"Make ready!" With a little crash the guns were dropped into
the outstretched hands.

The approaching men were nearer now. Still they came on with arms aport.
Still the drums ruffled and rolled at their head. They were not going to
make any response apparently to the fire of the Fifth-of-the-Line. Were
they, indeed, to come to death's grapple at the bayonet's point with that
irresistible Guard? But no, there was a sudden movement, a change in the
approaching ranks.

"Secure arms," cried old Cambronne, and with their guns reversed and
comfortably tucked under their arms, the old soldiers came on.

The meaning was plain, the battle was to be a moral one, evidently!

"Aim!" cried the sharp voice of the Marquis, and the guns came up to the
shoulders of the long line, as they bent their heads and mechanically
squinted along the barrels.

The moment had come! Out in the front had ridden the familiar figure on
the white horse. They could see the details of his person now. His pale
face was flushed under the familiar black, three-cornered cocked hat with
its tricolor cockade, his gray redingote was buttoned across his breast.
He suddenly raised his hand. The drums stopped beating, the moving
grenadiers halted. Ah, at last!

The Emperor sprang from his horse, not heavily, as of late, but with some
of the alertness of a boy. He nodded to the ranks. Old General
Cambronne, in command of the Guard, stepped forward. He took from the
colour-bearer the Eagle. Four grenadiers of the Colour Guard closed
about him--one of them was called Bullet-Stopper, by the way. In rear
and a little to the right of the Emperor he moved, holding up the flag
and the Eagle. A deep breath, almost a sob, ran down the line of the
regiment. Protended guns wavered. Napoleon stepped forward. He threw
back his gray overcoat, disclosing the familiar green uniform of the
Chasseurs of the Guard, which he affected. The cross of the Legion of
Honor glittered on his breast, a shining mark at which to aim.

The flush on his ivory face died as quickly as it had come. He was
apparently as composed and as steady as if he had been cut out of
granite. But tiny beads of sweat bedewed his brow, shaded by that
familiar cocked hat. What would the next moment disclose? Would he be a
prisoner, the laughing stock, the jest of Europe? Or would he lie dead
in the road, a French bullet in his heart? He had faced the guns of
every people in Europe, b