The French front columns, and the cavalry supporting them, shout as they advance. The Allies are forced back upon the English main position. WELLINGTON is in personal peril for a time, but he escapes it by a leap of his horse.
A curtain of smoke drops. An interval. The curtain reascends.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Behold again the Dynasts" gory gear!
Since we regarded, what has progressed here?
RECORDING ANGEL [in recitative]
Musters of English foot and their allies Came palely panting by the Brussels way, And, swiftly stationed, checked their counter-braves.
Ney, vexed by lack of like auxiliaries, Bade then the columned cuira.s.siers to charge In all their edged array of weaponcraft.
Yea; thrust replied to thrust, and fire to fire; The English broke, till Picton prompt to prop them Sprang with fresh foot-folk from the covering rye.
Next, Pire"s cavalry took up the charge....
And so the action sways. The English left Is turned at Piraumont; whilst on their right Perils infest the greenwood of Bossu; Wellington gazes round with dubious view; England"s long fame in fight seems sepulchered, And ominous roars swell loudlier Ligny-ward.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
New rage has wrenched the battle since thou"st writ; Hot-hasting succours of light cannonry Lately come up, relieve the English stress; Kellermann"s cuira.s.siers, both man and horse All plated over with the bra.s.s of war, Are rolling on the highway. More brigades Of British, soiled and sweltering, now are nigh, Who plunge within the boscage of Bossu; Where in the hidden shades and sinuous creeps Life-struggles can be heard, seen but in peeps.
Therewith the foe"s accessions hara.s.s Ney, Racked that no needful d"Erlon darks the way!
Inch by inch NEY has to draw off: WELLINGTON promptly advances. At dusk NEY"S army finds itself back at Frasnes, where he meets D"ERLON coming up to his a.s.sistance, too late.
The weary English and their allies, who have been on foot ever since one o"clock the previous morning, prepare to bivouac in front of the cross-roads. Their fires flash up for a while; and by and by the dead silence of heavy sleep hangs over them. WELLINGTON goes into his tent, and the night darkens.
A Prussian courier from Ligny enters, who is conducted into the tent to WELLINGTON.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
What tidings can a courier bring that count Here, where such mighty things are native born?
RECORDING ANGEL [in recitative]
The fury of the tumult there begun Scourged quivering Ligny through the afternoon: Napoleon"s great intent grew substantive, And on the Prussian pith and pulse he bent His foretimed blow. Blucher, to b.u.t.t the shock, Called up his last reserves, and heading on, With blade high brandished by his aged arm, Spurred forward his white steed. But they, outspent, Failed far to follow. Darkness coped the sky, And storm, and rain with thunder. Yet once more He cheered them on to charge. His horse, the while, Pierced by a bullet, fell on him it bore.
He, trampled, bruised, faint, and in disarray Dragged to another mount, was led away.
His ragged lines withdraw from sight and sound, And their a.s.sailants camp upon the ground.
The scene shuts with midnight.
SCENE VII
BRUSSELS. THE PLACE ROYALE
[The same night, dark and sultry. A crowd of citizens throng the broad Place. They gaze continually down the Rue de Namur, along which arrive minute by minute carts and waggons laden with wounded men. Other wounded limp into the city on foot. At much greater speed enter fugitive soldiers from the miscellaneous contingents of WELLINGTON"S army at Quatre-Bras, who gesticulate and explain to the crowd that all is lost and that the French will soon be in Brussels.
Baggage-carts and carriages, with and without horses, stand before an hotel, surrounded by a medley of English and other foreign n.o.bility and gentry with their valets and maids. Bulletins from the battlefield are affixed on the corner of the Place, and people peer at them by the dim oil lights.
A rattle of hoofs reaches the ears, entering the town by the same Namur gate. The riders disclose themselves to be Belgian hussars, also from the field.]
SEVERAL HUSSARS
The French approach! Wellington is beaten. Bonaparte is at our heels.
[Consternation reaches a climax. Horses are hastily put-to at the hotel: people crowd into the carriages and try to drive off. They get jammed together and hemmed in by the throng. Unable to move they quarrel and curse despairingly in sundry tongues.]
BARON CAPELLEN
Affix the new bulletin. It is a more a.s.suring one, and may quiet them a little.
[A new bulletin is nailed over the old one.]
MAYOR
Good people, calm yourselves. No victory has been won by Bonaparte.
The noise of guns heard all the afternoon became fainter towards the end, showing beyond doubt that the retreat was away from the city.
A CITIZEN
The French are said to be forty thousand strong at Les Quatre-Bras, and no forty thousand British marched out against them this morning!
ANOTHER CITIZEN
And it is whispered that the city archives and the treasure-chest have been sent to Antwerp!
MAYOR
Only as a precaution. No good can be gained by panic. Sixty or seventy thousand of the Allies, all told, face Napoleon at this hour. Meanwhile who is to attend to the wounded that are being brought in faster and faster? Fellow-citizens, do your duty by these unfortunates, and believe me that when engaged in such an act of mercy no enemy will hurt you.
CITIZENS
What can we do?