The most of the English fleet was working up and down with the tide between the western limits of Quebec and Cape Rouge, nine miles away. Bougainville's force was increased to three thousand men, and he was ordered to keep especial watch westward. The steepness of the precipice was guard enough near the town. Wednesday, the 12th of September, the English troops were ordered to hold themselves in readiness. They passed the day cleaning their arms, and were ordered not to speak after nightfall or permit a sound to be heard from the ranks. Admiral Saunders with the main fleet was to feign attack on the east side of the city. Admiral Holmes with Wolfe's army, now numbering not four thousand men, was to glide down with the tide from Cape Rouge above Quebec. Because the main fleet lay on the east side Montcalm felt sure the attack would come from that quarter. Deserters had brought word to Wolfe that some flatboats with provisions were coming down the river to Quebec that night. Here, then, the position! Saunders on the east side, opposite Beauport, feigning attack; Montcalm watching him from the Beauport cliffs; Wolfe nine miles up the river west of the city; Bougainville watching him, watching too for those provisions, for Quebec was down to empty larder. It is said that as Wolfe rested in his ship, the _Sutherland_, off Cape Rouge, he felt strange premonition of approaching death, and repeated the words of Gray's "Elegy,"--"The paths of glory lead but to the grave,"--but this has been denied. Certainly he had such strange consciousness of impending death that, taking a miniature of his fiancée from his breast, he asked a fellow-officer to return it to her. About midnight the tide began to ebb, and two lanterns were hung as a sign from the masthead of the _Sutherland_. Instantly all the ships glided silent as the great river down with the tide. The night was moonless. Near the little bridle path now known as Wolfe's Cove the ships draw {270} ashore. Sharp as iron on stone a sentry's voice rings out, "Who goes?" "The French," answers an officer, who speaks perfect French. "What regiment?" "The Queen's," replies the officer, who chances to know that Bougainville has a regiment of that name. Thinking they were the provision transports, this sentry was satisfied. Not so another. He ran down to the water's edge, and peering through the darkness called, "Why can't you speak louder?" "Hush you! We 'll be overheard," answers the English officer in French. Thus the English boats glided towards the little bridle path that led up to the rear of the city. Wolfe's Cove is not a path steep as a stair up the face of a rock, as the most of the schoolbooks teach; it is a little weed-grown, stony gully, easy to climb, but slant and narrow, where I have walked many a night to drink from the spring near the foot of the cliff.