"You shall, Crystal, of course you shall," said Maurice, eager and anxious to do all that she wanted. He arranged a cushion behind her head, put a footstool to her feet and pulled the screen forward so that now—where she sat—no one could see her from the ballroom, and as in response to repeated encores from the dancers, the orchestra had embarked upon a new waltz, she was not likely to be disturbed.

"I'll try and find Mme. la Duchesse," he said after he had assured himself that she was quite comfortable, "and tell her that you are quite well, but must not be disturbed."

She caught his hand and gave it a little squeeze.

"You are kind, Maurice," she murmured.

She felt exactly like a tired child, now that she had been made so comfortable, and she liked Maurice so much, oh! so much! no brother could have been dearer.

"You won't go way without waking me, Maurice," she said as he bent down to kiss her.

"No, no, of course not," he replied; "it still wants a quarter before ten."

The screen shut off all the glare from the candles. The sense of isolation was complete and delicious: the roses smelt very sweet, the soft strains of the waltz sounded like elfin music.

V

Like elfin music—tender, fitful, dreamy!—an exquisite languor stole into Crystal's limbs. She was not asleep, yet she was in dreamland—all alone in semi-darkness, that was restful and soothing, and with the fragrance of crimson roses in her nostrils and their velvety petals brushing against her cheek.

Like elfin music!—sweet strains of infinite sadness—the tune of the Infinite mingling with the semblance of reality!

Like elfin music—or like the voice of a human being in pain—the note of sadness became the only real note now!

What really happened after this Crystal never rightly knew. Whenever in the future her memory went back to this hour, she could not be sure whether in truth she had been waking or dreaming, or at what precise moment she became fully conscious of a presence close beside her—just behind the bank of roses—and of a voice—low, earnest, quivering with passionate emotion—that reached her ear as if through the tender melodies played by the orchestra.

It almost seemed to her—when she thought over all the circumstances in her mind—that she must have been subtly conscious of the presence all along—all the while that Maurice was still with her and she felt so curiously languid, longing only for darkness and solitude.

Something encompassed her now that she could not define: the warmth of Love, the sense of protection and security—almost as if unseen arms, that were strong and devoted and selfless, held her closely, shielding her from evil and from the taint of selfish human passions.

And presently she heard her name—whispered low and with a note of tender appeal.

Her eyes were closed and she paid no heed: but the appeal was once more whispered—this time more insistently, and almost against her will she murmured:

"Who calls?"

"An unfortunate whom you hate and despise, and who would have given his life to serve you."

"Who is it?" she reiterated.

"A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side, and longed for one more sound of your voice even though it uttered words more cruel than man can stand."

"What would you like to hear?"

"One word of comfort to ease that terrible sting of hate which has burned into my very soul, till every minute of life has become unendurable agony."

"How could I know," she asked, and now her eyes were wide open, gazing out into nothingness, not turned yet in the direction whence that dream-voice came: "how could I know that my hatred made you suffer or that you cared for comfort from me?"

"How could you know, Crystal?" the voice replied. "You could know that, my dear, just as surely as you know that in a stormy night the sky is dark, just as you know that when heavy clouds obscure the blue ether above, no ray of sunshine warms the shivering earth. Just as you know that you are beautiful and exquisite, so you knew, Crystal, that I loved you from the deepest depths of my soul."

"How could I guess?"

"By that subtle sense which every human being has. And you did guess it, Crystal, else you would not have hated me as you did."

"I hated you because I thought you a traitor."

"Is it too late to swear to you that my only thought was to serve you? . . ."

"By working against my King and country?" she retorted with just this one brief flash of her old vehemence.

"By working for my country and for yours. This I swear by your sweet eyes—by your dear mouth that hurt me so cruelly that evening—I swear it by the damnable agony which you made me endure . . . by the abject cowardice which dragged me to your side now like a whining wretch that craves for a crumb of comfort . . . by all that you have made me suffer. . . . Crystal, I swear to you that I was never false . . . false, great God! when with every drop of my blood, with every fibre of my heart, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you."

The voice was so low, never above a whisper, and all around her Crystal felt again that delicious sense of warmth—the breath of Love that brings man's heart so near to God—the sense of security in a man's all-encompassing Love which women prize above everything else on earth.

The music was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the languid lilt.

"Will you dance with me, Crystal?"

"No! no!" she protested.

"Just once—to-night. To-morrow we fight—let us dance to-night."

And before she could protest further, her will seemed to fall away from her: she knew that her father, her aunt would be angry, that—as like as not—Maurice would make a scene. She knew that Maurice—to whom she had plighted her troth—had branded this man as a liar and a traitor: her father believed him to be a traitor, and she . . . Well! what had he done to disprove Maurice's accusations? A few words of passionate protestations! . . . Did they count? . . . He wore his King's uniform—many careless adventurers did that these strenuous times! . . .

And he wanted her to dance . . . ! how could she—Crystal de Cambray, the future wife of the Marquis de St. Genis, the cynosure of a great many eyes to-night—how could she show herself in public on his arm, in a crowded ballroom?

Yet she could not refuse. She could not. Surely it was all a dream, and in a dream man is but the slave of circumstance and has no will of his own.

She was very young and loved to dance: and she had heard that Englishmen danced well. Besides, it was all a dream. She would wake in a moment or two and find herself sitting quietly among the roses with Maurice beside her, telling her of his love, and of their happy future together.

VI

But in the meanwhile the dream was lasting. Her partner was a perfect dancer, and this new, delicious waltz—inspiriting yet languorous, rhythmical and half barbaric—sent a keen feeling of joy and of zest into Crystal's whole being.

She was not conscious of the many stares that were levelled at her as she suddenly appeared among the crowd in the ballroom, her face flushed with excitement, her perfect figure moving with exquisite grace to the measure of the dance.

The last dance together!

A few moments before, Clyffurde had made his way to the small boudoir in search of fresh air, and had withdrawn to a window embrasure away from a throng that maddened him in his misery of loneliness: then he realised that Crystal was sitting quite close to him, that St. Genis, who had been in constant attendance on her, presently left her to herself and that without even moving from where he was he could whisper into her ear that which had lain so heavily on his heart that at times he had felt that it must break under the intolerable load.

Then as the soft strains of the music from the orchestra struck upon his ear, the insistent whim seized him to make her dance with him, just once—to-night. To-morrow the cannon would roar once more—to-morrow Europe would make yet another stand against the bold adventurer whom seemingly nothing could crush.

To-morrow a bullet—a bayonet—a sword-thrust—but to-night a last dance together.

Those whims come at times to those who are doomed to die. Clyffurde's one hope of peace lay in death upon the battlefield. Life was empty now. He had fought against the burden of loneliness left upon him when Crystal passed finally out of his life. But the burden had proved unconquerable. Only death could ease him of the load: for life like this was stupid and intolerable.

Men would die within the next few days in their hundreds and in their thousands: men who were happy, who had wives and children, men on whose lives Love shed its happy radiance. Then why not he? who was more lonely than any man on earth—left lonely because the one woman who filled all the world for him, hated him and was gone from him for ever.

But a last dance with her to-night! The right to hold her in his arms! this he had never done, though his muscles had often ached with the longing to hold her. But dancing with her he could feel her against him, clasp her closely, feel her breath against his cheek.

She was not very tall and her head—had she chosen—could just have rested in the hollow of his shoulder. The thought of it sent the blood rushing hotly to his head and with his two strong hands he would at that moment have bent a bar of iron, or smashed something to atoms, in order to crush that longing to curse against Fate, against his destiny that had so wantonly dangled happiness before him, only to thrust him into utter loneliness again.

Then he spoke to her—and finally asked for the dance.

And now he held her, and guided her through the throng, her tiny feet moving in unison with his. And all the world had vanished: he had her to himself, for these few happy moments he could hold her and refuse to let her go. He did not care—nor did she—that many curious and some angry glances followed their every movement. Till the last bar was played, till the final chord was struck she was absolutely his—for she had given up her will to him.

The last dance together! He sent his heart to her, all his heart—and the music helped him, and the rhythm; the very atmosphere of the room—rose-scented—helped him to make her understand. He could have kissed her hair, so close were the heaped-up fair curls to his mouth; he could have whispered to her, and nobody would hear: he could have told her something at any rate, of that love which had filled his heart since all time, not months or years since he had known her, but since all time filling every minute of his life. He could have taught her what love meant, thrilled her heart with thoughts of might-have-been; he could have roused sweet pity in her soul, love's gentle mother that has the power to give birth to Love.

But he did not kiss her, nor did he speak: because though he was quite sure that she would understand, he was equally sure that she could not respond. She was not his—not his in the world of realities, at any rate. Her heart belonged to the friend of her childhood, the only man whom she would ever love—the man by whom he—poor Bobby!—had been content to be defamed and vilified in order that she should remain happy in her ideals and in her choice. So he was content only to hold her, his arm round her waist, one hand holding hers imprisoned—she herself becoming more and more the creature of his dreams, the angel that haunted him in wakefulness and in sleep: immortally his bride, yet never to be wholly his again as she was now in this heavenly moment where they stood together within the pale of eternity.

In this, their last dance together!

VII

Far into the night, into the small hours of the morning, Crystal de Cambray sat by the open window of her tiny bedroom in the small apartment which her father had taken for himself and his family in the rue du Marais.

