Towards the end of August the sky brightened again. It became known that
Amherst was not moving on Montreal, and Bourlamaque wrote that his
position at Isle-aux-Noix was impregnable. On the twenty-seventh a
deserter from Wolfe's army brought the welcome assurance that the
invaders despaired of success, and would soon sail for home; while there
were movements in the English camps and fleet that seemed to confirm
what he said. Vaudreuil breathed more freely, and renewed hope and
confidence visited the army of Beauport.
Meanwhile a deep cloud fell on the English. Since the siege began, Wolfe
had passed with ceaseless energy from camp to camp, animating the
troops, observing everything, and directing everything; but now the pale
face and tall lean form were seen no more, and the rumor spread that the
General was dangerously ill. He had in fact been seized by an access of
the disease that had tortured him for some time past; and fever had
followed. His quarters were at a French farmhouse in the camp at
Montmorenci; and here, as he lay in an upper chamber, helpless in bed,
his singular and most unmilitary features haggard with disease and drawn
with pain, no man could less have looked the hero. But as the needle,
though quivering, points always to the pole, so, through torment and
languor and the heats of fever, the mind of Wolfe dwelt on the capture
of Quebec. His illness, which began before the twentieth of August, had
so far subsided on the twenty-fifth that Knox wrote in his Diary of that
day: "His Excellency General Wolfe is on the recovery, to the
inconceivable joy of the whole army.
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