Then, after a moment: “You shall talk with our chief engineer; you know the town you should be useful to me, Captain Moray. What do you suggest concerning this siege of ours?”
“Has any attack been made from above the town, your Excellency?”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Is it vulnerable from there? From Cap Rouge, you mean?”
“They have you at advantage everywhere, sir,” I said. “A thousand men could keep the town, so long as this river, those mud-flats, and those high cliffs are there.”
“But above the town—”
“Above the citadel there is a way—the only way: a feint from the basin here, a sham menace and attack, and the real action at the other door of the town.”
“They will, of course, throw fresh strength and vigilance above, if our fleet run their batteries and attack there; the river at Cap Rouge is like this Montmorenci for defense.” He shook his head. “There is no way, I fear.”
“General,” said I, “if you will take me into your service, and then give me leave to handle my little schooner in this basin and in the river above, I will prove that you may take your army into Quebec by entering it myself, and returning with something as precious to me as the taking of Quebec to you.”
He looked at me piercingly for a minute, then a sour sort of smile played at his lips. “A woman!” he said. “Well, it were not the first time the love of a wench opened the gates to a nation’s victory.”
“Love of a wife, sir, should carry a man farther.”