She sat, with one elbow resting on the window-sill, her right hand fingering, with nervy, febrile movements, a letter which she held. Jeanne had handed it to her when she came home from the ball: M. de St. Genis, Jeanne explained, had given it to her earlier in the evening . . . soon after ten o'clock it must have been . . . M. le Marquis seemed in a great hurry, but he made Jeanne swear most solemnly that Mademoiselle Crystal should have the letter as soon as she came home . . . also M. le Marquis had insisted that the letter should be given to Mademoiselle when she was alone.

Not a little puzzled—for had she not taken fond leave of Maurice shortly before ten o'clock, when he had told her that his orders were to quit the ball then and report himself at once at headquarters. He had seemed very despondent, Crystal thought, and the words which he spoke when finally he kissed her, had in them all the sadness of a last farewell. Crystal even had felt a tinge of remorse—when she saw how sad he was—that she had not responded more warmly to his kiss. It almost seemed as if her heart rebelled against it, and when he pressed her with his accustomed passionate ardour to his breast, she had felt a curious shrinking within herself, a desire to push him away, even though her whole heart went out to him with pity and with sorrow.

And now here was this letter. Crystal was a long time before she made up her mind to open it: the paper—damp with the rain—seemed to hold a certain fatefulness within its folds. At last she read the letter, and long after she had read it she sat at the open window, listening to the dreary, monotonous patter of the rain, and to the distant sounds of moving horses and men, the rattle of wheels, the bugle calls, the departure of the allied troops to meet the armies of the great adventurer on the billowing plains of Belgium.

This is what Maurice had written to her a few moments before he left; and it must have taken him some time to pen the lengthy epistle.

"MY BEAUTIFUL CRYSTAL,

"I may never come back. Something tells me that my life, such as it is—empty and worthless enough, God knows—has nearly run its full course. But if I do come back to claim the happiness which your love holds out for me,—I will not face you again with so deep a stain upon mine honour. I did not tell you before because I was too great a coward. I could not bear to think that you would despise me—I could not encounter the look of contempt in your eyes: so I remained silent to the call of honour. And now I speak because the next few hours will atone for everything. If I come back you will forgive. If I fall you will mourn. In either case I shall be happy that you know. Crystal! in all my life I spoke only one lie, and that was three months ago, when I set out to reclaim the King's money, which had been filched from you on the high road, and returned empty-handed. I found the money and I found the thief. No thief he, Crystal, but just a quixotic man, who desired to serve his country, our cause and you. That man was your friend Mr. Clyffurde. I don't think that I was ever jealous of him. I am not jealous of him now. Our love, Crystal, is too great and too strong to fear rivalry from anyone. He had taken the money from you because he knew that Victor de Marmont, with a strong body of men to help him, would have filched it from you for the benefit of the Corsican. He took the money from you because he knew that neither you nor the Comte would have listened to any warnings from him. He took the money from you with the sole purpose of conveying it to the King. Then I found him and taunted him, until the temptation came to me to act the part of a coward and a traitor. And this I did, Crystal, only because I loved you—because I knew that I could never win you while I was poor and in humble circumstances. I soon found out that Clyffurde was a friend. I begged him to let me have the money so that I might take it to the King and earn consideration and a reward thereby. That was my sin, Crystal, and also that I lied to you to disguise the sorry role which I had played. Clyffurde gave me the money because I told him how we loved one another—you and I—and that happiness could only come to you through our mutual love. He acted well, though in truth I meant to do him no wrong. Later Victor de Marmont came upon me, and wrested the money from me, and I was helpless to guard that for which I had played the part of a coward.

"I have eased my soul by telling you this, Crystal, and I know that no hard thoughts of me will dwell in your mind whilst I do all that a man can do for honour, King and country.

"Remember that the next few hours, perhaps, will atone for everything, and that Love excuses all things.

"Yours in love and sorrow,

"MAURICE."

The letter, crumpled and damp, remained in Crystal's hand all the while that she sat by the open window, and the sound of moving horses and men in the distance conjured up before her eyes mental visions of all that to-morrow might mean. The letter was damp with her tears now, they had fallen incessantly on the paper while she re-read it a second time and then re-read it again.

A quixotic man! Maurice said airily. How little he understood! How well she—Crystal—knew what had been the motive of that quixotic action. She had learned so much to-night in the mazes of a waltz. Now, when she closed her eyes, she could still feel the dreamy motion with that strong arm round her, and she could hear the sweet, languid lilt of the music, and all the delicious elvish whisperings that reached her ear through the monotonous cadence of the dance. Of what her heart had felt then, she need now no longer be ashamed: all that should shame her now were her thoughts in the past, the belief that the hand which had held hers on that evening—long ago—in Brestalou could possibly have been the hand of a traitor: that the low-toned voice that spoke to her so earnestly of friendship then could ever be raised for the utterance of a lie.

Of such thoughts indeed she could be ashamed, and of her cruelty that other night in Paris, when she had made him suffer so abominably through her injustice and her contempt.

"The next few hours, perhaps, will atone for everything," Maurice had added. Ah, well! perhaps! But they could not erase the past; they could not control the more distant future. Maurice would come back—Crystal prayed earnestly that he should—but Clyffurde was gone out of her life for ever. God alone knew how this renewed war would end! How could she hope ever to meet a friend who had gone away determined never to see her again?

A last dance together! Well! they had had it! and that was the end. The end of a sweet romance that had had no beginning. He had gone now, as Maurice had gone, as all the men had gone who had listened to their country's call, and she, Crystal, could not convey to him even by a message, by a word, that she understood all that he had done for her, all that his actions had meant of devotion, of self-effacement, of pure and tender Love.

A last dance together, and that had been the end. Even thoughts of him would be forbidden her after this: for her thoughts were no longer free of him, her heart was no longer free; her promise belonged to Maurice, but her heart, her thoughts were no longer hers to give.

It was all too late! too late! the next few hours might atone for the past but they could not call it back.

Weary and heart-sick Crystal crawled into bed when the grey light of dawn peeped cold and shy into her room. She could not sleep, but she lay quite still while one by one those distant sounds died away in the misty morning. In this semi-dreamlike state it seemed to her as if she must be able to distinguish the sound of his horse's hoofs from among a thousand others: it seemed as if something in herself must tell her quite plainly where he was, what he did, when he got to horse, which way he went. And presently she closed her eyes against the grey, monotonous light, and during one brief moment she felt deliciously conscious of a sweet, protecting presence somewhere near her, of soft whisperings of fondness and of friendship: the sound of a dream-voice reached her ear and once again as in the sweet-scented alcove she felt herself murmuring: "Who calls?" and once more she heard the tender wailing as of a stricken soul in pain: "A poor heart-broken wretch who could not keep away from your side."

And memory-echoes lingered round her, bringing back every sound of his mellow voice, every look in his eyes, the touch of his hand—oh! that exquisite touch!—and his last words before he asked her to dance: "With every drop of my blood, with every nerve, every sinew, every thought I love you."

And her heart with a long-drawn-out moan of unconquerable sorrow sent out into the still morning air its agonised call in reply:

"Come back, my love, come back! I cannot live without you! You have taught me what Love is—pure, selfless and protecting—you cannot go from me now—you cannot. In the name of that Love which your tender voice has brought into being, come back to me. Do not leave me desolate!"



CHAPTER IX

THE TARPEIAN ROCK

I

Rain, rain! all the morning! God's little tool—innocent-looking little tool enough—for the remodelling of the destinies of this world.

God chose to soak the earth on that day—and the formidable artillery that had swept the plateau of Austerlitz, the vales of Marengo, the cemetery of Eylau, was rendered useless for the time being because up in the inscrutable kingdom of the sky a cloud had chosen to burst—or had burst by the will of God—and water soaked the soft, spongy soil of Belgium and the wheels of artillery wagons sank axle-deep in the mud.

If only the ground had been dry! if only the great gambler—the genius, the hero, call him what you will, but the gambler for all that—if only he had staked his crown, his honour and that of Imperial France on some other stake than his artillery! If only . . . ! But who shall tell?

Is it indeed a cloud-burst that changed the whole destinies of Europe? Ye materialists, ye philosophers! answer that.

Is it to the rain that fell in such torrents until close on midday of that stupendous 18th of June, that must be ascribed this wonderful and all-embracing change that came over the destinies of myriads of people, of entire nations, kingdoms and empires? Rather is it not because God just on that day of all days chose to show this world of pigmies—great men, valiant heroes, controlling genius and all-powerful conquerors—the entire extent of His might—so far and no further—and in order to show it, He selected that simple, seemingly futile means . . . just a heavy shower of rain.

At half-past eleven the cannon began to roar on the plains of Mont Saint Jean,[2] but not before. Before that it had rained: rained heavily, and the ground was soaked through, and the all-powerful artillery of the most powerful military genius of all times was momentarily powerless.

[Footnote 2: i.e. Waterloo.]

Had it not rained so persistently and so long that same compelling artillery would have begun its devastating work earlier in the day—at six mayhap, or mayhap at dawn, another five, six, seven hours to add to the length of that awful day: another five, six, seven hours wherein to tax the tenacity, the heroic persistence of the British troops: another five, six, seven hours of dogged resistance on the one side, of impetuous charges on the other, before the arrival of Bluecher and his Prussians and the turning of the scales of blind Justice against the daring gambler who had staked his all.

