aul?

FIRST PEDESTRIAN

Hey? And d'ye know it?--Now I look back to the top o' Rudgeway
the folk seem as come to a pause there.--Be this true, never again
do I stir my stumps for any alarm short of the Day of Judgment!
Nine times has my rheumatical rest been broke in these last three
years by hues and cries of Boney upon us. 'Od rot the feller;
now he's made a fool of me once more, till my inside is like a
wash-tub, what wi' being so gallied, and running so leery!--But
how if you be one of the enemy, sent to sow these tares, so to
speak it, these false tidings, and coax us into a fancied safety?
Hey, neighbours? I don't, after all, care for this story!

SECOND PEDESTRIAN

Onwards again!
If Boney's come, 'tis best to be away;
And if he's not, why, we've a holiday!

[Exeunt Pedestrians. The Spirits of Rumour vanish, while the scene
seems to become involved in the smoke from the beacon, and slowly
disappears.[6]]

ACT THIRD

SCENE I

BOULOGNE. THE CHATEAU AT PONT-DE-BRIQUES

[A room in the Chateau, which is used as the Imperial quarters.
The EMPEROR NAPOLEON, and M. GASPARD MONGE, the mathematician
and philosopher, are seated at breakfast.]

OFFICER

Monsieur the Admiral Decres awaits
A moment's audience with your Majesty,
Or now, or later.

NAPOLEON

Bid him in at once--
At last Villeneuve has raised the Brest blockade!

[Enter DECRES.]

What of the squadron's movements, good Decres?
Brest opened, and all sailing Channelwards,
Like swans into a creek at feeding-time?

DECRES

Such news was what I'd hoped, your Majesty,
To send across this daybreak. But events
Have proved intractable, it seems, of late;
And hence I haste in person to report
The featless facts that just have dashed my---

NAPOLEON [darkening]

Well?

DECRES

Sire, at the very juncture when the fleets
Sailed out from Ferrol, fever raged aboard
"L'Achille" and "l'Algeciras": later on,
Mischief assailed our Spanish comrades' ships;
Several ran foul of neighbours; whose new hurts,
Being added to their innate clumsiness,
Gave hap the upper hand; and in quick course
Demoralized the whole; until Villeneuve,
Judging that Calder now with Nelson rode,
And prescient of unparalleled disaster
If he pushed on in so disjoint a trim,
Bowed to the inevitable; and thus, pe