TEN MINUTES' DELAY
All well-informed people are familiar with the sad account of the death of the young Prince Napoleon, who fell pierced by nineteen wounds at the hands of the Zulus, in South Africa, June 1, 1879.
Many will remember that Capt. Carey, in his published report, mentioned that after they had selected the camping ground,—the object for which the squad of six had been detailed,—and had had coffee and rested, he suggested that they should remount and return to camp. But the young prince, who commanded the squad, said,—
"No, let's wait ten minutes."
Just as they were preparing to remount, at the expiration of that ten minutes, a body of Zulus came on them, and all fled but the prince, whose horse broke from him. After a desperate resistance, he fell, covered with wounds, and died "in the tall grass of the douga."
I presume all do not know that this pleading for ten minutes' delay was a habit of the young prince from early childhood.
A correspondent of a leading Paris journal interviewed the empress as she was about leaving for the scene of the tragedy that had wrecked all her earthly hopes, and drew her into conversation on the subject of her son.
She talked freely during the interview, but with an evident anguish of spirit, which seemed only the more sad from her effort at control.
During this interview, while speaking of the childhood of her son, the prince, she unconsciously revealed the trait in his character that had caused all this woe,—to her, wrecked hopes and a broken heart; to him, the probable loss of a throne, an earthly future, and his life.