"That will be at La Galette," said the Commandant, answering the question in Dominique's eyes. "Come up to your quarters, my children, and get some sleep. We have work before us." He motioned the others to fall back out of hearing while he and Dominique mounted the slope together. "You had audience, then, of the Governor?" he asked.
"He declined to see us, Monseigneur, and I do not blame him, since he could not send us back telling you to fight. Doubtless it does not become one in M. de Vaudreuil's position to advise the other thing— aloud."
"I do not understand you. Why could not M. de Vaudreuil order me to fight?"
Dominique stared at his master. "Why, Monseigneur,—seeing that he sends no troops, it would be a queer message. He could not have the face."
"Yet he must be intending to strike at the English coming from Quebec?"
"They are already arrivéd and encamped at Isle Sainte-Therese below the city, and another army has come down the Richelieu from the south and joined them."
"It is clear as daylight. M. de Vaudreuil must be meaning to attack them instantly, and therefore he cannot spare a detachment—You follow me?"
"It may be so, Monseigneur," Dominique assented doubtfully.
"'May be so'! It must be so! But unhappily he does not know of this third army descending upon him; or, rather, he does not know how near it is. Yet, to win time for him, we must hold up this army at all costs."
"It is I, Monseigneur, who am puzzled. You cannot be intending—"