their guns. They sent ball after ball into her hull and through her
rigging; they tore away her mainmast, shattered her mizzenmast, and
handled her as viciously as only expert gunners could. The New Englander
replied bravely, but Quebec was not destined to be taken by bombardment,
and Iberville saw the Six Friends drift, a shattered remnant, out of his
line of fire.

It was the beginning of the end. One by one the thirty-four craft drew
away, and Walley and Gering were left with their men, unaided in the
siege. There was one moment when the cannonading was greatest and the
skirmishers seemed withdrawn, that Gering, furious with the delay, almost
prevailed upon the cautious Walley to dash across the river and make a
desperate charge up the hill, and in at the back door of the town. But
Walley was, after all, a merchant and not a soldier, and would not do it.
Gering fretted on his chain, sure that Iberville was with the guns
against the ships, and would return to harass his New Englanders soon.
That evening it turned bitter cold, and without the ammunition promised
by Phips, with little or no food and useless field-pieces, their lot was
hard.

But Gering had his way the next morning. Walley set out to the Six
Friends to represent his case to the admiral. Gering saw how the men
chafed, and he sounded a few of them. Their wills were with him they had
come to fight, and fight they would, if they could but get the chance.
With a miraculous swiftness the whispered word went through the lines.
Gering could not command them to it, but if the men went forward he must
go with them. The ships in front were silent. Quebec was now interested
in these men near the St. Charles River.

As Iberville stood with Frontenac near the palace of the Intendant,