thy was the strife
And fierce, and hot; and sore the suffering;
But proudly we endured it; and shall hear,
No doubt, of its far consequence
Ere many days. I'll read the details sent. [Cheers.]

[He reads again from the dispatch amid more cheering, the ball-
room guests crowding round. When he has done he answers questions;
then continuing:

Meanwhile our interest is, if possible,
As keenly waked elsewhere. Into the Scheldt
Some forty thousand bayonets and swords,
And twoscore ships o' the line, with frigates, sloops,
And gunboats sixty more, make headway now,
Bleaching the waters with their bellying sails;
Or maybe they already anchor there,
And that level ooze of Walcheren shore
Ring with the voices of that landing host
In every twang of British dialect,
Clamorous to loosen fettered Europe's chain! [Cheers.]

A NOBLE LORD [aside to Sheridan]

Prinny's outpouring tastes suspiciously like your brew, Sheridan.
I'll be damned if it is his own concoction. How d'ye sell it a
gallon?

SHERIDAN

I don't deal that way nowadays. I give the recipe, and charge a
duty on the gauging. It is more artistic, and saves trouble.

[The company proceed to the supper-rooms, and the ball-room sinks
into solitude.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

So they pass on. Let be!--But what is this--
A moan?--all frailly floating from the east
To usward, even from the forenamed isle?...
Would I had not broke nescience, to inspect
A world so ill-contrived!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

But since thou hast
We'll hasten to the isle; and thou'lt behold--
Such as it is--the scene its coasts enfold.

SCENE VIII

WALCHEREN

[A marshy island at the mouth of the Scheldt, lit by the low
sunshine of an evening in late summer. The horizontal rays from
the west lie in yellow sheaves across the vapours that the day's
heat has drawn from the sweating soil. Sour grasses grow in
places, and strange fishy smells, now warm, now cold, pass along.
Brass-hued and opalescent bubbles, compounded of many gases, rise
where passing feet have trodden the damper spots. At night the
place is the haunt of the Jack-lantern.]

DUMB SHOW

A vast army is encamped here, and in the open spaces are infantry on
parade--skeletoned men, some flushed, some shivering, who are kept
movin