of Vivian's
and Vandeleur's brigades, which flanked the left wing, Wellington had
no cavalry left. A number of batteries lay unhorsed. These facts are
attested by Siborne; and Pringle, exaggerating the disaster, goes so far
as to say that the Anglo-Dutch army was reduced to thirty-four thousand
men. The Iron Duke remained calm, but his lips blanched. Vincent, the
Austrian commissioner, Alava, the Spanish commissioner, who were present
at the battle in the English staff, thought the Duke lost. At five
o'clock Wellington drew out his watch, and he was heard to murmur these
sinister words, "Blucher, or night!"

It was at about that moment that a distant line of bayonets gleamed on
the heights in the direction of Frischemont.

Here comes the change of face in this giant drama.

CHAPTER XI--A BAD GUIDE TO NAPOLEON; A GOOD GUIDE TO BULOW

The painful surprise of Napoleon is well known. Grouchy hoped for,
Blucher arriving. Death instead of life.

Fate has these turns; the throne of the world was expected; it was Saint
Helena that was seen.

If the little shepherd who served as guide to Bulow, Blucher's
lieutenant, had advised him to debouch from the forest above
Frischemont, instead of below Plancenoit, the form of the nineteenth
century might, perhaps, have been different. Napoleon would have won the
battle of Waterloo. By any other route than that below Plancenoit,
the Prussian army would have come out upon a ravine impassable for
artillery, and Bulow would not have arrived.

Now the Prussian general, Muffling, declares that one hour's delay, and
Blucher would not have found Wellington on his feet. "The battle was
lost."

It was time that Bulow should arrive, as will be seen. He had, moreover,
been very much delayed. He had bivouacked at Dion-le-Mont, and had set
out at daybreak; but the roads were impassable, and his divisions stuck
fast in the mire. The ruts were up to the hubs of the cannons. Moreover,
he had been obliged to pass the Dyle on the narrow bridge of Wavre;
the street leading to the bridge had been fired by the French, so
the caissons and ammunition-wagons could not pass between two rows of
burning houses, and had been obliged to wait until the conflagration was
extinguished. It was mid-day before Bulow's vanguard had been able to
reach Chapelle-Saint-Lambert.

Had the action been begun two hours earlier, it would have been over
at four o'clock, and Blucher would have fallen on the battle won