d in the middle of the night, after dreaming of the Emperor's
flight, mount his horse and ride, like a man demented, to Longwood,
only to be assured by the officer on duty that all was well and that
the smitten hero was still his prisoner. When Napoleon was told of
these nocturnal visitations, he was overcome with mirth, but at the
same time filled with contempt, not alone for this amazing specimen,
but for the creatures who had created him a dignitary.

The tragic farce of sending the Emperor to the poisonous plateau of
Longwood, and giving Lowe Plantation House with its much more healthy
climate to reside at, is a phenomenon which few people who have made
themselves conversant with all the facts and circumstances will be
able to understand. But the policy of this Government, of whom the
Scottish bard sings so rapturously, is a problem that can never be
solved.

To a wise body of men, and in view of the fact that the eyes of the
world were fixed upon them and on the vanquished man, their prisoner,
the primary thought would have been compassion, even to indulgence;
instead of which they and their agents behaved as though they were
devoid of humane feelings.

Lowe's ambition seems to have been to ignore propriety, and to force
his way to the Emperor's privacy in order that he might assure himself
that his charge had not escaped, but his ambition and his heroics were
calmly and contemptuously ignored. "Tell my gaoler," said Napoleon to
his valet Noverras, "that it is in his power to change his keys for
the hatchet of the executioner, and that if he enters, it shall be
over a corpse. Give me my pistols," and it is said by Montholon, to
whom the Emperor was dictating at the time of the intrusion, that Sir
Hudson heard this answer and retired confounded. The ultimatum dazed
him, but he was forced to understand that beyond a certain limit,
heroics, fooleries, and impertinences would not be tolerated by this
terrible scavenger of European bureaucracy.[5] Lowe, in very truth,
discerned the stern reality of the Emperor's piercing words, and he
felt the need of greater caution bearing down on him. He pondered over
these grave developments as he journeyed back to Plantation House,
there to concoct and dispatch with all speed a tale that would chill
his confederates at St. Stephen's with horror, and give them a further
opportunity of showing how wise _they_ were in their plan of
banishment and rigid precautions, and in their sel