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_ PART SECOND. ACT THIRD. SCENE II.
[It is nearly midnight. The fugitives who remain in the cellar having slept off the effects of the wine, are awakened by a new tramping of cavalry, which becomes more and more persistent. It is the French, who now fill the road. The advance-guard having passed by, DELABORDE'S division, LORGE'S division, MERLE'S division, and others, successively cross the gloom.
Presently come the outlines of the Imperial Guard, and then, with a start, those in hiding realize their situation, and are wide awake. NAPOLEON enters with his staff. He has just been overtaken by a courier, and orders those round him to halt.]
NAPOLEON
Let there a fire be lit: Ay, here and now.
The lines within these letters brook no pause
In mastering their purport.
[Some of the French approach the ruined house and, appropriating what wood is still left there, heap it by the roadside and set it alight. A mixed rain and snow falls, and the sputtering flames throw a glare all round.]
SECOND DESERTER (under his voice)
We be shot corpses! Ay, faith, we be! Why didn't I stick to England, and true doxology, and leave foreign doxies and their wine alone! . . . Mate, can ye squeeze another shardful from the cask there, for I feel my time is come! . . . O that I had but the barrel of that firelock I throwed away, and that wasted powder to prime and load! This bullet I chaw to squench my hunger would do the rest! . . . Yes, I could pick him off now!
FIRST DESERTER
You lie low with your picking off, or he may pick off you! Thank God the babies are gone. Maybe we shan't be noticed, if we've but the courage to do nothing, and keep hid.
[NAPOLEON dismounts, approaches the fire, and looks around.]
NAPOLEON
Another of their dead horses here, I see.
OFFICER
Yes, sire. We have counted eighteen hundred odd
From Benavente hither, pistoled thus.
Some we'd to finish for them: headlong haste
Spared them no time for mercy to their brutes.
One-half their cavalry now tramps afoot.
NAPOLEON
And what's the tale of waggons we've picked up?
OFFICER
Spanish and all abandoned, some four hundred;
Of magazines and firelocks, full ten load;
And stragglers and their girls a numerous crew.
NAPOLEON
Ay, devil--plenty those! Licentious ones
These English, as all canting peoples are.--
And prisoners?
OFFICER
Seven hundred English, sire;
Spaniards five thousand more.
NAPOLEON
'Tis not amiss.
To keep the new year up they run away!
(He soliloquizes as he begins tearing open the dispatches.)
Nor Pitt nor Fox displayed such blundering
As glares in this campaign! It is, indeed,
Enlarging Folly to Foolhardiness
To combat France by land! But how expect
Aught that can claim the name of government
From Canning, Castlereagh, and Perceval,
Caballers all--poor sorry politicians--
To whom has fallen the luck of reaping in
The harvestings of Pitt's bold husbandry.
[He unfolds a dispatch, and looks for something to sit on. A cloak is thrown over a log, and he settles to reading by the firelight. The others stand round. The light, crossed by the snow-flakes, flickers on his unhealthy face and stoutening figure. He sinks into the rigidity of profound thought, till his features lour.]
So this is their reply! They have done with me!
Britain declines negotiating further--
Flouts France and Russia indiscriminately.
"Since one dethrones and keeps as prisoners
The most legitimate kings"--that means myself--
"The other suffers their unworthy treatment
For sordid interests"--that's for Alexander! . . .
And what is Georgy made to say besides?--
"Pacific overtures to us are wiles
Woven to unnerve the generous nations round
Lately escaped the galling yoke of France,
Or waiting so to do. Such, then, being seen,
These tentatives must be regarded now
As finally forgone; and crimson war
Be faced to its fell worst, unflinchingly."
--The devil take their lecture! What am I,
That England should return such insolence?
[He jumps up, furious, and walks to and fro beside the fire. By and by cooling he sits down again.]
Now as to hostile signs in Austria. . . .
(He breaks another seal and reads.)
Ah,--swords to cross with her some day in spring!
Thinking me cornered over here in Spain
She speaks without disguise, the covert pact
'Twixt her and England owning now quite frankly,
Careless how works its knowledge upon me.
She, England, Germany: well--I can front them!
That there is no sufficient force of French
Between the Elbe and Rhine to prostrate her,
Let new and terrible experience
Soon disillude her of! Yea; she may arm:
The opportunity she late let slip
Will not subserve her now!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Has he no heart-hints that this Austrian court,
Whereon his mood takes mould so masterful,
Is rearing naively in its nursery-room
A future wife for him?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Thou dost but guess it,
And how should his heart know?
NAPOLEON (opening and reading another dispatch)
Now eastward. Ohe!--
The Orient likewise looms full somberly. . . .
The Turk declines pacifically to yield
What I have promised Alexander. Ah! . . .
As for Constantinople being his prize
I'll see him frozen first. His flight's too high!
And showing that I think so makes him cool. (Rises.)
Is Soult the Duke Dalmatia yet at hand?
OFFICER
He has arrived along the Leon road
Just now, your Majesty; and only waits
The close of your perusals.
[Enter SOULT, who is greeted by NAPOLEON.]
FIRST DESERTER
Good Lord deliver us from all great men, and take me back again to humble life! That's Marshal Soult the Duke of Dalmatia!
SECOND DESERTER
The Duke of Damnation for our poor rear, by the look on't!
FIRST DESERTER
Yes--he'll make 'em rub their poor rears before he has done with 'em! But we must overtake 'em to-morrow by a cross-cut, please God!
NAPOLEON (pointing to the dispatches)
Here's matter enough for me, Duke, and to spare.
The ominous contents are like the threats
The ancient prophets dealt rebellious Judah!
Austria we soon shall have upon our hands,
And England still is fierce for fighting on,--
Strange humour in a concord-loving land!
So now I must to Paris straight away--
At least, to Valladolid; so as to stand
More apt for couriers than I do out here
In this far western corner, and to mark
The veerings of these new developments,
And blow a counter-breeze. . . .
Then, too, there's Lannes, still sweating at the siege
Of sullen Zaragoza as 'twere hell.
Him I must further counsel how to close
His twice too tedious battery.--You, then, Soult--
Ney is not yet, I gather, quite come up?
SOULT
He's near, sire, on the Benavente road;
But some hours to the rear I reckon, still.
NAPOLEON (pointing to the dispatches)
Him I'll direct to come to your support
In this pursuit and harassment of Moore
Wherein you take my place. You'll follow up
And chase the flying English to the sea.
Bear hard on them, the bayonet at their loins.
With Merle's and Mermet's corps just gone ahead,
And Delaborde's, and Heudelet's here at hand.
While Lorge's and Lahoussaye's picked dragoons
Will follow, and Franceschi's cavalry.
To Ney I am writing, in case of need,
He will support with Marchand and Mathieu.--
Your total thus of seventy thousand odd,
Ten thousand horse, and cannon to five score,
Should near annihilate this British force,
And carve a triumph large in history.
(He bends over the fire and makes some notes rapidly.)
I move into Astorga; then turn back,
(Though only in my person do I turn)
And leave to you the destinies of Spain.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
More turning may be here than he design.
In this small, sudden, swift turn backward, he
Suggests one turning from his apogee!
[The characters disperse, the fire sinks, and snowflakes and darkness blot out all.] _
Read next: Part 2: Act 3: Scene 3. Before Coruna
Read previous: Part 2: Act 3: Scene 1. Spain. A Road Near Astorga
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