ay take us; we don't care which! Only we can't stir. Pity the
women, captain, but do what you will with us!

[The searchers pass over the wounded, and stir out those capable
of marching, both men and women, so far as they discover them.
They are pricked on by the patrol. Exeunt patrol and deserters
in its charge.

Those who remain look stolidly at the highway. The English Rear-
guard of cavalry crosses the scene and passes out. An interval.
It grows dusk.]

SPIRIT IRONIC

Quaint poesy, and real romance of war!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Mock on, Shade, if thou wilt! But others find
Poesy ever lurk where pit-pats poor mankind!

[The scene is cloaked in darkness.]

SCENE II

THE SAME

[It is nearly midnight. The fugitives who remain in the cellar
having slept off the effects of the wine, are awakened by a new
tramping of cavalry, which becomes more and more persistent. It
is the French, who now fill the road. The advance-guard having
passed by, DELABORDE'S division, LORGE'S division, MERLE'S
division, and others, successively cross the gloom.

Presently come the outlines of the Imperial Guard, and then, with
a start, those in hiding realize their situation, and are wide
awake. NAPOLEON enters with his staff. He has just been overtaken
by a courier, and orders those round him to halt.]

NAPOLEON

Let there a fire be lit: Ay, here and now.
The lines within these letters brook no pause
In mastering their purport.

[Some of the French approach the ruined house and, appropriating
what wood is still left there, heap it by the roadside and set it
alight. A mixed rain and snow falls, and the sputtering flames
throw a glare all round.]

SECOND DESERTER [under his voice]

We be shot corpses! Ay, faith, we be! Why didn't I stick to
England, and true doxology, and leave foreign doxies and their
wine alone!... Mate, can ye squeeze another shardful from the
cask there, for I feel my time is come!... O that I had but the
barrel of that firelock I throwed away, and that wasted powder to
prime and load! This bullet I chaw to squench my hunger would do
the rest!... Yes, I could pick him off now!

FIRST DESERTER

You lie low with your picking off, or he may pick off you! Thank
God the babies are gone. Maybe we shan't be noticed, if we've but