“What is it, Arnotte?” said the quartermaster to a dragoon officer who rode past.
“It is nothing,” replied the other, laughing, “but a ruse of the Emperor. He wishes to ascertain if the enemy are in force, or if we have only a strong rear-guard before us.”
As he spoke fifteen heavy guns opened there fire, and the still air reverberated with a loud thunder. The sound had not died away, the very smoke lay yet heavily upon the moist earth, when forty pieces of British cannon rang out their answer, and the very plain trembled beneath the shock.
“Ha, they are there, then!” exclaimed the dragoon, as his eyes flashed with ecstasy. “Look! see! the artillery are limbering up already. The Emperor is satisfied.”
And so it was. A dark column of twelve hundred horse that accompanied the guns into the plain, now wheeled slowly round, and wound their long track far away to the right. The rain fell in torrents; the wind was hushed; and as the night fell in darkness, the columns moved severally to their destinations. The bivouacs were formed; the watch-fires were lighted; and seventy thousand men and two hundred pieces of cannon occupied the heights of Planchenoit.
“My orders are to bring you to La Caillon,” said the quartermaster; “and if you only can spur your jaded horse into a trot, we shall soon reach it.”
About a hundred yards from the little farm-house, stood a small cottage of a peasant. Here some officers of Marshal Soult’s staff had taken up their quarters; and thither my guide now bent his steps.
“Comment, Bonnard!” said an aide-de-camp, as we rode up. “Another prisoner? Sacrebleu! We shall have the whole British staff among us. You are in better luck than your countryman, the general, I hope,” said the aide-decamp. “His is a sad affair; and I’m sorry for it, too. He’s a fine, soldier-like looking fellow.”
“Pray, what has happened?” said I. “To what do you allude?”
“Merely to one of your people who has just been taken with some letters and papers of Bourmont’s in his possession. The Emperor is in no very amicable humor towards the traitor, and resolves to pay off some part of his debt on his British correspondent.”