"The enemy, sir; they give way everywhere." The general roused himself by a superhuman effort. "Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton," he said in quick terms of command. "Tell him to march Webb's regiment down to Charles River to cut off their retreat from the bridge." Then, turning on his side, he whispered faintly, "Now, God be praised, I die in peace." In a few moments the gallant Wolfe was no more. How fared it meanwhile with his brave enemy, Montcalm? As he galloped about on horseback the tide of French fugitives pressed him back towards the gates of Quebec. He was nearing the walls when a shot passed through his body. Mortally wounded though he was, he kept himself seated in the saddle, two soldiers supporting him on either side. As his life-blood streamed from Montcalm's body down his horse's limbs, the frightened crowd of women within the gates exclaimed in grief and terror, "The Marquis is killed! the Marquis is killed!" "It is nothing, it is nothing," replied the dying Montcalm: "do not be troubled for me, my good friends." When, some hours later, his spirit had breathed his last, Montcalm was buried under the floor of the Ursuline Convent. No workman could be found during the panic to make a coffin, and so an {220} old servant gathered a few boards and nailed them together into a rough box. No bell tolled, no cannon fired a salute as Montcalm was laid to eternal rest. Not thus was the funeral of the victorious Wolfe. His body was embalmed and borne across the sea to England, where the greatest and most powerful gathered to do him honour and reverence at his funeral in Westminster Abbey. Yet history has struck the balance. To-day in Quebec, marking the scene of the death-struggle on that fateful September day, a single shaft of stone rises to heaven to commemorate at the same time a victory and a defeat. On the one side is graven the single word "MONTCALM" and on the other "WOLFE." {221} CHAPTER XV LÉVIS AND THE NOBLES RETIRE TO OLD FRANCE It was while Montcalm, high-spirited and valorous, yet lay dying, that Vaudreuil, now quartered on the Beauport Road, called a council of war. Tumult, fear, and confusion reigned. Montcalm, seeing the sands of his life fast running out, despatched a brief reply. "You have a threefold choice," he said: "to fight the English again, to retreat to Jacques Cartier, or to surrender the colony."