SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
I catch a voice that cautions Picton now
Against his rashness. “What the hell care I,—
Is my curst carcase worth a moment’s mind?—
Come on!” he answers. Onwardly he goes!
[His tall, stern, saturnine figure with its bronzed complexion is
on nearer approach discerned heading the charge. As he advances
to the slope between the cross-roads and the sand-pit, riding very
conspicuously, he falls dead, a bullet in his forehead. His aide,
assisted by a soldier, drags the body beneath a tree and hastens
on. KEMPT takes his command.
Next MARCOGNET is repulsed by PACK’S brigade. D’ERLON’S infantry
and TRAVERS’S cuirassiers are charged by the Union Brigade of
Scotch[23] Greys, Royal Dragoons, and Inniskillens, and cut down
everywhere, the brigade following them so furiously the LORD
UXBRIDGE tries in vain to recall it. On its coming near the
French it is overwhelmed by MILHAUD’S cuirassiers, scarcely a
fifth of the brigade returning.
An aide enters to NAPOLÉON from GENERAL DOMON.]
AIDE
The General, on a far reconnaissance,
Says, sire, there is no room for longer doubt
That those debouching on St. Lambert’s Hill
Are Prussian files.
NAPOLÉON
Then where is General Grouchy?
[Enter COLONEL MARBOT with a prisoner.]
Aha—a Prussian, too! How comes he here?
MARBOT
Sire, my hussars have captured him near Lasnes—
A subaltern of the Silesian Horse.
A note from Bülow to Lord Wellington,
Announcing that a Prussian corps is close,
Was found on him. He speaks our language, sire.
NAPOLÉON [to prisoner]
What force looms yonder on St. Lambert’s Hill?
PRISONER
General Count Bülow’s van, your Majesty.
[A thoughtful scowl crosses NAPOLÉONS’S sallow face.]
NAPOLÉON
Where, then, did your main army lie last night?
PRISONER
At Wavre.
NAPOLÉON
But clashed it with no Frenchmen there?
PRISONER
With none. We deemed they had marched on Plancenoit.