The French guarded the river banks, and it would require great skill to land; yet that night, after sunset, a boat ran along the coast, and when the sentries challenged it, the answer seemed satisfactory; for it passed on up the river towards Quebec, without apparently attempting to avoid observation. One or two shots were fired at it from English ships, but in the darkness they evidently missed it, for the boat shot past and suddenly disappeared in a sort of cove, on either side of which high cliffs rose almost perpendicularly.
Roger had been absent four days. It was the evening of the 11th of September. Autumn was settling down over the land, to be succeeded by the bitter Canadian winter.
“He’s failed, probably been killed; he’d have been back before now if he had discovered anything,” said Wolfe, in a voice of hopeless despair, standing on the foredeck of the Sutherland. John Jervis, Earl of St. Vincent, and George Carleton, Lord Dorchester, the friends of his boyhood, were beside him.
“You have no right to speak so positively. It is only four days since he started, and a man like Roger is certain to have taken his precautions; he is not likely easily to allow himself to be trapped,” said the former; and even while he spoke a shrill whistle fell on their ears, and, looking down, they saw a canoe with an Indian in it lying close under the bulwarks.
“It’s he!” said Lord Dorchester; and a few seconds later Roger stood in their midst.
“Well, any news?” said Wolfe, coming forward.
“I should not be here now if I had none,” said Roger, in a low voice; “but first let me take off these trappings and give me some food. I have touched nothing for twenty-four hours, and then only a crust of bread.”
“Come into my cabin,” said Wolfe, and he led the way.
Half an hour later the chief officers on board the Sutherland were summoned to the General’s cabin.
Wolfe was walking up and down, two deep red spots on his pale thin cheeks, his eyes glittering.