With Wolfe in Canada: The Winning of a Continent, G. A. Henty [ebooks online reader txt] 📗

to sleep, for we must move directly the dawn commences, else those sentries below might make us out."

At daybreak they shifted their position, and gained a spot completely hidden from below, but from which an entire view of the river could be obtained.

"Tide will be low in a couple of hours," the midshipman said. "There are the fleet below. They will come up with the first flood, so, in three or four hours, they will be abreast of us. I hope they will make out our signal."

"I have no fear of that," James replied. "They are sure to keep a sharp lookout for it."

Presently the tide grew slacker, and, half an hour later, the ships were seen to hoist their sails, and soon began to drop slowly up the river. When they approached, James fastened his handkerchief against the trunk of a tree, well open to view from the river, and then stood with his eyes fixed on the approaching ships. Just as the Sutherland came abreast of the spot where they were standing, the ensign was dipped. James at once removed his handkerchief.

"Now," he said, "Middleton, you can turn in and take a sleep. At twelve o'clock tonight there will be a boat below for us."

Two or three hours after darkness had fallen, James and his companion made their way down the slope, and crawled out to the water's edge. There was no sentry within hearing, and they sat down, by the edge of the river, until suddenly a light gleamed for an instant, low down on the water, two or three hundred yards from the shore.

They at once stepped into the river, and, wading out for some little distance, struck out towards where they had seen the light. A few minutes' swimming, and they saw something dark ahead. Another few strokes took them alongside, and they were hauled into the boat.

The slight noise attracted the attention of a sentry, some little distance along the shore, and his qui vive came sharply across the water, followed a few seconds later by the flash of his gun.

The crew now bent to their oars, and, a quarter of an hour later, the boat was alongside the Sutherland, which, with her consorts, was slowly drifting up the stream. General Wolfe and the admiral were on deck, and anxiously waiting the arrival of the boat. The former, in his anxiety, hailed the boat as it approached.

"Is Captain James Walsham on board?"

"Yes, sir," James replied.

"Bravo, bravo!" the general cried, delighted.

"Bravo!" he repeated, seizing James Walsham's hand as he stepped on deck. "I did not expect to see you again, Captain Walsham, at least until we took Quebec. Now, come to my cabin at once and tell me all about it. But perhaps you are hungry."

"I am rather hungry, general," James said quietly. "We have had nothing to eat but a crust of bread for three days."

"We? Who are we?" the general asked quickly.

"Mr. Middleton and myself, sir. He escaped after I had left, and joined me."

"The galley fires are out," the admiral said, "but you shall have some cold meat in my cabin, instantly."

James was at once led to the cabin, where, in two or three minutes, food and a bottle of wine were placed before him. The general would not allow him to speak a word, till his hunger was satisfied. Then, when he saw him lay down his knife and fork, he said:

"Now, Captain Walsham, in the first place, have you succeeded--have you found a practicable path down to the river?"

"I have found a path, sir. It is cut in one place, and blocked with felled trees, but the obstacles can be passed. There are some Canadians, in tents, near the top of the path, but they seem to keep a very careless watch, and no sentry is placed at the bottom, or on the edge of the river anywhere near."

"Admirable, admirable!" Wolfe exclaimed. "At last there is a chance of our outreaching Montcalm. And you were not seen examining the path? Nothing occurred to excite their suspicion, and lead them to keep a better lookout in future?"

"No, sir," James replied. "They have had no suspicion of my presence anywhere near. The spot where I was taken off was two miles higher. I moved away in order that, if we were seen swimming off to the boat, no suspicion should occur that we had been reconnoitring the pathway."

"That is right," the general said. "Now, tell me the whole story of what you have been doing, in your own way."

James related his adventures, up to the time when he was joined by the midshipman.

"But what made Mr. Middleton escape?" the admiral asked. "I thought that his instructions were precise, that he was to permit himself to be taken prisoner, and was to remain quietly in Quebec, until we could either exchange him or take the place."

"That was how he understood his instructions, sir," James said; "but I would rather that you should question him, yourself, as to his reasons for escaping. I may say they appear to me to be perfectly valid, as an occurrence took place upon which it was impossible for Captain Peters to calculate, when he gave them."

James then finished the report of his proceedings, and General Wolfe expressed his great satisfaction at the result.

"I will put you in orders, tomorrow, for your brevet-majority," he said; "and never was the rank more honourably earned."

The admiral rang a hand bell.

"Send Mr. Middleton to me. Where is he?"

"He is having supper in Captain Peters' cabin."

"Ask Captain Peters if he will be good enough to come in with him."

A minute later Captain Peters entered, followed by the midshipman.

"I suppose, Peters, you have been asking young Middleton the reason why he did not carry out his instructions?"

"I have, admiral," Captain Peters said gravely, "and I was only waiting until you were disengaged to report the circumstance to you. He had better tell you, sir, his own way."

