“Send a boat to search,” was the reply. “If he is dead”—the General took off his hat “we will, please God, bury him within the French citadel to-morrow.”
But McGilveray was alive, and in half-an-hour he was brought aboard the flag-ship, safe and sober. The General praised him for his courage, and told him that the charge against him should be withdrawn.
“You’ve wiped all out, McGilveray,” said Wolfe. “We see you are no traitor.”
“Only a fool of a bandmaster who wanted wan toon more, yer Excillincy,” said McGilveray.
“Beware drink, beware women,” answered the General.
But advice of that sort is thrown away on such as McGilveray. The next evening after Quebec was taken, and McGilveray went in at the head of his men playing “The Men of Harlech,” he met in the streets the woman that had nearly been the cause of his undoing. Indignation threw out his chest.
“It’s you, thin,” he said, and he tried to look scornfully at her.
“Have you keep your promise?” she said, hardly above her breath.
“What’s that to you?” he asked, his eyes firing up. “I got drunk last night—afther I set your husband free—afther he tould me you was his wife. We’re aven now, decaver! I saved him, and the divil give you joy of that salvation—and that husband, say I.”
“Hoosban’—” she exclaimed, “who was my hoosban’?”