"Ah! she's a pretty creature," said the mate; "look there," nodding with his head at the compass, "did'na I tell you? She's nailed there." Then he broke out again: "Ay, she's a flyin' noo; see hoo she's raisin' the light!"
It was, indeed, surprising to see the great beacon rising higher and higher out of the water.
"Is it a good harbor, Bruce?"
"When ye get in," answered the mate; "but it's narrar, it's narrar; ye can pitch a biscuit ashore as ye go through; and inside o't is the 'Nag's Head,' a sunken bit o' rock, with about five feet water; if ye miss that, ye're aw right!" We were now rapidly approaching the beacon, and could fairly see the rocks and beach in the track of its light. On the other side there were great masses of savage surf, whirling high up in the night, the indications of the three islands on the west of the harbor. The captain had climbed up in the rigging to keep a good look-out ahead; the light of the beacon broadened on the deck; we were within the very jaws of the crags and surf; the wild ocean beating against the doors of the harbor; the churning, whirling, whistling danger on either side, lighted up by the glare of the beacon! past we go, and, with a sweep, the "Balaklava" evades the "Nag's Head," and rounding too, drops sail and anchor beside the walls of Louisburgh.
Then the thick fog, which had been pursuing us, came, and enveloped all in obscurity.
"It is lucky," said Captain Capstan, "that it didn't come ten minutes sooner."
CHAPTER V.
Louisburgh—The Great French Fortress—Incidents of the Old French War—Relics of the Siege—Description of the Town—The two Expeditions—A Yankee ruse de guerre—The Rev. Samuel Moody's Grace—Wolfe's Landing—The Fisherman's Hutch—The Lost Coaster—The Fisheries—Picton tries his hand at a fish-pugh.
Nearly a century has elapsed since the fall of Louisburgh. The great American fortress of Louis XV. surrendered to Amherst, Wolfe, and Boscawen in 1758. A broken sea-wall of cut stone; a vast amphitheatre, inclosed within a succession of green mounds; a glacis; and some miles of surrounding ditch, yet remain—the relics of a structure for which the treasury of France paid Thirty Millions of Livres!