But it was only at half-past eleven that the cannon began to roar, and the undulating plain carried the echo like a thunder-roll from heaving billow to heaving billow till it broke against the silent majesty of the forest of Soigne.

Here with the forest as a background is the highest point of Mont Saint Jean: and here beneath an overhanging elm—all day on horseback—anxious, frigid and heroic, is Wellington—with a rain of bullets all round him, watching, ceaselessly watching that horizon far away, wrapped now in fog, anon in smoke and soon in gathering darkness: watching for the promised Prussian army that was to ease the terrible burden of that desperate stand which the British troops were bearing and had borne all day with such unflinching courage and dogged tenacity.

It is in vain that his aides-de-camp beg him to move away from that perilous position.

"My lord," cries Lord Hill at last in desperation, "if you are killed, what are we to do?"

"The same as I do now," replies Wellington unmoved, "hold this place to the last man."

Then with a sudden outburst of vehemence, that seems to pierce almost involuntarily the rigid armour of British phlegm and British self-control, he calls to his old comrades of Salamanca and Vittoria:

"Boys, which of us now can think of retreating? What would England think of us, if we do?"

Heroic, unflinching and cool the British army has held its ground against the overwhelming power of Napoleon's magnificent cavalry. Raw recruits some of them, against the veterans of Jena and of Wagram! But they have been ordered to hold the place to the last man, and in close and serried squares they have held their ground ever since half-past eleven this morning, while one after another the flower of Napoleon's world-famed cavalry had been hurled against them.

Cuirassiers, chasseurs, lancers, up they come to the charge, like whirlwinds up the declivities of the plateau. Like a whirlwind they rush upon those stolid, immovable, impenetrable squares, attacking from every side, making violent, obstinate, desperate onsets upon the stubborn angles, the straight, unshakable walls of red coats; slashing at the bayonets with their swords, at crimson breasts with their lances, firing their pistols right between those glowing eyes, right into those firm jaws and set teeth.

The sound of bullets on breastplates and helmets and epaulettes is like a shower of hailstones upon a sheet of metal.

Twice, thrice, nay more—a dozen times—they return to the charge, and the plateau gleams with brandished steel like a thousand flashes of simultaneous fork-lightning on the vast canopy of a stormy sky.

From midday till after four, a kind of mysterious haze covers this field of noble deeds. Fog after the rain wraps the gently-billowing Flemish ground in a white semi-transparent veil—covers with impartial coolness all the mighty actions, the heroic charges and still more heroic stands, all the silent uncomplaining sufferings, the glorious deaths, all the courage and all the endurance.

Through the grey mists we see a medley of moving colours—blue and grey and scarlet and black—of shakos and sabretaches, of English and French and Hanoverian and Scotch, of epaulettes and bare knees; we hear the sound of carbine and artillery fire, the clank of swords and bayonets, the call of bugle and trumpet and the wail of the melancholy pibroch: tunics and gold tassels and kilts—a medley of sounds and of visions!

We see the attack on Hougoumont—the appearance of Buelow on the heights of Saint Lambert—the charge of the Inniskillings and the Scots Greys—the death of valiant Ponsonby. We see Marshal Ney Prince of Moskowa—the bravest soldier in France—we see him everywhere where the melee is thickest, everywhere where danger is most nigh. His magnificent uniform torn to shreds, his gold lace tarnished, his hair and whiskers singed, his face blackened by powder, indomitable, unconquered, superb, we hear him cry: "Where are those British bullets? Is there not one left for me?"

He knows—none better!—that the plains of Mont Saint Jean are the great gambling tables on which the supreme gambler—Napoleon, once Emperor of the French and master of half the world—had staked his all. "If we come out of this alive and conquered," he cries to Heymes, his aide-de-camp, "there will only be the hangman's rope left for us all."

And we see the gambler himself—Napoleon, Emperor still and still certain of victory—on horseback all day, riding from end to end of his lines; he is gayer than he has ever been before. At Marengo he was despondent, at Austerlitz he was troubled: but at Waterloo he has no doubts. The star of his destiny has risen more brilliant than ever before.

"The day of France's glory has only just dawned," he calls, and his mind is full of projects—the triumphant march back into Paris—the Germans driven back to the Rhine—the English to the sea.

His only anxiety—and it is a slight one still—is that Grouchy with his fresh troops is so late in arriving.

Still, the Prussians are late too, and the British cannot hold the place for ever.

II

At three o'clock the fog lifts—the veil that has wrapped so many sounds, such awful and wonderful visions, in a kind of mystery, is lifted now, and it reveals . . . what? Hougoumont invested—Brave Baring there with a handful of men—English, German, Brunswickians—making a last stand with ten rounds of ammunition left to them per man, and the French engineers already battering in the gates of the enclosing wall that surrounds the chateau and chapel of Goumont: the farm of La Haye Sainte taken—Ney there with his regiment of cuirassiers and five battalions of the Old Guard: and the English lines on the heights of Mont Saint Jean apparently giving way.

We see too a vast hecatomb: glory and might must claim their many thousand victims: the dead and dying lie scattered like pawns upon an abandoned chessboard, the humble pawns in this huge and final gamble for supremacy and power, for national existence and for liberty. Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte, Papelotte are sown with illustrious dead—but on the plateau of Mont Saint Jean the British still hold their ground.

Wellington is still there on the heights, with the majestic trees of Soigne behind him, the stately canopy of the elm above his head—more frigid than before, more heroic, but also more desperately anxious.

"Bluecher or nightfall," he sighs as a fresh cavalry charge is hurled against those indomitable British squares. The thirteenth assault, and still they stand or kneel on one knee, those gallant British boys; bayonet in hand or carbine, they fire, fall out and re-form again: shaken, hustled, encroached on they may be, but still they stand and fire with coolness and precision . . . the ranks are not broken yet.

Officers ride up to the field-marshal to tell him that the situation has become desperate, their regiments decimated, their men exhausted. They ask for fresh orders: but he has only one answer for them:

"There are no fresh orders, save to hold out to the last man."

And down in the valley at La Belle Alliance is the great gambler—the man who to-day will either be Emperor again—a greater, mightier monarch than even he has ever been—or who will sink to a status which perhaps the meanest of his erstwhile subjects would never envy.

But just now—at four o'clock—when the fog has lifted—he is flushed with excitement, exultant in the belief in victory.

The English centre on Mont Saint Jean is giving way at last, he is told.

"The beginning of retreat!" he cries.

And he, who had been anxious at Austerlitz, despondent at Marengo, is gay and happy and brimming full of hope.

"De Marmont," he calls to his faithful friend, "De Marmont, go ride to Paris now; tell them that victory is ours! No, no," he adds excitedly, "don't go all the way—ride to Genappe and send a messenger to Paris from there—then come back to be with us in the hour of victory."

And Victor de Marmont rides off in order to proclaim to the world at large the great victory which the Emperor has won this day over all the armies of Europe banded and coalesced against him.

From far away on the road of Ohain has come the first rumour that Bluecher and his body of Prussians are nigh—still several hours' march from Waterloo but advancing—advancing. For hours Wellington has been watching for them, until wearily he has sighed: "Bluecher or nightfall alone can save us from annihilation now."

The rumour—oh! it was merely the whispering of the wind, but still a rumour nevertheless—means fresh courage to tired, half-spent troops. Even deeds of unparalleled heroism need the stimulus of renewed hope sometimes.

The rumour has also come to the ears of the Emperor, of Ney and of all the officers of the staff. They all know that those magnificent British troops whom they have fought all day must be nigh to their final desperate effort at last—with naught left to them but their stubborn courage and that tenacity which has been ever since the wonder of the world.

They know, these brave soldiers of Napoleon—who have fought and admired the brave foe—that the 1st and 2nd Life Guards are decimated by now; that entire British and German regiments are cut up; that Picton is dead, the Scots Greys almost annihilated. They know what havoc their huge cavalry charges have made in the magnificent squares of British infantry; they know that heroism and tenacity and determination must give way at last before superior numbers, before fresh troops, before persistent, ever-renewed attacks.

Only a few fresh troops and Ney declares that he can conquer the final dogged endurance of the British troops, before they in their turn receive the support of Bluecher and his Prussians, or before nightfall gives them a chance of rest.

So he sends Colonel Heymes to his Emperor with the urgent message: "More troops, I entreat, more troops and I can break the English centre before the Prussians come!"

None knew better than he that this was the great hazard on which the life and honour of his Emperor had been staked, that Imperial France was fighting hand to hand with Great Britain, each for her national existence, each for supremacy and might and the honour of her flag.

Imperial France—bold, daring, impetuous!

Great Britain—tenacious, firm and impassive!

Wellington under the elm-tree, calmly scanning the horizon while bullets whiz past around his head, and ordering his troops to hold on to the last man!

The Emperor on horseback under a hailstorm of shot and shell and bullets riding from end to end of his lines!

Ney and his division of cuirassiers and grenadiers of the Old Guard had just obeyed the Emperor's last orders which had been to take La Haye Sainte at all costs: and the intrepid Marechal now, flushed with victory, had sent his urgent message to Napoleon:

"More troops! and I can yet break through the English centre before the arrival of the Prussians."

"More troops?" cried the Emperor in despair, "where am I to get them from? Am I a creator of men?"

And from far away the rumour: "Bluecher and the Prussians are nigh!"

"Stop that rumour from spreading to the ears of our men! In God's name don't let them know it," adjures Napoleon in a message to Ney.

