And, raising his eyes to the light flaming in the darkness on the pinnacle of the mainmast, he said, with hardly a pause:
"The wind blows from the north."
He had changed the subject with the suddenness which was his wont and which had caused some one to say to M. Denon:
"The General shuts the drawer."
Admiral Gantheaume observed that they could not expect the wind to change before the first days of autumn.
The light was flaring towards Egypt. Bonaparte looked in that direction. His gaze plunged into space; and, speaking in staccato tones, he let fall these words:
"If only they can hold out yonder! The evacuation of Egypt would be a commercial and military disaster. Alexandria is the capital of the controllers of Europe. Thence, I shall destroy England's commerce and I shall change the destiny of India.... For me, as for Alexander, Alexandria is the fortress, the port, the arsenal whence I start to conquer the world and whither I cause the wealth of Africa and Asia to flow. England can only be conquered in Egypt. If she were to take possession of Egypt, she instead of us would be the mistress of the world. Turkey is on her death-bed. Egypt assures me the possession of Greece. For immortality my name shall be inscribed by that of Epaminondas. The fate of the world hangs upon my intelligence and Kléber's firmness."
For some days afterwards the General remained silent. He had read to him the Révolutions de la République romaine, the story of which seemed to him to drag unbearably. The aide-de-camp, Lavallette, had to gallop through the Abbé Vertot's pages. And even then Bonaparte's patience would be exhausted, and, snatching the book from his hands, he would ask for Plutarch's Lives, of which he never tired. He considered that, though lacking broad and clear vision, they were permeated with an overpowering sense of destiny.
So one day, after his siesta, he summoned his reader and bade him resume the Life of Brutus, where he had left off on the previous evening. Lavallette opened the book at the page marked, and read:
"Then, as he and Cassius were preparing to leave Asia with the whole of their army (the night was very dark, and but a feeble light burned in his tent; a profound silence reigned throughout the whole camp and he himself was wrapt in thought), it seemed to him that he saw some one enter his tent. He looked towards the door and he perceived a horrible spectre, whose countenance was strange and terrifying, who approached him and stood there in silence. He had the courage to address it. 'Who art thou,' he asked, 'a man or a god? What comest thou to do here and what desirest thou of me?' 'Brutus,' replied the phantom, 'I am thy evil genius, and thou shalt see me at Philippi.' Then Brutus, unperturbed, said: 'I will see thee there.' Straightway the phantom disappeared, and Brutus, to whom the servants, whom he summoned, said that they had seen and heard nothing, continued to busy himself with his affairs."