Captain Peters then took a seat at the table, while the midshipman related his story, in nearly the same words in which he had told it to James. When he told of the account the Canadian pilot had given of his escape, the admiral exclaimed:

"But it seems altogether incredible. That some one has unbolted the man's cabin from the outside seems manifest, and it is clear that either gross treachery, or gross carelessness, enabled him to get free. I own that, although the sergeant of marines declares positively that he fastened the bolts, I think that he could not have done so, for treachery seems almost out of the question. That an officer should have done this seems impossible; and yet, what the man says about the cabin, and being let out by a rope, would seem to show that it must have been an officer."

"I am sorry to say, sir," Middleton said, "that the man gave proofs of the truth of what he was saying. The officer, he said, gave him a paper, which I heard and saw the general reading aloud. It was a warning that Captain Walsham had purposely allowed himself to be captured, and that he was, in fact, a spy. The French officer, in his haste, laid down the paper on the table when he rushed out, and I had just time to creep under the canvas, seize it, and make off with it. Here it is, sir. I have showed it to Captain Peters."

The admiral took the paper and read it, and handed it, without a word, to General Wolfe.

"That is proof conclusive," he said. "Peters, do you know the handwriting?"

"Yes," Captain Peters said gravely. "I recognized it at once, as did Mr. Middleton. It is the handwriting of Lieutenant Horton."

"But what on earth could be the motive of this unhappy young man?" the admiral asked.

"I imagine, sir, from what I saw on the evening before Captain Walsham set out, and, indeed, from what Captain Walsham said when I questioned him, that it was a case of private enmity against Captain Walsham."

"Is this so, Captain Walsham?" General Wolfe asked.

"I have no enmity against him, sir," James said, "though I own that his manner impressed me with the idea that he regarded me as an enemy. The fact is, we lived near each other as boys, and we had a fight. I got the best of it. He gave an account of the affair, which was not exactly correct, to his uncle, Mr. Linthorne, a wealthy landowner and a magistrate. The latter had me up at the justice room; but I brought forward witnesses, who gave their account of the affair. Mr. Linthorne considered that his nephew--whom he had at that time regarded as his heir--had not given a correct account, and was so angry that he sent him to sea.

"I would say, sir," he said earnestly, "that, were it possible, I should have wished this unhappy affair to be passed over."

"Impossible!" the admiral and general said together.

"I fear it is impossible now, sir," James said gravely; "but it might have been stopped before."

"Captain Walsham wanted me to tear up the note," the midshipman put in; "but, though I was awfully sorry such a thing should happen to an officer of the Sutherland, I was obliged to refuse to do so, as I thought it was my duty to hand the note to you."

"Certainly it was, Mr. Middleton," the admiral said. "There can be no question about that."

"I wonder that you even suggested such a thing, Captain Walsham," the general remarked. "This was not a private affair. The whole success of the enterprise was jeopardized."

"It was, sir," James said quietly; "but you must remember that, at the time I asked Mr. Middleton to tear up the note, it had ceased to be jeopardized, for I had got fairly away. I am under great obligations to Mr. Linthorne, and would do much to save him pain. I regarded this act, not as one of treason against the country, but as one of personal enmity to myself, and I am sure that Lieutenant Horton, himself, did not think of the harm that his letter might do to the cause, but was blinded by his passion against me."

"Your conduct does credit to your heart, Captain Walsham, if not to your head," General Wolfe said.

The admiral rang the bell.

"Tell Lieutenant Horton that I wish to speak to him, and order a corporal, with a file of marines, to be at the door."

The messenger found Lieutenant Horton pacing the quarterdeck with hurried steps. On the receipt of the message, instead of going directly to the admiral's cabin, he ran down below, caught something from a shelf by his berth, placed it in the breast of his coat, and then went to the admiral's cabin. The corporal, with the two marines, had already taken his station there. The young officer drew a deep breath, and entered.

A deadly fear had seized him, from the moment he saw the signal of James Walsham, although it seemed impossible to him that his treachery could have been discovered. The sudden summons at this hour of the night confirmed his fears, and it was with a face almost as pale as death that he entered the cabin.

"Lieutenant Horton," the admiral said, "you are accused of having assisted in the escape of the pilot, who was our prisoner on board this ship. You are further accused of releasing him with the special purpose that the plans which General Wolfe had laid, to obtain information, might be thwarted."

"Who accuses me?" Richard Horton asked. "Captain Walsham is my enemy. He has for years intrigued against me, and sought to do me harm. He was the companion of smugglers, and was captured by the Thetis, and had the choice of being sent to prison, and tried for his share in the killing of some of the coast guards, or of going before the mast. I was a lieutenant in the Thetis at the time, and I suppose, because I did not then interfere on his behalf, he has now trumped up this accusation against me, an accusation I defy him to prove."

"You are mistaken, Lieutenant Horton," the admiral said. "Captain Walsham is not your accuser. Nay, more, he has himself committed a grave dereliction of duty in trying to screen you, and by endeavouring to destroy the principal evidence against you. Mr. Middleton overheard a conversation between the Canadian pilot and the French general, and the former described how he had been liberated by an English officer, who assisted him to escape by a rope from the porthole in his cabin."

"I do not see that that is any evidence against me," Richard Horton said. "In the first place, the man may have been lying. In the second place, unless he mentioned my name, why am I suspected more than any other officer? And, even if he did mention my name, my word is surely as good