
well with port wine, and then his heart was more open; and seeing that
we laughed at the exaggerated accounts he had given us, he said he
'wished the affair was well over, one way or the other; that his
countrymen were all discontented, and would either surrender, or
disperse and act a neutral part, if it were not for the persuasions of
their priests and the fear of being maltreated by the savages, with whom
they are threatened on all occasions.'" A deserter reported on the
nineteenth of July that nothing but dread of the Indians kept the
Canadians in the camp.

Wolfe's proclamation, at first unavailing, was now taking effect. A
large number of Canadian prisoners, brought in on the twen