SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

I have--too often!

[The attenuated dance dies out, the remaining guests depart, the
musicians leave the gallery and depart also. RICHMOND goes to
a window and pulls back one of the curtains. Dawn is barely
visible in the sky, and the lamps indistinctly reveal that long
lines of British infantry have assembled in the street. In the
irksomeness of waiting for their officers with marching-orders,
they have lain down on the pavements, where many are soundly
sleeping, their heads on their knapsacks and their arms by their
side.]

DUCHESS

Poor men. Sleep waylays them. How tired they seem!

RICHMOND

They'll be more tired before the day is done.
A march of eighteen miles beneath the heat,
And then to fight a battle ere they rest,
Is what foreshades.--Well, it is more than bed-time;
But little sleep for us or any one
To-night in Brussels!

[He draws the window-curtain and goes out with the DUCHESS.
Servants enter and extinguish candles. The scene closes in
darkness.]

SCENE III

CHARLEROI. NAPOLEON'S QUARTERS

[The same midnight. NAPOLEON is lying on a bed in his clothes.
In consultation with SOULT, his Chief of Staff, who is sitting
near, he dictates to his Secretary orders for the morrow. They
are addressed to KELLERMANN, DROUOT, LOBAU, GERARD, and other
of his marshals. SOULT goes out to dispatch them.

The Secretary resumes the reading of reports. Presently MARSHAL
NEY is announced He is heard stumbling up the stairs, and enters.]

NAPOLEON

Ah, Ney; why come you back? Have you secured
The all-important Crossways?--safely sconced
Yourself at Quatre-Bras?

NEY

Not, sire, as yet.
For, marching forwards, I heard gunnery boom,
And, fearing that the Prussians had engaged you,
I stood at pause. Just then---

NAPOLEON

My charge was this:
Make it impossible at any cost
That Wellington and Blucher should unite.
As it's from Brussels that the English come,
And from Namur the Prussians, Quatre-Bras
Lends it alone for their forgathering:
So, why exists it not in your hands/

NEY

My reason, sire, was rolling from my tongue.--
Hard on the boom of guns, dim files of foot
Which read to me like massing Englishry--
The vanguard of all Wellington's array--
I half-discerned. So