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Steel splinters flew, but as they were prone only one man was injured. "They're reaching us again with their shell fire," said John. "Not at all," said Bougainville. "Look up." John saw high in the heavens several black specks, which he knew at once were aeroplanes.
It was an accepted axiom in Canada that no armament strong enough to seriously threaten Quebec could navigate the St. Lawrence. In the face of expected invasion it was the Lake George and Champlain route that mostly filled the public mind. Bougainville, however, had returned from France early in May with the startling news that a large expedition destined for Quebec was already on the sea.
Sickness, desertion, losses in battle, and the reinforcements for Lake Champlain had taken away a good 4,000. Again he reinforced Bougainville, and told him to watch more carefully than ever the menaced thirteen miles between Cap Rouge and Pointe aux Trembles. He himself looked after the garrison of Quebec.
From the days of Bougainville, its discoverer, down to those of "the Earl and the Doctor," who recently visited it, Tahiti has moved the admiration of voyagers by the charms of its scenery. It lifts the summit of its pyramidal mass out of a wealth of luxuriant vegetation, which sweeps down to the very margin of a sea as blue as the sky above it.
It was the 16th October when Bougainville quitted Batavia, on the 19th he cleared the straits of Sunda, and in little more than a fortnight afterwards, he came in sight of the Isle of France, where he found it necessary to put in, to have the frigate hove down and repaired, and to procure refreshments for his voyage home.
I was told by some French Officers, lately come from the Island Mauritius, that Orette, the Native of George's Island which Bougainville brought away with him, was now at the Maritius, and that they were going to fit out a Ship to carry him to his Native country, where they intend to make a Settlement; 100 Troops for that purpose were to go out in the same Ship.
Captain Cook examined it with great care; and ascertained not only its extent, but that it was divided into two large islands, by a strait, which is called after him. During his second voyage he explored the New Hebrides, the most northern of which is supposed to be described by Quitos: Bougainville had undoubtedly sailed among them.
Neither was Bougainville, who, like Bonaparte at Lodi or Arcola, was now leading his men in person, waving aloft a small sword, and continually shouting to his children to follow him. The French fell fast, but they reached the first line of the houses, and then they sent a deadly hail of their own bullets upon the defenders. Every street and alley in Chastel was swept by the fire of the French.
The sun was down, and the lagoon a purple lake when we were again at the bust of Bougainville. I thanked her at parting. "Noanoa Tiare," I said, "this day has a heavenly blue page in my record. It has made Tahiti a different island for me." "Maru, mon ami, you are sympathetic to my race. We shall be dear friends. I will send you the note to Tetuanui, the chief of Mataiea, to-morrow.
Bougainville came to Cap Rouge now with three thousand men, for he thought that this was to be our point of attack. Along the shore from Cap Rouge to Cape Diamond small batteries were posted, such as that of Lancy's at Anse du Foulon; but they were careless, for no conjectures might seem so wild as that of bringing an army up where I had climbed.
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