And he himself sends his own staff officers to every point of the field of battle to shout and proclaim the news that it is Grouchy who is nigh, Grouchy with reinforcements, Grouchy with the victorious troops from Ligny, fresh from conquered laurels!

And the news gives fresh heart to the Imperial troops:

"Vive l'Empereur!" they shout, more certain than ever of victory.

III

The grey day has yielded at last to the kiss of the sun. Far away at Braine l'Alleud a vivid streak of gold has rent the bank of heavy clouds. It is now close on seven o'clock—there are two more hours to nightfall and Bluecher is not yet here.

Some of the Prussians have certainly debouched on Plancenoit, but Napoleon's Old Guard have turned them out again, and from Limale now comes the sound of heavy cannonade as if Grouchy had come upon Bluecher after all and all hopes of reinforcements for the British troops were finally at an end.

Napoleon—Emperor still and still flushed with victory—looks through his glasses on the British lines: to him it seems that these are shaken, that Wellington is fighting with the last of his men. This is the hour then when victory waits—attentive, ready to bestow her crown on him who can hold out and fight the longest—on him who at the last can deliver the irresistible attack.

And Napoleon gives the order for the final attack, which must be more formidable, more overpowering than any that have gone before. The plateau of Mont Saint Jean, he commands, must be carried at all costs!

Cuirassiers, lancers and grenadiers, then, once more to the charge! strew once more the plains of Waterloo with your dying and your dead! Up, Milhaud, with your guards! Poret with your grenadiers! Michel with your chasseurs! Up, ye heroes of a dozen campaigns, of a hundred victories! Up, ye old growlers with the fur bonnets—Napoleon's invincible Old Guard! With Ney himself to lead you! a hero among heroes! the bravest where all are brave!

Have you ever seen a tidal wave of steel rising and surging under the lash of the gale? So they come now, those cuirassiers and lancers and chasseurs, their helmets, their swords, their lances gleaming in the golden light of the sinking sun; in closed ranks, stirrup to stirrup they swoop down into the valley, and rise again scaling the muddy heights. Superb as on parade, with their finest generals at their head: Milhaud, Hanrion, Michel, Mallet! and Ney between them all.

Splendid they are and certain of victory: they gallop past as if at a revue on the Place du Carrousel opposite the windows of the Tuileries; all to the repeated cry of "Vive l'Empereur!"

And as they gallop past the wounded and the dying lift themselves up from the blood-stained earth, and raise their feeble voices to join in that triumphant call: "Vive l'Empereur!" There's an old veteran there, who fought at Austerlitz and at Jena; he has three stripes upon his sleeve, but both his legs are shattered and he lies on the roadside propped up against a hedge, and as the superb cavalry ride proudly by he shouts lustily: "Forward, comrades! a last victorious charge! Long live the Emperor!"

After that who was to blame? Was human agency to blame? Did Ney—the finest cavalry leader in Napoleon's magnificent army, the veteran of an hundred glorious victories—did he make the one blunder of his military career by dividing his troops into too many separate columns rather than concentrating them for the one all-powerful attack upon the British centres? Did he indeed mistake the way and lead his splendid cavalry by round-about crossways to the plateau instead of by the straight Brussels road?

Or did the obscure traitor—over whom history has thrown a veil of mystery—betray this fresh advance against the British centre to Wellington?

Was any man to blame? Was it not rather the hand of God that had already fallen with almighty and divine weight upon the ambitious and reckless adventurer?—was it not the voice of God that spoke to him through the cannon's roar of Waterloo: "So far but no farther shalt thou go! Enough of thy will and thy power and thy ambition!—Enough of this scourge of bloodshed and of misery which I have allowed thee to wield for so long!—Enough of devastated homes, of starvation and of poverty! enough of the fatherless and of the widow!"

And up above on the plateau the British troops hear the thunder of thousands of horses' hoofs, galloping—galloping to this last charge which must be irresistible. And sturdy, wearied hands, black with powder and stained with blood, grasp more firmly still the bayonet, the rifle or the carbine, and they wait—those exhausted, intrepid, valiant men! they wait for that thundering charge, with wide-open eyes fixed upon the crest of the hill—they wait for the charge—they are ready for death—but they are not prepared to yield.

Along the edge of the plateau in a huge semicircle that extends from Hougoumont to the Brussels road the British gunners wait for the order to fire.

Behind them Wellington—eagle-eyed and calm, warned by God—or by a traitor but still by God—of the coming assault on his positions—scours the British lines from end to end: valiant Maitland is there with his brigade of guards, and Adam with his artillery: there are Vandeleur's and Vivian's cavalry and Colin Halkett's guards! heroes all! ready to die and hearing the approach of Death in that distant roar of thunder—the onrush of Napoleon's invincible cavalry.

Here, too, further out toward the east and the west, extending the British lines as far as Nivelles on one side and Brussels on the other, are William Halkett's Hanoverians, Duplat's German brigade, the Dutch and the Belgians, the Brunswickers, and Ompteda's decimated corps. The French royalists are here too, scattered among the foreign troops—brother prepared to fight brother to the death! St. Genis is among the Brunswickers. But Bobby Clyffurde is with Maitland's guards.

And now the wave of steel is surging up the incline: the gleam of shining metal pierces the distant haze, casques and lances glitter in the slowly sinking sun, whilst from billow to billow the echo brings to straining ears the triumphant cry "Vive l'Empereur!"

Five minutes later the British artillery ranged along the crest has made a huge breach in that solid, moving mass of horses and of steel. Quickly the breach is repaired: the ranks close up again! This is a parade! a review! The eyes of France are upon her sons! and "Vive l'Empereur!"

Still they come!

Volley after volley from the British guns makes deadly havoc among those glistering ranks!

But nevertheless they come!

No halt save for the quick closing up into serried, orderly columns. And then on with the advance!—like the surging up of a tidal wave against the cliffs—on with the advance! up the slopes toward the crest where those who are in the front ranks are mowed down by the British guns—their places taken by others from the rear—those others mowed down again, and again replaced—falling in their hundreds as they reach the crest, like the surf that shivers and dies as it strikes against the cliffs.

Ney's horse is killed under him—the fifth to-day—but he quickly extricates himself from saddle and stirrups and continues on his way—on foot, sword in hand—the sword that conquered at Austerlitz, at Eylau and at Moskowa. Round him the grenadiers of the Old Guard—they with the fur bonnets and the grizzled moustaches—tighten up their ranks.

They advance behind the cavalry! and after every volley from the British guns they shout loudly: "Vive l'Empereur!"

And anon the tidal wave—despite the ebb, despite the constant breaking of its surf—has by sheer force of weight hurled itself upon the crest of the plateau.

The Brunswickers on the left are scattered. Cleeves and Lloyd have been forced to abandon their guns: the British artillery is silenced and the chasseurs of Michel hold the extreme edge of the upland, and turn a deadly fusillade upon Colin Halkett's brigade already attacked by Milhaud and his guards and now severely shaken.

"See the English General!" cries Duchaud to his cuirassiers, "he is between two fires. He cannot escape."

No! he cannot but he seizes the colours of the 33rd whose young lieutenant has just fallen, and who threaten to yield under the devastating cross-fire: he brandishes the tattered colours, high up above his head—as high as he can hold them—he calls to his men to rally, and then falls grievously wounded.

But his guards have rallied. They stand firm now, and Duchaud, chewing his grey moustache, murmurs his appreciation of so gallant a foe.

"That side will win," he mutters, "who can best keep on killing."

IV

"Up, guards, and at them!"

Maitland's brigade of guards had been crouching in the corn—crouching—waiting for the order to charge—red-coated lions in the ripening corn—ready to spring at the word.

And Death the harvester in chief stands by with his scythe ready for the mowing.

"Up, guards, and at them!"

It is Maitland and his gallant brigade of guards—out of the corn they rise and front the three battalions of Michel's chasseurs who were the first to reach the highest point of the hill. They fire and Death with his scythe has laid three hundred low. The tricolour flag is riddled with grapeshot and General Michel has fallen.

Then indeed the mighty wave of steel can advance no longer: for it is confronted with an impenetrable wall—a wall of living, palpitating, heroic men—men who for hours have stood their ground and fought for the honour of Britain and of her flag—men who with set teeth and grim determination were ready to sell their lives dearly if lives were to be sold—men in fact who have had their orders to hold out to the last man and who are going to obey those orders now.

"Up, guards, and at them," and surprised, bewildered, staggered, the chasseurs pause: three hundred of their comrades lie dead or dying on the ground. They pause: their ranks are broken: with his last dying sigh brave General Michel tries to rally them. But he breathes his last ere he succeeds: his second in command loses his head. He should have ordered a bayonet charge—sudden, swift and sure—against that red wall that rushes at them with such staggering power: but he too tries to rally his men, to reform their ranks—how can they re-form as for parade under the deadly fire of the British guards?

Confusion begins its deathly sway: the chasseurs—under conflicting orders—stand for full ten minutes almost motionless under that devastating fire.

And far away on the heights of Frischemont the first line of Prussian bayonets are seen silhouetted against the sunset sky.

Wellington has seen it. Bluecher has come at last! One final effort, one more mighty gigantic, superhuman struggle and the glorious end would be in sight. He gives the order for a general charge.

"Forward, boys," cries Colonel Saltoun to his brigade. "Now is the time!"

