if they were having the greatest fun of their lives.

Wolfe was standing next to the Louisbourg Grenadiers,
who, this time, were determined not to begin before they
were told. He was to give their colonel the signal to
fire the first volley; which then was itself to be the
signal for a volley from each of the other five battalions,
one after another, all down the line. Every musket was
loaded with two bullets, and the moment a battalion had
fired it was to advance twenty paces, loading as it went,
and then fire a 'general,' that is, each man for himself,
as hard as he could, till the bugles sounded the charge.

Wolfe now watched every step the French line made. Nearer
and nearer it came. A hundred paces!--seventy-five!--fifty!
--forty!!--_Fire!!!_ Crash! came the volley from the
grenadiers. Five volleys more rang out in quick succession,
all so perfectly delivered that they sounded more like
six great guns than six battalions with hundreds of
muskets in each. Under cover of the smoke Wolfe's men
advanced their twenty paces and halted to fire the
'general.' The dense, six-deep lines of Frenchmen reeled,
staggered, and seemed to melt away under this awful deluge
of lead. In five minutes their right was shaken out of
all formation. All that remained of it turned and fled,
a wild, mad mob of panic-stricken fugitives. The centre
followed at once. But the Royal Roussillon stood fast a
little longer; and when it also turned it had only three
unwounded officers left, and they were trying to rally it.