of snuff]

Good, General; very good!--if Bonaparte
Will kindly stand and let you have your way.
But what if he do not!--if he forestall
These sound slow movements, mount the Pratzen hills
When we descend, fall on OUR rear forthwith,
While we go crying for HIS rear in vain?

KUTUZOF [waking up]

Ay, ay, Weirother; that's the question--eh?

WEIROTHER [impatiently]

If Bonaparte had meant to climb up there,
Being one so spry and so determinate,
He would have set about it ere this eve!
He has not troops to do so, sirs, I say:
His utmost strength is forty thousand men.

LANGERON

Then if so weak, how can so wise a brain
Court ruin by abiding calmly here
The impact of a force so large as ours?
He may be mounting up this very hour!
What think you, General Miloradovich?

MILORADOVICH

I? What's the use of thinking, when to-morrow
Will tell us, with no need to think at all!

WEIROTHER

Pah! At this moment he retires apace.
His fires are dark; all sounds have ceased that way
Save voice of owl or mongrel wintering there.
But, were he nigh, these movements I detail
Would knock the bottom from his enterprize.

KUTUZOF [rising]

Well, well. Now this being ordered, set it going.
One here shall make fair copies of the notes,
And send them round. Colonel van Toll I ask
To translate part.--Generals, it grows full late,
And half-a-dozen hours of needed sleep
Will aid us more than maps. We now disperse,
And luck attend us all. Good-night. Good-night.

[The Generals and other officers go out severally.]

Such plans are--paper! Only to-morrow's light
Reveals the true manoeuvre to my sight!

[He flaps out with his hand all the candles but one or two,
slowly walks outside the house, and listens. On the high
ground in the direction of the French lines are heard shouts,
and a wide illumination grows and strengthens; but the hollows
are still mantled in fog.]

Are these the signs of regiments out of heart,
And beating backward from an enemy!

[He remains pondering. On the Pratzen heights immediately in front
there begins a movement among the Russians, signifying that the plan
which involves desertion of that vantage-ground is about to be put
in force. Noises of drunken singing arise from the Russian lines at
various points elsewhere.

The night shades involve