Heads down the British charge. The chasseurs are already scattered, but behind the chasseurs, fronting Maitland's brigade, fronting Adam and his artillery, fronting Saltoun and Colborne the Fire-Eater, the Old Guard is seen to advance, the Old Guard who through twelve campaigns and an hundred victories have shown the world how to conquer and how to die.

When Michel's chasseurs were scattered, when their General fell; when the English lines, exhausted and shaken for a moment, rallied at Wellington's call: "Up, guards, and at them!" when from far away on the heights of Frischemont the first line of Prussian bayonets were silhouetted against the sunset sky, then did Napoleon's old growlers with their fur bonnets and their grizzled moustaches enter the line of action to face the English guards. They were facing Death and knew it but still they cried: "Vive l'Empereur!"

Heads down the British charge, whilst from Ohain comes the roar of Bluecher's guns, and up from the east, Zieten with the Prussians rushes up to join in the assault.

Then the carnage begins: for the Old Guard is still advancing—in solid squares—solemn, unmoved, magnificent: the bronze eagles on their bonnets catch the golden rays of the setting sun. Thus they advance in face of deadly fire: they fall like corn before the scythe. A sublime suicide to the cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" and not one of the brigade is missing except those who are dead.

They know—none better—that this is the beginning of the end. Perhaps they do not care to live if their Emperor is to be Emperor no longer, if he is to be sent back to exile—to the prison of Elba or worse: and so they advance in serried squares, while Maitland's artillery has attacked them in the rear. Great gaps are made in those ranks, but they are quickly filled up again: the squares become less solid, smaller, but they remain compact. Still they advance.

But now close behind them Bluecher's guns begin to thunder and Zieten's columns are rapidly gaining ground: all round their fur bonnets a hailstorm of grape-shot is raging whilst Adam's artillery is in action within fifty paces at their flank. But the old growlers who had suffered death with silent fortitude in the snows of Russia, who had been as grand in their defeat at Moscow and at Leipzic as they had been in the triumphs of Auerstadt or of Friedland—they neither staggered nor paused in their advance. On they went—carrying their muskets on their shoulders—a cloud of tirailleurs in front of them, right into the cross-fire of the British guns: their loud cry of "Vive l'Empereur" drowning that other awesome, terrible cry which someone had raised a while ago and which now went from mouth to mouth: "We are betrayed! Sauve qui peut!"

The Prussians were in their rear; the British were charging their front, and panic had seized the most brilliant cavalry the world had ever seen.

"Sauve qui peut" is echoed now and re-echoed all along the crest of the plateau. And the echo rolls down the slope into the valley where Reille's infantry and a regiment of cuirassiers, and three more battalions of chasseurs, are making ready to second the assault on Mont Saint Jean. Reille and his infantry pause and listen: the cuirassiers halt in their upward movement, whilst up on the ridge of the plateau where Donzelot's grenadiers have attacked the brigade of Kempt and Lambert and Pack, the whisper goes from mouth to mouth:

"We are betrayed! Sauve qui peut!"

Panic seizes the younger men: they turn their horses' heads back toward the slopes. The stampede has commenced: very soon it grows. The British in front, the Prussians in the rear: "Sauve qui peut!"

Ney amongst them is almost unrecognisable. His face is coal-black with powder: he has no hat, no epaulettes and only half a sword: rage, anguish, bitterness are in his husky voice as he adjures, entreats, calls to the demoralised army—and insults it, execrates it in turn. But nothing but Death will stop that army now in its headlong flight.

"At least stop and see how a Marshal of France dies on the field of honour," he calls.

But the voice which led these same men to victory at Moskowa has lost its potency and its magic. The men cry "Vive Ney!" but they do not stand. The stampede has become general. In the valley below the infantry has started to run up the slope of La Belle Alliance: after it the cavalry with reins hanging loose, stirrups lost, casques, sabretaches, muskets—anything that impedes—thrown into the fields to right and left. La Haye Sainte is evacuated, Hougoumont is abandoned; Papelotte, Plancenoit, the woods, the plains are only filled with running men and the thunder of galloping chargers.

Alone the Old Guard has remained unshaken. Whilst all around them what was once the Grand Army is shattered, destroyed, melted like ice before a devastating fire, they have continued to advance, sublime in their fortitude, in their endurance, their contempt for death. One by one their columns are shattered and there are none now to replace those that fall. And as the gloom of night settles on this vast hecatomb on the plateau of Mont Saint Jean the conquerors of Jena and Austerlitz and Friedland make their last stand round the bronze eagle—all that is left to them of the glories of the past.

And when from far away the cry of "Sauve qui peut" has become only an echo, and the bronze eagle shattered by a bullet lies prone upon the ground shielded against capture in its fall by a circling mountain of dead, when finally Night wraps all the heroism, the glory, the sorrow and the horrors of this awful day in the sable folds of her all-embracing mantle, Napoleon's Old Guard has ceased to be.

And out in the western sky a streak of vivid crimson like human blood has broken the bosom of the clouds: the glow of the sinking sun rests on this huge dissolution of what was once so glorious and unconquered and great. Then it is that Wellington rides to the very edge of the plateau and fronts the gallant British troops at this supreme hour of oncoming victory, and lifting his hat high above his head he waves it three times in the air.

And from right and left they come, British, Hanoverians, Belgians and Brunswickers to deliver the final blow to this retreating army, wounded already unto death.

They charge now: they charge all of them, cavalry, infantry, gunners, forty thousand men who have forgotten exhaustion, forgotten what they have suffered, forgotten what they had endured. On they come with a rush like a torrent let loose; the confusion of sounds and sights becomes a pandemonium of hideousness, bugles and drums and trumpets and bagpipes all mingle, merge and die away in the fast gathering twilight.

And the tidal wave of steel recedes down the slopes of Mont Saint Jean, into the valley and thence up again on Belle Alliance, with a melee of sounds like the breaking of a gigantic line of surf against the irresistible cliffs, or the last drawn-out sigh of agony of dying giants in primeval times.

V

On the road to Genappe in the mystery of the moonlit night a solitary rider turned into a field and dismounted.

Carried along for a time by the stream of the panic, he found himself for a moment comparatively alone—left as it were high and dry by the same stream which here had divided and flowed on to right and left of him. He wore a grey redingote and a shabby bicorne hat.

Having dismounted he slipped the bridle over his arm and started to walk beside his horse back toward Waterloo.

A sleep-walker in pursuit of his dream!

Heavy banks of grey clouds chased one another with mad fury across the midsummer sky, now obscuring the cold face of the moon, now allowing her pale, silvery rays to light up this gigantic panorama of desolation and terror and misery. To right and left along the roads and lanes, across grassland and cornfields, canals, ditches and fences the last of the Grand Army was flying headlong, closely pursued by the Prussians. And at the farm of La Belle Alliance Wellington and Bluecher had met and shaken hands, and had thanked God for the great and glorious victory.

But the sleep-walker went on in pursuit of his dream—he walked with measured steps beside his weary horse, his eyes fixed on the horizon far away, where the dull crimson glow of smouldering fires threw its last weird light upon this vast abode of the dead and the dying. He walked on—slowly and mechanically back to the scene of the overwhelming cataclysm where all his hopes lay irretrievably buried. He walked on—majestic as he had never been before, in the brilliant throne-room of the Tuileries or the mystic vastness of Notre Dame when the Imperial crown sat so ill upon his plebeian head. . . . He walked on—silent, exalted and great—great through the magnitude of his downfall.

And to right and left of him, like the surf that recedes on a pebbly beach, the last of his once invincible army was flying back to France—back in the wake of those who had been lucky enough to fly before—bodies of men who had been the last to realise that an heroic stand round a fallen eagle could no longer win back that which was lost, and that if life be precious it could only be had in flight—bits of human wreckage too, forgotten by the tide—they all rolled and rushed and swept past the silent wayfarer . . . quite close at times: so close that every man could see him quite distinctly, could easily distinguish by the light of the moon the grey redingote and the battered hat which they all knew so well—which they had been wont to see in the forefront of an hundred victorious charges.

Now half-blinded by despair and by panic they gazed with uncomprehending eyes on the man and on the horse and merely shouted to him as they rushed galloping or running by, "The Prussians are on us! Sauve qui peut!"

And the dreamer still looked on that distant crimson glow and in the bosom of those wind-swept clouds he saw the pictures of Austerlitz and Jena and Wagram, pictures of glory and might and victory, and the shouts which he heard were the ringing cheers round the bivouac fires of long ago.



CHAPTER X

THE LAST THROW

I

It was close on half-past nine and the moon full up on the stormy sky when a couple of riders detached themselves out of the surging mass of horses and men that were flying pell-mell towards Genappe, and slightly checking their horses, put them to a slower gallop and finally to a trot.

On their right a small cottage gleamed snow-white in the cold, searching light of the moon. A low wall ran to right and left of it and enclosed a small yard at the back of the cottage; the wall had a gate in it which gave on the fields beyond. At the moment that the two riders trotting slowly down the road reached the first angle of the wall, the gate was open and a man leading a white horse and wearing a grey redingote turned into the yard.

"My God! the Emperor!" exclaimed one of the riders as he drew rein.

