trange a
laugh that the officer examined him more closely, and then set him free,
saying with scornful pity, "It is a harmless maniac. Let him go."

He always lagged in the rear of the advancing army, and as each fresh
regiment arrived he mingled with the soldiers, and asked them in a
fierce whisper, "Is the emperor coming now? Isn't he coming?"

At last, one dark rainy evening, the wild outcast saw the man for whom
he was seeking. Wrapped in an old grey overcoat, and wearing a cocked
hat from which the rain dripped heavily, Napoleon stood on a hill, with
his hands clasped behind his back, his head sunk deep between his
shoulders, looking towards Ligny. But he was guarded; a crowd of
officers stood close behind him, waiting for orders.

Suddenly a bareheaded soldier came riding along the road, spurring and
flogging his horse as if for dear life; galloping wildly up the hill he
handed the emperor a dispatch. Napoleon glanced at it, and spoke to his
staff officers. With a wild movement of joy they drew their swords, and
waved them in the air, shouting, "_Vive l'Empereur!"_ Napoleon smiled.
His star was again in the ascendant! The Prussians were retreating from
Ligny; he had struck the first blow, and it was a victory!

Near the hill on which he was standing was a deserted farmhouse; he gave
orders that it should be prepared for his reception. But, as he rode
down the hill at the head of his staff, the man who had been watching
him divined his intention, and reached the house before his attendants.
The soldiers who searched the place before Napoleon entered failed to
see the dark figure crouching up in the corner of a loft among the black
rafters.

"Leave me," said Napoleon to his men, after he had finished the plain
meal of bread and wine set before him.

To-morrow he would meet for the first time, on the rolling fields of
Waterloo, the only captain of a European army whom he had not defeated.
He wanted to think his plans of battle over in silence. Some time he
paced up and down the room, his chin drooping forward on his breast, and
his hands clasped upon his back. Through the wide, clear spaces of his
mind great armies passed in black procession, moving like storm-clouds
over the stricken earth; burning cities rose in the distance, amid the
shrieks of dying men, and the thunder of cannon. His plan was at last
matured. Victory? Yes, that was certain! So his thoughts ran. An
aide-de-camp entered with a dispatch. He t