lie down. No
restlessness, no anxiety marked those scarlet columns, whose patience
and restraint had been for two months in the crucible of a waiting
game. There was no man in all Wolfe's army but knew that final victory
or ruin hung upon the issue of that 13th of September.

From bushes, trees, coverts, and fields of grain came a ceaseless hail
of fire, and there fell upon the ranks a doggedness, a quiet anger,
which settled into grisly patience. These men had seen the stars go
down, the cold mottled light of dawn break over the battered city and
the heights of Charlesbourg; they had watched the sun come up, and
then steal away behind slow-travelling clouds and hanging mist; they
had looked over the unreaped cornfields, and the dull slovenly St.
Charles, knowing full well that endless leagues of country, north and
south, east and west, now lay for the last time in the balance. The
rocky precipice of the St. Lawrence cut off all possibility of
retreat, and their only help was in themselves. Yet no one faltered.

At ten o'clock Montcalm's three columns moved forward briskly, making
a wild rattle--two columns moving towards the left and one towards the
right, firing obliquely and constantly as they advanced. Then came
Wolfe's command to rise, and his army stood up and waited, their
muskets loaded with an extra ball. Suppressed rage filled the ranks as
they stood there and took that damnable fire without being able to
return a shot. Minute after minute passed. Then came the sharp command
to advance. Again the line was halted, and still the withering
discharge of musketry fell upon the long silent palisade of red.

At last, when the French were within forty yards, Wolfe raised his
sword, a command rang down the long line of battle, and with a crash
as of one terrible cannon-shot, the British muskets sang out together.
After the smoke had cleared a little, another volley followed with
almost the same precision. A light breeze lifted the smoke and mist,
and a wayward sunlight showed Montcalm's army retreating like a long
white wave from a rocky shore.

Thus checked and confounded, the French army trembled and fell back in
broken order. Then, with the order to charge, an exultant British
cheer arose, the skirling challenge of the bagpipes and the wild
slogan of the Highlanders sounding high over all. Like sickles of
death, the flashing broadswords of the clansmen clove through and
broke the battalions of La Sarre, and the