They both turned their horses into the field, skirting the low, enclosing wall until they reached the gate. The white horse was now tethered to a post and the man in the grey redingote was standing in the doorway at the rear of the cottage. The two men dismounted and in their turn led their horses into the yard: at sight of them the man in the grey redingote seemed to wake from his sleep.

"Berthier," he said slowly, "is that you?"

"Yes, Sire,—and Colonel Bertrand is here too."

"What do you want?"

"We earnestly beg you, Sire, to come with us to Genappe. There is not the slightest hope of rallying any portion of your army now. The Prussians are on us. You might fall into their hands."

Berthier—conqueror and Prince of Wagram—spoke very earnestly and with head uncovered, but more abruptly and harshly than he had been wont to do of yore in the salons of the Tuileries or on the glory-crowned battlefields at the close of a victorious day.

"I am coming! I am coming!" said the Emperor with a quick sigh of impatience. "I only wanted to be alone a moment—to think things out—to . . ."

"There is nothing quite so urgent, Sire, as your safety," retorted the Prince of Wagram drily.

The Emperor did not—or did not choose to—heed his great Marshal's marked want of deference. Perhaps he was accustomed to the moods of these men whom his bounty had fed and loaded with wealth and dignities and titles in the days of his glory, and who had proved only too ready, alas!—even last year, even now—to desert him when disaster was in sight.

Without another word he turned on his heel and pushing open the cottage door he disappeared into the darkness of the tiny room beyond. With an impatient shrug of the shoulders Berthier prepared to follow him. Colonel Bertrand busied himself with tethering the horses, then he too followed Berthier into the building.

It was deserted, of course, as all isolated cottages and houses had been in the vicinity of Quatre Bras or Mont Saint Jean. Bertrand struck a tinder and lighted a tallow candle that stood forlorn on a deal table in the centre of the room. The flickering light revealed a tiny cottage kitchen—hastily abandoned but scrupulously clean—white-washed walls, a red-tiled floor, the iron hearth, the painted dresser decorated with white crockery, shiny tin pans hung in rows against the walls and two or three rush chairs. Napoleon sat down.

"I again entreat you, Sire—" began Berthier more earnestly than before.

But the Emperor was staring straight out before him, with eyes that apparently saw something beyond that rough white wall opposite, on which the flickering candle-light threw such weird gargantuan shadows. The precious minutes sped on: minutes wherein death or capture strode with giant steps across the fields of Flanders to this lonely cottage where the once mightiest ruler in Europe sat dreaming of what might have been. The silence of the night was broken by the thunder of flying horses' hoofs, by the cries of "Sauve qui peut!" and distant volleys of artillery proclaiming from far away that Death had not finished all his work yet.

Bertrand and Berthier stood by, with heads uncovered: silent, moody and anxious.

Suddenly the dreamer roused himself for a moment and spoke abruptly and with his usual peremptory impatience: "De Marmont," he said. "Has either of you seen him?"

"Not lately, Sire," replied Colonel Bertrand, "not since five o'clock at any rate."

"What was he doing then?"

"He was riding furiously in the direction of Nivelles. I shouted to him. He told me that he was making for Brussels by a circuitous way."

"Ah! that is right! Well done, my brave de Marmont! Braver than your treacherous kinsman ever was! So you saw him, did you, Bertrand? Did he tell you that he had just come from Genappe?"

"Yes, Sire, he did," replied Bertrand moodily. "He told me that by your orders he had sent a messenger from there to Paris with news of your victory: and that by to-morrow morning the capital would be ringing with enthusiasm and with cheers."

"And by the time de Marmont came back from Genappe," interposed the Prince of Wagram with a sneer, "the plains of Waterloo were ringing with the Grand Army's 'Sauve qui peut!'"

"An episode, Prince, only an episode!" said Napoleon with an angry frown of impatience. "To hear you now one would imagine that Essling had never been. We have been beaten back, of course, but for the moment the world does not know that. Paris to-morrow will be be-flagged and the bells of Notre Dame will send forth their joyous peals to cheer the hearts of my people. And in Brussels this afternoon thousands of our enemies—Belgians, Dutch, Hanoverians, Brunswickers—were rushing helter-skelter into the town—demoralised and disorganised after that brilliant charge of our cuirassiers against the Allied left."

"Would to God the British had been among them too," murmured old Colonel Bertrand. "But for their stand . . ."

"And a splendid stand it was. Ah! but for that. . . . To think that if Grouchy had kept the Prussians away, in only another hour we . . ."

The dreamer paused in his dream of the might have been: then he continued more calmly:

"But I was not thinking of that just now. I was thinking of those who fled to Brussels this afternoon with the news of our victory and of Wellington's defeat."

"Even then the truth is known in Brussels by now," protested Berthier.

"Yes! but not before de Marmont has had the time and the pluck to save us and our Empire! . . . Berthier," he continued more vehemently, "don't stand there so gloomy, man . . . and you, too, my old Bertrand. . . . Surely, surely you have realised that at this terrible juncture we must utilise every circumstance which is in our favour. . . . That early news of our victory . . . we can make use of that. . . . A big throw in this mighty game, but we can do it . . . Berthier, do you see how we can do it . . . ?"

"No, Sire, I confess that I do not," replied the Marshal gloomily.

"You do not see?" retorted the Emperor with a frown of angry impatience. "De Marmont did—at once—but he is young—and enthusiastic, whereas you. . . . But don't you see that the news of Wellington's defeat must have enormous consequences on the money markets of the world—if only for a few hours? . . . It must send the prices on the foreign Bourses tumbling about people's ears and create an absolute panic on the London Stock Exchange. Only for a few hours of course . . . but do you not see that if any man is wise enough to buy stock in London during that panic he can make a fortune by re-selling the moment the truth is known?"

"Even then, Sire," stammered Berthier, a little confused by this avalanche of seemingly irrelevant facts hurled at him at a moment when the whole map of Europe was being changed by destiny and her future trembled in the hands of God.

"Ah, de Marmont saw it all . . . at once . . ." continued the Emperor earnestly, "he saw eye to eye with me. He knows that money—a great deal of money—is just what I want now . . . money to reorganise my army, to re-equip and reform it. The Chamber and my Ministers will never give me what I want. . . . My God! they are such cowards! and some of them would rather see the foreign troops again in Paris than Napoleon Emperor at the Tuileries. You should know that, Marechal, and you, too, my good Bertrand. De Marmont knows it . . . that is why he rode to Brussels at the hour when I alone knew that all was lost at Waterloo, but when half Europe still thought that the Corsican ogre had conquered again. . . . De Marmont is in Brussels now . . . to-night he crosses over to England—to-morrow morning he and his broker will be in the Stock Exchange in London—calm, silent, watchful. An operation on the Bourse, what? like hundreds that have been done before . . . but in this case the object will be to turn one million into fifty so that with it I might rebuild my Empire again."

He spoke with absolute conviction, and with indomitable fervour, sitting here quietly, he—the architect of the mightiest empire of modern days—just as he used to do in the camps at Austerlitz and Jena and Wagram and Friedland—with one clenched hand resting upon the rough deal table, the flickering light of the tallow candle illuminating the wide brow, the heavy jaw, those piercing eyes that still gazed—in this hour of supreme catastrophe—into a glorious future destined never to be—scheming, planning, scheming still, even while his Grand Army was melting into nothingness all around him, and distant volleys of musketry were busy consummating the final annihilation of the Empire which he had created and still hoped to rebuild.

Berthier gave a quick sign of impatience.

Rebuild an Empire, ye gods!—an Empire!—when the flower of its manhood lies pale and stark like the windrows of corn after the harvester has done his work. Thoughts of a dreamer! Schemes of a visionary! How will the quaking lips which throughout the length and breadth of this vast hecatomb now cry, "Sauve qui peut!" how will they ever intone again the old "Vive l'Empereur!"

The conqueror of Wagram gave a bitter sigh and faithful Bertrand hung his head gloomily; but de Marmont had neither sighed nor doubted: but then de Marmont was young—he too was a dreamer, and an enthusiast and a visionary. His idol in his eyes had never had feet of clay. For him the stricken man was his Emperor still—the architect, the creator, the invincible conqueror—checked for a moment in his glorious work, but able at his will to rebuild the Empire of France again on the very ruins that smouldered now on the fields of Waterloo.

"I can do it, Sire," he had cried exultantly, when his Emperor first expounded his great, new scheme to him. "I can be in Brussels in an hour, and catch the midnight packet for England at Ostend. At dawn I shall be in London, and by ten o'clock at my post. I know a financier—a Jew, and a mightily clever one—he will operate for me. I have a million or two francs invested in England, we'll use these for our operations! Money, Sire! You shall have millions! Our differences on the Stock Exchange will equip the finest army that even you have ever had! Fifty millions? I'll bring you a hundred! God has not yet decreed the downfall of the Empire of France!"

So de Marmont had spoken this afternoon in the enthusiasm of his youth and of his hero-worship: and since then the great dreamer had continued to weave his dreams! Nothing was lost, nothing could be lost whilst enthusiasm such as that survived in the hearts of the young.

And still wrapped in his dream he sat on, while danger and death and disgrace threatened him on every side. Berthier and Bertrand entreated in vain, in vain tried to drag him away from this solitary place, where any moment a party of Prussians might find and capture him.

Unceremoniously the Prince of Wagram had blown out the flickering light that might have attracted the attention of the pursuers. It was a very elementary precaution, the only one he or Bertrand was able to take. The horses were out in the yard for anyone to see, and the greatest spoil of victory might at any moment fall into the hands of the meanest Prussian soldier out for loot.

