"That story was falsehood--all," replied the captain; "he was no relation whatever of the famous would-be regicide, who was a peasant of Artois. The name of the spy was Theophile Hautois, not Damiens, and he never was a privateersman, nor served under Thurot, but was a forester of Brittany, and, as some suppose, a robber among the Menez Mountains. His whole narrative, so far as he was concerned, proves an artful forgery, and, like his companion, he was a fully accredited spy of the French authorities, employed to obtain information which his lips can never render them now." The boom of a second cannon now pealed across the Bay. "The commodore has fired another gun and hoisted a signal," said an officer close by. The signal midshipman raised his telescope to the bunting which we saw fluttering at the mainmast-head of the _Essex_. "What is it now--what says the order?" asked several, with the impatience and curiosity natural enough at such a time. "All ships having flat-bottomed boats and landing-stages, _to hoist them out_!" replied the middy, with a kindling eye. "Bravo," added Captain Lindsay; "that seems like work! Ere long we shall have to look to our spurleathers and spatterdashes." CHAPTER XVI. THE LANDING AT CANCALLE. It was very singular that though our armament had been visible off the coasts of Normandy and Brittany for four days, no preparations were made anywhere to oppose us. A strong French fleet lay in the harbour of Brest, but was there blocked up by the squadrons of Lord Anson and Sir E. Hawke, so it might as well have been in the Yellow Sea. Just as the commodore's last signal concerning the boats was hoisted, two troops of French cavalry, and a regiment of infantry, appeared on the heights above the Bay of Cancalle, where we saw their appointments and weapons glittering; but after a time they fell back and disappeared inland. The flat-bottomed boats were soon launched, and the grenadier companies of eleven regiments rendezvoused on board of them, around the _Essex_, the headquarter ship. The commodore now shifted his broad pennant on board the _Success_, a frigate of twenty-two guns, which got under weigh, and stood close inshore to silence a battery of only _three_ guns, which had begun to fire across the bay. These were the first hostile shots I had heard; and I must own that they caused my pulses to quicken, and created an undefined anxiety in my heart; yet I had already stood fire, when so narrowly escaping Abraham Clod's gun on the roof of old Wylie's stable, and that adventure made me smile when I thought of it then. Those three cannons--two 24's and one 12-pounder--were all we had as yet to oppose, and they were in position at the landing-place of the fisher-town or village of Cancalle, which consisted of a group of picturesque little houses, situated at the base of a green hill that overhangs the sea.