Although it was between two and three o'clock in the morning, the rescued soldier was wrapped up warmly, slung in a hammock, and carried straightway up the heights to the commander's quarters. General Murray was fast asleep, but, having risen and heard the man's story, he ordered the troops under arms on the instant. By daybreak half the English garrison, with ten pieces of cannon, were hurled on the French columns at St. Foye. But in his rashness and thirst for renown, Murray had not counted well the cost. The French had thrice as many soldiers, and although the English fought gallantly and doggedly, they were compelled at last to fall back. When the English columns withdrew again to the city, they had left 1000 dead and dying men on the field of St. Foye. {228} Then began what Murray dreaded most--a new siege of Quebec. Weak his men were with sickness, and feeble with toil, fighting, and hunger, but their spirit was as unquenchable as ever. While Lévis set up his siege guns in position and began a steady bombardment of the city, the English garrison worked unceasingly, officers and privates handling spade and pickaxe in the same trenches together. Not a man of them all was idle. Even the sick in hospital filled sandbags or made wadding for the cannons. The English fire grew hotter every day from the 150 cannon which had been planted upon the walls. All depended now on the reinforcements of troops expected by both sides from England and from France. Whichever arrived first would settle the question of victory. It was on a bright May morning, as Murray sat pondering over his despatches at headquarters, that an officer burst in to tell him that a ship of war had been sighted far down the river. The news spread through the town; all were divided between hope and fear. Was this warship French or was she English? Every eye was strained on the approaching ship, which displayed no colours at her mast-head. Slowly, slowly she drew near, and then hurrah! there unfurled to the wind the crimson flag of England, and the first boom of a salute of twenty-one guns reverberated across the mighty river. She turned out to be the _Lowestoft_ bringing news that a British squadron was at the mouth of the St. Lawrence and would reach Quebec in a few days. "The gladness of the troops," wrote home one of the {229} garrison, "is not to be expressed. Both officers and soldiers mounted the parapet in the face of the enemy and huzzaed, with their hats in the air, for almost an hour. The garrison, the enemy's camp, the bay resounded with our shouts and the thunder of our artillery, and the gunners were so elated that they did nothing but load and fire for a considerable time." But if a French squadron had been first, what a shock to their spirits, what a test of their endurance, which they might not have overborne!