But the dreamer still sat on in the gloom, with the pale light of the moon streaming in through the narrow casement window and illumining that marble-like face, rigid and set, that seemed only to live by the glowing eyes—the eyes that looked into the future and the past and heeded not the awful present.

Close on a quarter of an hour went by until at last he jumped to his feet, with the sudden cry of "To Genappe!"

Berthier heaved a sigh of relief and Bertrand hurried out to unfasten the horses.

"You are impatient, Prince," said the Emperor almost gaily, as he strode with a firm step to the door. "You are afraid those cursed Prussians will put the Corsican ogre into a cage and send him at once to His Victorious Bourbon Majesty King Louis XVIII. Not so, my good Berthier, not so. The Star of my Destiny has not yet declined. I've done all the thinking I wanted to do. Now we'll to Genappe, where we'll rally the remnants of our army and then quietly await de Marmont's return with the millions which we want. After that we'll boldly on to Paris and defy my enemies there . . . En avant, Marechal! the Corsican ogre is not in the iron cage yet!"

Outside Bertrand was holding his stirrup for him. He swung himself lightly in the saddle and turned out of the farmyard gate into the open, throwing back his head and sniffing the storm-laden air as if he was about to lead his army to one of his victorious charges. Not waiting to see how close the other two men followed him, he put his horse at once at a gallop.

He rode on—never pausing—never looking round even on that gigantic desolation which the cold light of the moon weirdly and fitfully revealed—his mind was fixed upon a fresh throw on the gaming table of the world.

Overhead the storm-driven clouds chased one another with unflagging fury across the moonlit sky, now obscuring, now revealing that gigantic dissolution of the Grand Army, so like the melting of ice and frost under the fierce kiss of the sun.

More than men in an attack, less than women in a retreat, the finest cavalry Europe had ever seen was flying like sand before the wind: but the somnambulist rode on in his sleep, forgetting that on these vast and billowing fields twenty-six thousand gallant French heroes had died for the sake of his dreams.

Bertrand and the Prince of Wagram followed—gloomy and silent—they knew that all suggestions would be useless, all saner advice remain unheeded. Besides, de Marmont had gone, and after all, what did it all matter? What did anything matter, now that Empire, glory, hope, everything were irretrievably lost?

And in faithful Bertrand's deep-set eyes there came a strange, far-off look, almost of premonition, as if in his mind he could already see that lonely island rock in the Atlantic, and the great gambler there, eating out his heart with vain and bitter regrets.

II

But de Marmont had never had any doubts, never any forebodings: he only had boundless faith in his hero and boundless enthusiasm for his cause. Accustomed to handle money since early manhood, owner of a vast fortune which he had administered himself with no mean skill, he had no doubt that the Emperor's scheme for manufacturing a few millions in a wild gamble on the Stock Exchange was not only feasible but certain of success.

Undoubtedly the false news of Wellington's defeat would reach London to-morrow, as it had already reached Paris and Brussels. The panic in the money market was a foregone conclusion: the quick rise in prices when the truth became known was equally certain. It only meant forestalling the arrival of Wellington's despatches in London by four and twenty hours, and one million would make fifty during that time.

As de Marmont had told his Emperor, he had several hundred thousand pounds invested in England, on which he could lay his hands: operations on the Bourse were nothing new to him: and already while he was still listening with respect and enthusiasm to his Emperor's instructions, he was longing to get away. He knew the country well between here and Brussels, and he was wildly longing to be at work, to be flying across the low-lying land, on to Brussels and then across to England in the wake of the awful news of complete disaster.

He would steal the uniform of some poor dead wretch—a Belgium or a Hanoverian or a black Brunswicker, he didn't care which—it wouldn't take long to strip the dead, and the greatness of the work at stake would justify the sacrilege. In the uniform of one of the Allied army he could safely continue his journey to Brussels, and with luck could reach the city long before sunset.

In Brussels he would at once obtain civilian clothes and then catch the evening packet for England at Ostend. Oh, no! it was not likely that Wellington could send a messenger over to London quite so soon!

At this hour—it was just past five—he was still on Mont Saint Jean making another desperate stand against the Imperial cavalry with troops half worn out with discouragement and whose endurance must even now be giving way.

At this hour the Prussians had appeared at Braine L'Alleud, they had engaged Reille at Plancenoit, but Wellington and the British had still to hold their ground or the news which de Marmont intended to accompany to London might prove true after all.

Ye gods, if only that were possible! How gladly would Victor then have lost the hundred thousands which he meant to risk to-morrow! Wellington really vanquished before Bluecher could come to his rescue! Napoleon once more victorious, as he had always been, and a mightier monarch than before! Then he, Victor de Marmont, the faithful young enthusiast who had never ceased to believe when others wavered, who at this last hour—when the whole world seemed to crumble away from under the feet of the man who had once been its master—was still ready to serve his Emperor, never doubting, always hoping, he would reap such a reward as must at last dazzle the one woman who could make that reward for him doubly precious.

Victor de Marmont had effected the gruesome exchange. He was now dressed in the black uniform of a Brunswick regiment wherein so many French royalists were serving. By a wide detour he had reached the approach to Brussels. Indeed it seemed as if the news which he had sent flying to Paris was true after all. Behind the forest of Soigne where he now was, the fields and roads were full of running men and galloping horses. The dull green of Belgian uniforms, the yellow facings of the Dutch, the black of Brunswickers, all mingled together in a moving kaleidoscopic mass of colour: men were flying unpursued yet panic-stricken towards Brussels, carrying tidings of an awful disaster to the allied armies in their haggard faces, their quivering lips, their blood-stained tunics.

De Marmont joined in with them: though his heart was full of hope, he too contrived to look pale and spent and panic-stricken at will—he heard the shouts of terror, the hastily murmured "All is lost! even the British can no longer stand!" as horses maddened with fright bore their half-senseless riders by. He set his teeth and rode on. His dark eyes glowed with satisfaction; there was no fear that the great gambler would stake his last in vain: the news would travel quick enough—as news of disaster always will. Brussels even now must be full of weeping women and children, as it soon would be of terror-driven men, of wounded and of maimed crawling into the shelter of the town to die in peace.

And as he rode, de Marmont thought more and more of Crystal. The last three months had only enhanced his passionate love for her and his maddening desire to win her yet at all costs. St. Genis would of course be fighting to-day. Perchance a convenient shot would put him effectively out of the way. De Marmont had vainly tried in this wild gallopade to distinguish his rival's face among this mass of foreigners.

As for the Englishman! Well! no doubt he had disappeared long ago out of Crystal de Cambray's life. De Marmont had never feared him greatly. That one look of understanding between Crystal and Clyffurde, and the latter's strange conduct about the money at the inn, were alone responsible for the few twinges of jealousy which de Marmont had experienced in that quarter.

Indeed, the Englishman was a negligible quantity. De Marmont did not fear him. There was only St. Genis, and with the royalist cause rendered absolutely hopeless—as it would be, as it must be—St. Genis and the Comte de Cambray and all those stiff-necked aristocrats of the old regime who had thought fit to turn their proud backs on him at Brestalou three months ago, would be irretrievably ruined and discredited and would have to fly the country once more . . . and Crystal, faced with the alternative of penury in England or a brilliant existence at the Tuileries as the wife of the Emperor's most faithful friend, would make her choice as he—de Marmont—never doubted that any woman would.

Hope for him had already become reality. Brussels was the half-way halt to the uttermost heights of his ambition. Fortune, the Emperor's gratitude, the woman he loved, all waited for him there. He reached the city just as that distant horizon in the west was lit up by a streak of brilliant crimson from the fast sinking sun: just when—had he but known it!—on the crest of Mont Saint Jean, Wellington had waved his hat over his head and given the heroic British army—exhausted, but undaunted—the order for a general charge; just when the Grand Army, finally checked in its advance, had first set up the ominous call that was like the passing-bell of its dying glory: "Sauve qui peut!"

III

"Sauve qui peut!"

Bobby Clyffurde heard the cry too through the fast gathering shadows of unconsciousness that closed in round his wearied senses, and, as a film that was so like the kindly veil of approaching Death spread over his eyes, he raised them up just once to that vivid crimson glow far out in the west, and on the winged chariot of the setting sun he sent up his last sigh of gratitude to God. All day he had called for Death—all day he had wooed her there where bullets and grape-shot were thickest—where her huge scythe had been most busily at work.

Sons of fond mothers, husbands, sweethearts that were dearly loved, brothers that would be endlessly mourned, lives that were more precious than any earthly treasures—the ghostly harvester claimed them all with impartial cruelty. And he—desolate and lonely—with no one greatly to care if he came back or no—with not a single golden thread of hope to which he might cling, without a dream to brighten the coming days of dreariness—with a life in the future that could hold nothing but vain regrets, Bobby had sought Death twenty times to-day and Death had resolutely passed him by.

But now he was grateful for that: he was thankful that he had lived just long enough to see the sunset, just long enough to take part in that last glorious charge in obedience to Wellington's inspiring command: "Up, guards, and at them!" he was glad to have lived just long enough to hear the "Sauve qui peut!" to know that the Grand Army was in full retreat, that Bluecher had come up in time, that British pluck and British endurance had won the greatest victory of all times for Britain's flag and her national existence.

