"They added, that now but one hope remained for this army."
"And what was that, sir," said he, fiercely. "What suggestion of cunning strategy did these sea wolves intimate?"
"To cut your way through the blockade, and join Suchet's corps, attacking the Austrians at the Monte Ratte, and by the sea road gaining the heights of Bochetta."
"Do these heroic spirits know the strength of that same Austrian corps?—did they tell you that it numbered fifty-four thousand bayonets?"
"They called them below forty thousand; and that now that Bonaparte was on his way through the Alps, perhaps by this, over the Mount Cenis—"
"What! did they say this? Is Bonaparte so near us?" cried he, placing a hand on either shoulder, as he stared me in the face.
"Yes; there is no doubt of that. The dispatch to Lord Keith brought the news a week ago, and there is no secret made about it in the fleet."
"Over Mount Cenis!" repeated he to himself. "Already in Italy!"
"Holding straight for Milan, Lord Keith thinks," added I.
"No, sir, straight for the Tuileries," cried Massena, sternly: and then, correcting himself suddenly, he burst into a forced laugh. I must confess that the speech puzzled me sorely at the time, but I lived to learn its meaning, and many a time have I wondered at the shrewd foresight which even then read the ambitious character of the future emperor.