While Wolfe was doing his eight days' work of preparation at the Lighthouse Battery, between the 12th and the 20th, Amherst, whose favourite precept was 'slow and sure,' was performing an even more arduous task by building a road from Flat Point to where he intended to make his trenches. This road meandered over the least bad line that could be found in that country of alternate rock, bog, sand, scrub, bush, and marshy ponds. The working party was always a thousand strong, and shifts, of course, were constant. Boscawen landed marines to man the works along the shore, and bluejackets for any handy-man's job required. This proved of great advantage to the army, which had so many more men set free for other duties. The landing of stores went on from sunrise to sunset, whenever the pounding surf calmed down enough. Landing the guns was, of course, much harder still. It accounted for most of the hundred boats that were dashed to pieces against that devouring shore. Thorough and persistent as this work was, however, it gave the garrison of Louisbourg little outward sign of what was happening just beyond the knolls and hillocks. Besides, just at this time, when there was a lull before the storm that was soon to burst from Wolfe and Amherst, both sides had more dramatic things to catch the general eye. First, there was the worthy namesake of 'the saucy Arethusa' in the rival British Navy, the Arethuse, whose daring and skilful captain, Vauquelin, had moored her beside the Barachois, or sea-pond, so that he could outflank Amherst's approach against the right land face of Louisbourg. Then, of still more immediate interest was the nimble little Echo, which tried to run the gauntlet of the British fleet on June 18, a day long afterwards made famous on the field of Waterloo. Drucour had entrusted his wife and several other ladies to the captain of the Echo, who was to make a dash for Quebec with dispatches for the governor of Canada. A muffling fog shut down and seemed to promise her safety from the British, though it brought added danger from that wrecking coast. With infinite precautions she slipped out on the ebb, between the French at the Island Battery and Wolfe's strenuous workers at the Lighthouse Point. But the breeze that bore her north also raised the fog enough to let the Juno and Sutherland sight her and give chase. She crowded on a press of sail till she was overhauled, when she fought her captors till her case was hopeless.