“You are right, sir,” remarked the old sergeant with a smile. “If they had taken the palace of Versailles over for him, he wouldn’t have liked it any better.”
“Did you ever see him?” inquired Rivers.
“No, sir; I didn’t come to the island till just before his death; but my father-in-law, who died a few years ago, was a soldier under Sir Hudson Lowe’s command; and he told me that he had often been set as one of the sentries round Longwood, and had seen Buonaparte again and again. It was a troublesome duty keeping guard on him.”
“How so?” asked Walters.
“Why, sir, they were obliged—one of them, that is, was obliged—to see Bony with his own eyes once in every twenty-four hours—to make sure of him, you see, sir. There was always a fancy that he was trying to make his escape to America.”
“There was some ground for that, if what I have read is true,” remarked Rivers.
“Maybe, sir,” said Sergeant Thorpe. “Anyhow, Sir Hudson always acted as though he believed it; and he insisted that one of the men should see Bony every day, and make sure he was there; and nothing that he did made Bony so angry. He would take every means of preventing it that he could. He would shut himself up sometimes for a whole day, and allow no one to enter his room but his own servants. They were all in the same mind as himself about it; and even if they hadn’t been, they durstn’t for the life of them let any one go into the room where he was. Some of our chaps hung about the entrance for an hour or two, or longer than that, before they could get a sight of him. My father-in-law told me that one day, when he had waited for ever so long without being able to see Buonaparte, he hid himself behind one of the curtains in the hall and stayed there till bed-time. About ten o’clock Bony came out on his way to bed. My father-in-law got a clear sight of him, but Bony caught a glimpse of the end of his shoe sticking out from under the curtain. My father-in-law was hauled out, and had to explain what brought him there. A complaint was sent to Sir Hudson—and to the Government, I believe, too—that an attempt had been made to assassinate him! But there were so many stories of the same kind, none of which had any foundation, that very little attention was paid to it.”
“No,” said Captain Ranken. “The Government would have had little else to do, if they had attended to all his complaints. So this is the house where the great emperor lived, is it?”
“Lived and died, sir,” said Sergeant Thorpe. “This is the room where he used to sit and dictate, and this the bedroom where he died. There was a terrible storm on the day of his death, the 4th of May 1821. I can just remember it, having come here when I was a young boy, a few weeks before. The people in the island say there has never been such a storm known before or since. All the trees about the place were torn up, and among them the willow, under which was his favourite seat.”
“Were you present at his burial?” inquired Margetts.