Now with a rough bandage hastily tied round his head where grape-shot had lacerated cheek and ear, with a bayonet thrust in the thigh and another in the arm, Bobby had remained lying there with many thousands round him as silent, as uncomplaining, as he—in the down-trodden corn—and with the tramp of thousands of galloping, fleeing horses, the clash of steel and fusillade of tirailleurs and artillery reaching his dimmed senses like a distant echo from the land of ghosts. And before his eyes—half veiled in unconsciousness, there flitted the tender, delicate vision of Crystal de Cambray: of her blue eyes and soft fair hair, done up in a quaint mass of tiny curls; of the scarf of filmy lace which she always liked to wrap round her shoulders, and through the lace the pearly sheen of her skin, of her arms, and of her throat. The air around him had become pure and rarified: that horrible stench of powder and smoke and blood no longer struck his nostrils—it was roses, roses all around him—crimson roses—sweet and caressing and fragrant—with soft, velvety petals that brushed against his cheek—and from somewhere close by came a dreamy melody, the half-sad, half-gay lilt of an intoxicating dance.

It was delicious! and Bobby, wearied, sore and aching in body, felt his soul lifted to some exquisite heights which were not yet heaven, of course, but which must of a truth form the very threshold of Paradise.

He saw Crystal more and more clearly every moment: now he was looking straight into her blue eyes, and her little hand, cool and white as snow, rested upon his burning forehead. She smiled on him—as on a friend—there was no contempt, no harshness in her look—only a great, consoling pity and something that seemed like an appeal!

Yes! the longer he himself looked into those blue eyes of hers, the more sure he was that there was an appeal in them. It almost seemed as if she needed him, in a way that she had never needed him before. Apparently she could not speak: she could not tell him what it was she wanted: but her little hands seemed to draw him up, out of the trodden, trampled corn, and having soothed his aches and pains they seemed to impel him to do something—that was important . . . and imperative . . . something that she wanted done.

He begged her to let him lie here in peace, for he was now comforted and happy. He was quite sure now that he was dead, that her sweet face had been the last tangible vision which he had seen on earth, ere he closed his eyes in the last long sleep.

He had seen her and she had gone. All of a sudden she had vanished, and darkness was closing in around him: the scent of roses faded into the air, which was now filled again with horrid sounds—the deafening roar of cannon, the sharp and incessant retort of rifle-fire, the awesome melee of cries and groans and bugle-calls and sighs of agony, and one deafening cry—so like the last wail of departing souls—which came from somewhere—not very far away: "Vive l'Empereur!"

Bobby raised himself to a sitting posture. His head ached terribly—he was stiff in every limb: a burning, almost intolerable pain gnawed at his thigh and at his left arm. But consciousness had returned and with it all the knowledge of what this day had meant: all round him there was the broken corn, stained with blood and mud, all round him lay the dead and the dying in their thousands. Far away in the west a crimson glow like fire lit up this vast hecatomb of brave lives sacrificed, this final agony of the vast Empire, the might and grandeur of one man laid low this day by the mightier hand of God.

It lit up with the weird light of the dying day the pallid, clean-shaven faces of gallant British boys, the rugged faces of the Scot, the olive skin of the child of Provence, the bronzed cheeks of old veterans: it threw its lurid glow on red coats and black coats, white facings and gilt epaulettes; it drew sparks as of still-living fire from breastplates and broken swords, discarded casques and bayonets, sabretaches and kilts and bugles and drums, and dead horses and arms and accoutrements and dead and dying men, all lying pell-mell in a huge litter with the glow of midsummer sunset upon them—poor little chessmen—pawns and knights—castles of strength and kings of some lonely mourning hearts—all swept together by the Almighty hand of the Great Master of this terrestrial game.

But with returning consciousness Bobby's gaze took in a wider range of vision. He visualised exactly where he was—on the south slope of Mont Saint Jean with La Haye Sainte on ahead a little to his left, and the whitewashed walls of La Belle Alliance still further away gleaming golden in the light of the setting sun.

He saw that on the wide road which leads to Genappe and Charleroi the once invincible cavalry of the mighty Emperor was fleeing helter-skelter from the scene of its disaster: he saw that the British—what was left of them—were in hot pursuit! He saw from far Plancenoit the scintillating casques of Bluecher's Prussians.

And on the left a detachment of allied troops—Dutch, Belgian, Brunswickers—had just started down the slope of the plateau to join in this death-dealing pell-mell, where amongst the litter of dead and dying, in the confusion of pursuer and pursued, comrade fought at times against comrade, brother fired on brother—Prussian against British.

Down below behind the farm buildings of La Haye Sainte two battalions of chasseurs of the Old Guard had made a stand around a tattered bit of tricolour and the bronze eagle—symbol of so much decadent grandeur and of such undying glory. "A moi chasseurs," brave General Pelet had cried. "Let us save the eagle or die beneath its wing."

And those who heard this last call of despair stopped in their headlong flight; they forged a way for themselves through the mass of running horses and men, they rallied to their flag, and with their tirailleurs—kneeling on one knee—ranged in a circle round them, they now formed a living bulwark for their eagle, of dauntless breasts and bristling bayonets.

And upon this mass of desperate men, the small body of raw Dutch and Belgian and German troops now hurled themselves with wild huzzas and blind impetuousness. Against this mass of heroes and of conquerors in a dozen victorious campaigns—men who had no longer anything to lose but life, and to whom life meant less than nothing now—against them a handful of half-trained recruits, drunk with the cry of "Victory" which drowned the roar of the cannon and the clash of sabres, drunk with the vision of glory which awaited them if that defiant eagle were brought to earth by them!

And as Bobby staggered to his feet he already saw the impending catastrophe—one of the many on this day of cumulative disasters. He saw the Dutch and the Belgians and the Brunswickers rush wildly to the charge—young men—enthusiasts—brave—but men whose ranks had twice been broken to-day—who twice had rallied to their colours and then had broken again—men who were exhausted—men who were none too ably led—men in fact—and there were many French royalists among their officers—who had not the physical power of endurance which had enabled the British to astonish the world to-day.

Bobby could see amongst them the Brunswickers and their black coats—he would have known them amongst millions of men. The full brilliance of the evening glow was upon them—on their black coats and the silver galoons and tassels; two of their officers had made a brave show in Brussels three days—or was it a hundred years?—ago at the Duchess of Richmond's ball. Bobby remembered them so well, for one of these two officers was Maurice de St. Genis.

Oh! how Crystal would love to see him now—even though her dear heart would be torn with anxiety for him—for he was fighting bravely, bravely and desperately as every one had fought to-day, as these chasseurs of the Old Guard—just the few of them that remained—were fighting still even at this hour round that tattered flag and that bronze eagle, and with the cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" dying upon their lips.

Despair indeed on both sides—even at this hour when the merest incident might yet turn the issue of this world-conflict one way or the other. Bobby, as he steadied himself on his feet, had seen that the attack was already turning into a rout. Not only had Pelet's chasseurs held the Dutch and Brunswickers at bay, not only had their tirailleurs made deadly havoc among their assailants, but the latter now were threatened with absolute annihilation even whilst all around them their allies—British and Prussian—were crying "Victory!"

Bobby could see them quite clearly—for he saw with that subtle and delicate sense which only a great and pure passion can give!—he saw the danger at the very moment when it was born—at the precise instant when it threatened that handful of black-coated men, one of whose officers was named St. Genis. He saw the first sign of wavering, of stupefaction, that followed the impetuous charge: he saw the gaps in the ranks after that initial deadly volley from the tirailleurs. It almost seemed as if he could hear those shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!" and the rallying cry of commanding officers—it was all so near—not more than three hundred yards away, and the clear, stormy atmosphere carried sights and sounds upon its wing.

Another volley from the tirailleurs and the Dutch and Brunswickers turned to fly: in vain did their officers call, they wanted to get away! They tried to fly—to run, for now the chasseurs were at them with bayonets—they tried to run, but the ground was littered with their own wounded and dead—with the wounded and the dead of a long day of carnage: they stumbled at every step—fell over the dying and the wounded—over dead and wounded horses—over piles of guns and swords and bayonets, and sabretaches, over forsaken guns and broken carriages, litter that impeded them in front even as they were driven with the bayonet from the rear.

Bobby saw it all, for they were coming now—pursued and pursuers—as fast as ever they could; they were coming, these flying, black-coated men, casting away their gay trappings as well as their arms, trying to run—to get away—but stumbling, falling all the time—picking themselves up, falling and running again.

And in that one short moment while the whole brief tragedy was enacted before his eyes, Bobby also saw, in a vision that was equally swift and fleeting, the blue eyes of Crystal drowned in tears. He saw her with fair head drooping like a lily, he saw the quiver of her lips, heard the moan of pain that would come to her lips when the man she loved was brought home to her—dead. And in that same second—so full of portent—Bobby understood why it was that her sweet image had called to him for help just now. Again she called, again she beckoned—her blue eyes looked on him with an appeal that was all-compelling: her two dear hands were clasped and she begged of him that he should be her friend.

Such visions come from God! no man sees them save he whose soul is great and whose heart is pure. Poor Bobby Clyffurde—lonely, heart-broken, desolate—saw the exquisite face that he would have loved to kiss—he saw it with the golden glow of evening upon the delicate cheeks, and with the lurid light of fire and battle upon the soft, fair hair.