"Yes, yes, and you are welcome, Captain Moray. I have heard of you, of much to your credit. You were for years in durance there."
He pointed towards the town, where we could see the dome of the cathedral shine, and the leaping smoke and flame of the roaring batteries.
"Six years, your Excellency," said I.
"Papers of yours fell into General Braddock's hands, and they tried you for a spy—a curious case—a curious case! Wherein were they wrong and you justified, and why was all exchange refused?"
I told him the main, the bare facts, and how, to force certain papers from me, I had been hounded to the edge of the grave. He nodded, and seemed lost in study of the mud-flats at the Beauport shore, and presently took to beating his foot upon the ground. After a minute, as if he had come back from a distance, he said: "Yes, yes, broken articles. Few women have a sense of national honour, such as La Pompadour none! An interesting matter."
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—"