oism, the glory, the sorrow
and the horrors of this awful day in the sable folds of her
all-embracing mantle, Napoleon's Old Guard has ceased to be.

And out in the western sky a streak of vivid crimson like human blood
has broken the bosom of the clouds: the glow of the sinking sun rests on
this huge dissolution of what was once so glorious and unconquered and
great. Then it is that Wellington rides to the very edge of the plateau
and fronts the gallant British troops at this supreme hour of oncoming
victory, and lifting his hat high above his head he waves it three times
in the air.

And from right and left they come, British, Hanoverians, Belgians and
Brunswickers to deliver the final blow to this retreating army, wounded
already unto death.

They charge now: they charge all of them, cavalry, infantry, gunners,
forty thousand men who have forgotten exhaustion, forgotten what they
have suffered, forgotten what they had endured. On they come with a rush
like a torrent let loose; the confusion of sounds and sights becomes a
pandemonium of hideousness, bugles and drums and trumpets and bagpipes
all mingle, merge and die away in the fast gathering twilight.

And the tidal wave of steel recedes down the slopes of Mont Saint Jean,
into the valley and thence up again on Belle Alliance, with a melee of
sounds like the breaking of a gigantic line of surf against the
irresistible cliffs, or the last drawn-out sigh of agony of dying giants
in primeval times.

V

On the road to Genappe in the mystery of the moonlit night a solitary
rider turned into a field and dismounted.

Carried along for a time by the stream of the panic, he found himself
for a moment comparatively alone--left as it were high and dry by the
same stream which here had divided and flowed on to right and left of
him. He wore a grey redingote and a shabby bicorne hat.

Having dismounted he slipped the bridle over his arm and started to walk
beside his horse back toward Waterloo.

A sleep-walker in pursuit of his dream!

Heavy banks of grey clouds chased one another with mad fury across the
midsummer sky, now obscuring the cold face of the moon, now allowing her
pale, silvery rays to light up this gigantic panorama of desolation and
terror and misery. To right and left along the roads and lanes, across
grassland and cornfields, canals, ditches and fences the last of the
Grand Army was flying headlong, closely pursued by the Prussians. And at
the f