words on its correctness, and galloped off.

"Well," said Guiscard, as he followed with his glance the flying troop,
"war is a showy spectacle, and I can scarcely wonder that it should be
the game of princes; but a little more common sense in our camps would
have saved us to-morrow's battle. The delays of diplomacy are like the
delays of law--the estate perishes before the process is at an end. But
now to our work." We rode to the various points from which a view of the
newly arrived multitude could be obtained. Their fires began to blaze;
and we were thus enabled to ascertain at once their position, and, in
some degree, their numbers. There could not be less than thirty thousand
men, the arrival of the last few hours. "For this _contretemps_," said
Guiscard, as he examined their bivouac with his telescope, "we have to
thank only ourselves. Valenciennes ought to have been stormed within the
first five minutes after we could have cut down those poplars for
scaling ladders," and he pointed to the tapering tops of the large
plantations lining the banks of the Scheldt; "but we have been
quarreling over our portfolios, while the French have been gathering
every rambling soldier within a hundred miles; and now we shall have a
desperate struggle to take possession of those lines, and probably a
long siege as finale to the operation. There, take my glass, and judge
for yourselves." I looked, and if the novelty and singularity could have
made me forget the serious business of the scene, I might have been
amply amused. The whole French force were employed in preparing for the
bivouac, and fortifying the ground, which they had evidently taken up
with the intent of covering the city. All was in motion. At the distance
from which we surveyed it, the whole position seemed one huge ant-hill.
Torches, thickets burning, and the fires of the bivouac, threw an
uncertain and gloomy glare over portions of the view, which, leaving the
rest in utter darkness, gave an ominous and ghostly look to the entire.
I remarked this impression to Guiscard, and observed that it was strange
to see a "scene of the most stirring life so sepulchral."

"Why not?" was his reply. "The business is probably much the same."

"Yet sepulchral," I observed, "is not exactly the word which I would
have used. There is too much motion, too much hurried and eager
restlessness, too much of the wild and fierce activity of beings who
have not a moment to lose, and who are b