“L. C. G.”
The note was a mere scrawl, written on a bit of coarse paper and unsealed.
General Murray was much mystified by the communication, and spoke of it to several of his brother officers.
“I believe it is genuine,” said one. “The man was probably a French spy.”
“It is more likely a fraud,” said another. “A fraud gotten up by one of Morris’s friends to clear him.”
Here were the two sides of the matter, and General Murray did not know which side to believe. The examination of Henry threw no new light on the affair, and it was then that one of the officers suggested, in a whisper, that Prent be made to believe that the stranger in the cellar had been caught. The outcome of this the reader already knows.
Henry had been removed before the stranger was mentioned, and he knew nothing of how nearly Prent had come to breaking down and exposing himself.
From the sounds which reached him in his prison, Henry knew that something unusual had occurred to break the quiet monotony of army life in the captured city. Soldiers were hurrying in various directions, and he heard some artillery being dragged down the street by six or eight horses. Drums were rolling, and from a great distance he imagined he heard the sound of firing through the clear, nipping air.
Ever since the English had taken Quebec and signified their intention of holding it, at any cost, there had been rumors that the enemy were coming to the attack before the winter was over. The alarm came in November, when the news went flying in all directions that General Lévis was marching toward the city, at the head of fifteen thousand men.
“He means to capture the city, and has sworn to dine here with his army on Christmas day,” was the report.