SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURS [aerial music]
Fitfully flash strange sights there; yea,
Unwonted spectacles of sweat and scare
Behind the French, that make a stand
With eighty cannon, match in hand.—
Upon the highway from the town to rear
An eddy of distraction reigns,
Where lumbering treasure, baggage-trains,
Padding pedestrians, haze the atmosphere.
SEMICHORUS II
Men, women, and their children fly,
And when the English over-high
Direct their death-bolts, on this billowy throng
Alight the too far-ranging balls,
Wringing out piteous shrieks and calls
From the pale mob, in monotones loud and long.
SEMICHORUS I
To leftward of the distant din
Reille meantime has been driven in
By Graham’s measure overmastering might.—
Henceforward, masses of the foe
Withdraw, and, firing as they go,
Pass rightwise from the cockpit out of sight.
CHORUS
The sunset slants an ochreous shine
Upon the English knapsacked line,
Whose glistering bayonets incline
As bends the hot pursuit across the plain;
And tardily behind them goes
Too many a mournful load of those
Found wound-weak; while with stealthy crawl,
As silence wraps the rear of all,
Cloaked creatures of the starlight strip the slain.
SCENE III
THE SAME. THE ROAD FROM THE TOWN
[With the going down of the sun the English army finds itself in
complete possession of the mass of waggons and carriages distantly
beheld from the rear—laden with pictures, treasure, flour,
vegetables, furniture, finery, parrots, monkeys, and women—most
of the male sojourners in the town having taken to their heels
and disappeared across the fields.
The road is choked with these vehicles, the women they carry
including wives, mistresses, actresses, dancers, nuns, and
prostitutes, which struggle through droves of oxen, sheep, goats,
horses, asses, and mules— a Noah’s-ark of living creatures in
one vast procession.
There enters rapidly in front of this throng a carriage containing
KING JOSEPH BONAPARTE and an attendant, followed by another vehicle
with luggage.]
JOSEPH [inside carriage]
The bare unblinking truth hereon is this:
The Englishry are a pursuing army,
And we a flying brothel! See our men—
They leave their guns to save their mistresses!
[The carriage is fired upon from outside the scene. The KING leaps
from the vehicle and mounts a horse.
Enter at full gallop from the left CAPTAIN WYNDHAM and a detachment
of the Tenth Hussars in chase of the King’s carriage; and from the
right a troop of French dragoons, who engage with the hussars and
hinder pursuit. Exit KING JOSEPH on horseback; afterwards the
hussars and dragoons go out fighting.
The British infantry enter irregularly, led by a sergeant of the
Eighty-seventh, mockingly carrying MARSHAL JOURDAN’S baton. The
crowd recedes. The soldiers ransack the King’s carriages, cut
from their frames canvases by Murillo, Velasquez, and Zurbaran,
and use them as package-wrappers, throwing the papers and archives
into the road.
They next go to a waggon in the background, which contains a large
chest. Some of the soldiers burst it with a crash. It is full of
money, which rolls into the road. The soldiers begin scrambling,
but are restored to order; and they march on.
Enter more companies of infantry, out of control of their officers,
who are running behind. They see the dollars, and take up the
scramble for them; next ransacking other waggons and abstracting
therefrom uniforms, ladies raiment, jewels, plate, wines, and
spirits.
Some array them in the finery, and one soldier puts on a diamond
necklace; others load themselves with the money still lying about
the road. It begins to rain, and a private who has lost his kit
cuts a hole in the middle of a deframed old master, and, putting
it over his head, wears it as a poncho.
Enter WELLINGTON and others, grimy and perspiring.]
FIRST OFFICER
The men are plundering in all directions!
WELLINGTON
Let ’em. They’ve striven long and gallantly.
—What documents do I see lying there?
SECOND OFFICER [examining]
The archives of King Joseph’s court, my lord;
His correspondence, too, with Bonaparte.