VILLENEUVE

My apprehensions even outstep their cause,
As though some influence smote through yonder pane.

[He gazes listlessly, and resumes his broodings.]

---Why dared I not disclose to him my thought,
As nightly worded by the whistling shrouds,
That Brest will never see our battled hulls
Helming to north in pomp of cannonry
To take the front in this red pilgrimage!
---If so it were, now, that I'd screen my skin
From risks of bloody business in the brunt,
My acts could scarcely wear a difference.
Yet I would die to-morrow--not ungladly--
So far removed is carcase-care from me.
For no self do these apprehensions spring,
But for the cause.--Yes, rotten is our marine,
Which, while I know, the Emperor knows not,
And the pale secret chills! Though some there be
Would beard contingencies and buffet all,
I'll not command a course so conscienceless.
Rather I'll stand, and face Napoleon's rage
When he shall learn what mean the ambiguous lines
That facts have forced from me.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES [to the Spirit of Years]

O Eldest-born of the Unconscious Cause--
If such thou beest, as I can fancy thee--
Why dost thou rack him thus? Consistency
Might be preserved, and yet his doom remain.
His olden courage is without reproach;
Albeit his temper trends toward gaingiving!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

I say, as I have said long heretofore,
I know but narrow freedom. Feel'st thou not
We are in Its hand, as he?--Here, as elsewhere,
We do but as we may; no further dare.

[The birds disappear, and the scene is lost behind sea-mist.]

SCENE III

THE CAMP AND HARBOUR OF BOULOGNE

[The English coast in the distance. Near the Tour d'Ordre stands
a hut, with sentinels and aides outside; it is NAPOLEON's temporary
lodging when not at his headquarters at the Chateau of Pont-de-
Briques, two miles inland.]

DUMB SHOW

A courier arrives with dispatches, and enters the Emperor's quarters,
whence he emerges and goes on with other dispatches to the hut of
DECRES, lower down. Immediately after, NAPOLEON comes out from his
hut with a paper in his hand, and musingly proceeds towards an
eminence commanding the Channel.

Along the shore below are forming in a far-reaching line more
than a hundred thousand infantry. On the downs in the rear of
the c