trot.

On their right a small cottage gleamed snow-white in the cold, searching
light of the moon. A low wall ran to right and left of it and enclosed a
small yard at the back of the cottage; the wall had a gate in it which
gave on the fields beyond. At the moment that the two riders trotting
slowly down the road reached the first angle of the wall, the gate was
open and a man leading a white horse and wearing a grey redingote turned
into the yard.

"My God! the Emperor!" exclaimed one of the riders as he drew rein.

They both turned their horses into the field, skirting the low,
enclosing wall until they reached the gate. The white horse was now
tethered to a post and the man in the grey redingote was standing in the
doorway at the rear of the cottage. The two men dismounted and in their
turn led their horses into the yard: at sight of them the man in the
grey redingote seemed to wake from his sleep.

"Berthier," he said slowly, "is that you?"

"Yes, Sire,--and Colonel Bertrand is here too."

"What do you want?"

"We earnestly beg you, Sire, to come with us to Genappe. There is not
the slightest hope of rallying any portion of your army now. The
Prussians are on us. You might fall into their hands."

Berthier--conqueror and Prince of Wagram--spoke very earnestly and with
head uncovered, but more abruptly and harshly than he had been wont to
do of yore in the salons of the Tuileries or on the glory-crowned
battlefields at the close of a victorious day.

"I am coming! I am coming!" said the Emperor with a quick sigh of
impatience. "I only wanted to be alone a moment--to think things out--to
. . ."

"There is nothing quite so urgent, Sire, as your safety," retorted the
Prince of Wagram drily.

The Emperor did not--or did not choose to--heed his great Marshal's
marked want of deference. Perhaps he was accustomed to the moods of
these men whom his bounty had fed and loaded with wealth and dignities
and titles in the days of his glory, and who had proved only too ready,
alas!--even last year, even now--to desert him when disaster was in
sight.

Without another word he turned on his heel and pushing open the cottage
door he disappeared into the darkness of the tiny room beyond. With an
impatient shrug of the shoulders Berthier prepared to follow him.
Colonel Bertrand busied himself with tethering the horses, then he too
followed Berthier into the building.

It was deserted, of course, as all isolated cottage