In his letter to his mother that day he wrote: “The enemy puts nothing to risk, and I can’t in conscience put the whole army to risk. He has wisely shut himself up so that I can’t get at him without spilling a torrent of blood, and that perhaps to little or no purpose. The Marquis de Montcalm is at the head of a great number of bad soldiers, and I am at the head of a small number of good ones that wish for nothing so much as to fight him, but the wary old fellow avoids an action.” Early in September Wolfe seemed himself again, though he realized that he had only a few days to live. The French saw the British fleet pass their fort on the way up the river at night, although the cannon of the fort belched lightnings and bellowed thunder at them. Montcalm wondered what the English were going to try to do, after all. “They mean to land somewhere,” he said. Wolfe did “mean to land somewhere,” and that somewhere was the very place Montcalm did not dream of, a steep cliff back of the town. When any one spoke of the danger of the capture of Quebec, the French general would shrug and smile and say, “But the English cannot fly!” One night when it was very dark, sixteen hundred British soldiers came floating down the river in their ships’ boats till they came opposite the town. Wolfe was with them in person, as he had hoped and prayed to be. As they were slowly floating, the young commander repeated the familiar lines by Gray, “The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour-- The paths of glory lead but to the grave.” “I would rather have written those lines,” he said with deep feeling, “than take Quebec to-morrow!” As their boats stole in to the shore, a sentinel called out in French, “Who goes there?” “France,” answered a voice in French. “What regiment?” “The Queen’s,” again in good French, by a Scotchman who had seen service in France. A little later another sentryman challenged them. “What is that?” The Scotchman whispered, “Provision boats. _Sh!_ the English will hear us!” In this way they reached a point at the foot of the steep cliff. Twenty-four men started to climb up where it seemed impossible. As they kept on, others started up after them. Then came others, General Wolfe among the number. In a short time quite a large company, in red coats and Scotch kilts, had reached the top and dragged several small cannon after them. The French felt so safe from attack that the small guard on the Plains of Abraham, as the level top was called, was taken by surprise and easily overcome. [Illustration: THE DEATH OF GENERAL WOLFE ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM. _From the painting by Alonzo Chappel_] An alarm spread. A Frenchman on horseback came dashing over to Montcalm’s headquarters, gasping: “The English--on the Plains of Abraham!”