The enforced inaction exasperates Wolfe, whose health is failing him, and who sees the season passing, no nearer the object of his ambition than when he came. As he had stormed the batteries of Louisburg, so now he decides to storm the heights of Montmorency. To any one who has stood on the knob of rock above the gorge where the cataract plunges to the St. Lawrence, or has scrambled down the bank slippery with spray, and watched the black underpool whirl out to the river, Wolfe's venture must seem madness; for French troops lined the intrenchments above the cliff, and below a redoubt or battery had been built. Below the cataract, when the tide ebbed, was a place which might be forded. From sunrise to sunset all the last days of July, Wolfe's cannon boomed from Lévis across the city, from the fleet in mid channel, from the land camp on the east side of Montmorency. Montcalm rightly guessed, this presaged a night assault. To hide his design, Wolfe kept his transports shifting up and down the St. Lawrence, as if to land at Beauport halfway to the city. All the same, two armed transports, as if by chance, managed to get themselves stranded just opposite the redoubt below the cliff, where their cannon would protect a landing. Montcalm saw the move and strengthened the troops behind the earthworks on the {267} top of the cliff. Toward sunset the tide ebbed, and at that time cannon were firing from all points with such fury that the St. Lawrence lay hidden in smoke. As the air cleared, two thousand men were seen wading and fording below the falls. There was a rush of the tall grenadiers for the redoubt. The French retreated firing, and the cliff above poured down an avalanche of shots. At that moment Wolfe suffered a cruel and unforeseen check. A frightful thunderstorm burst on the river, lashing earth and air to darkness. It was impossible to see five paces ahead or to aim a shot. The cliff roared down with miniature rivulets and the slippery clay bank gave to every step of the climbers slithering down waist-deep in mud and weeds. Powder was soaked. As the rain ceased, Indians were seen sliding down the cliff to scalp the wounded. Wolfe ordered a retreat. The drums rolled the recall and the English escaped pellmell, the French hooting with derision at the top of the banks, the English yelling back strong oaths for the enemy to come out of its rat hole and fight like men. At the ford the men, soaked like water rats, and a sorry rabble, got into some sort of rank and burned the two stranded vessels as they passed back to the east side. In less than an hour four hundred and forty-three men had fallen, the most of them killed, many both dead and wounded, into the hands of the Indian scalpers.