"This is a serious business," said Montcalm hurriedly to his aide. Then, spurs to his big black horse, he was galloping furiously along the Beauport road, over the resounding bridge across the St. Charles, up the steep cobblestone streets that lead from Lower to Upper Town, and out by the St. Louis road to the Plains of Abraham. In Quebec all was confusion. _Who_ had given the order for the troops to move out against the English without waiting for Bougainville to come from Cape Rouge? But there they were, huddling, disorderly columns that crowded on each other, filing out of the St. Louis and St. John Gates, with a long string of battalions following Montcalm up from the St. Charles. And Ramezay, who was commandant of the city, refused to send out part of his troops; and Vaudreuil, who was at Beauport, delayed to come; and though Montcalm waited till ten o'clock, Bougainville did not come up from Cape Rouge with his three thousand men. Easy to criticise and say Montcalm should have waited till Bougainville and Vaudreuil came. He could _not_ wait, for Wolfe's position cut his forces in two, and the army was without supplies. With his four thousand five hundred men he accepted fate's challenge. Bagpipes shrilling, English flags waving to the wind, the French soldiers shouting riotously, the two armies moved towards each other. Then the English halted, silent, motionless {272} statues. The men were refreshed, for during the four hours' wait from daylight, Wolfe had permitted them to rest on the grassed plain. The French came bounding forward, firing as they ran, and bending down to reload. The English waited till the French were but forty yards away. "They were not to throw away their fire," Wolfe had ordered. Now forty yards, if you measure it off in your mind's eye, is short space between hostile armies. It is not as wide as the average garden front in a suburban city. Then suddenly the thin red line of the English spoke in a crash of fire. The shots were so simultaneous that they sounded like one terrific crash of ear-splitting thunder. The French had no time to halt before a second volley rent the air. Then a clattering fire rocketed from the British like echoes from a precipice. With wild halloo the British were charging, . . . charging, . . . charging, the Highlanders leading with their broadswords flashing overhead and their mountain blood on fire, Wolfe to the fore of the grenadiers till a shot broke his wrist! Wrapping his handkerchief about the wound as he ran, the victorious young general was dashing forward when a second shot hit him and a third pierced his breast. He staggered a step, reeled, fell to the ground. Three soldiers and an officer ran to his aid and carried him in their arms to the rear. He would have no surgeon. It was useless, he said. "But the day is ours, and see that you keep it," he muttered, sinking back unconscious. A moment later he was roused by