"Thar!" he exclaimed. "The fourth time. Don't you hear it, louder than before?" A low, deep note which certainly differed from that of the thunder now came to the ears of Major Braithwaite, and his own experience of battle fields told him its nature. "It is cannon! it is surely cannon!" he exclaimed joyously. "And you are right! It is the fleet coming to our relief! The boy got through!" Major Braithwaite's face glowed, and so did that of Gregory Wilmot, who was also now sure that they had heard the sound of the white man's great guns. But they kept it to themselves for the present. There must be no false hope, no raising of the garrison into joy merely to let it fall back deeper into gloom. So they waited, and the far note of the cannon did not come again, although they pressed themselves against the wooden bastion and strained ears to hear. The heart of Major Braithwaite gradually sank again. It might have been an illusion. A heart so eager to hear might have deceived the ear into hearing. The darkness seemed to have closed in thicker and heavier than ever. The flashes of lightning, although as vivid as before, were not so frequent, but the wind rose, and its shrieking got upon the ears of the three. "I wish it would stop!" said the Major angrily. "I want to hear something else! Was it imagination about the cannon? Could we have deceived ourselves into hearing what we wanted to hear? Is such a thing possible?" The scout shook his head. "It wuzn't no deception," he said. "I shorely heard cannon. Mebbe they've quit firin' 'em, an' are comin' on now with the rifles an' the pistols. It must be that. I'm like you, Major, I believe in that boy, Henry Ware, an' he's comin' right now with the fleet to save all them women an' children behind us." "God grant that you may be right," said Major Braithwaite devoutly. The three still leaned against the crest of the wooden wall, and the rain yet drove upon them, unnoticed. They listened, with every nerve taut, for a sound that did not come, and whenever the lightning flashed they strained their eyes down the dark reaches of the river to see something that they did not see. Over an hour passed, and they scarcely moved. Then the scout straightened up. "Now I hear 'em," he said, "Listen! It's not the cannon that's talkin'. It's the rifles. I tell you that fleet, with the boy on it, is comin'. It's shoved its way right through all them nests uv hornets an' wasps. Hear that. Ef that ain't the crack uv rifles, then I'm no livin' man." Sounds, faint but with a clear distinct note, came to them, and again Major Braithwaite knew that he could not be mistaken. It was like the distant fire of the skirmishers when the Anglo-American army advanced through the woods upon Ticonderoga, and he had heard the same sound in their front when they first stood upon the Plains of Abraham. It was rifle fire, the lashing whip-like crack of the western rifles, and it was a rifle fire that was advancing.