“Very well, general.  I have no doubt I can find four men and a midshipman willing to volunteer for the affair, especially as, if you succeed, their imprisonment will be a short one.  When will the attempt be made?”

“If you can drift up the river as far as Cap Rouge before daylight,” James said, in answer to an inquiring look from the general, “we will attempt it tomorrow morning.  I should say that the best plan would be for me to appear opposite their camp when day breaks, as if I was trying to obtain a close view of it in the early morning.”

“The sooner the better,” General Wolfe said.  “Every day is of importance.  But how do you propose to get back again, that is, supposing that everything goes well?”

“I propose, general, that I should conceal myself somewhere on the face of the heights.  I will spread a handkerchief against a rock or tree, so that it will not be seen either from above or below, but will be visible from the ships in the river.  I cannot say, of course, whether it will be near Cap Rouge or Quebec; but, if you will have a sharp lookout kept through a glass, as the ships drift up and down, you are sure to see it, and can let me know that you do so by dipping the ensign.  At night I will make my way down to the shore, and if, at midnight exactly, you will send a boat for me, I shall be ready to swim off to her, when they show a lantern as they approach the shore.  Of course, I cannot say on what day I may be in a position to show the signal, but at, any rate, if a week passes without your seeing it, you will know that I have failed to make my escape, or that I have been killed after getting out.”

Chapter 19:  A Dangerous Expedition.

The details of the proposed expedition being thus arranged, the captain left the cabin with James, and the latter paced to and fro on the quarterdeck, while the captain sent for the boatswain and directed him to pick out four men who could swim well, and who were ready to volunteer for desperate service.

While the captain was so engaged, James saw a naval officer staring fixedly at him.  He recognized him instantly, though more than four years had elapsed since he had last seen him.  He at once stepped across the quarterdeck.

“How are you, Lieutenant Horton?  It is a long time since we last parted on the Potomac.”

Horton would have refused the proffered hand, but he had already injured himself very sorely, in the eyes of the squire, by his outburst of ill feeling against James, so he shook hands and said coldly: 

“Yes, your position has changed since then.”

“Yes,” James said with a laugh, “but that was only a temporary eclipse.  That two months before the mast was a sort of interlude for which I am deeply thankful.  Had it not been for my getting into that smuggling scrape, I should have been, at the present moment, commencing practice as a doctor, instead of being a captain in his majesty’s service.”