ian sprang from my path, saluted, and pointed forward. They are
well disciplined, these Prussians, and who was he that he should dare to
stop the officer who bore a message to the general?

It was a talisman that would pass me out of every danger, and my heart
sang within me at the thought. So elated was I that I no longer waited
to be asked, but as I rode through the army I shouted to right and left,

"General Blucher! General Blucher!" and every man pointed me onward and
cleared a path to let me pass.

There are times when the most supreme impudence is the highest wisdom.
But discretion must also be used, and I must admit that I became
indiscreet. For as I rode upon my way, ever nearer to the fighting line,
a Prussian officer of Uhlans gripped my bridle and pointed to a group
of men who stood near a burning farm. "There is Marshal Blucher. Deliver
your message!" said he, and sure enough, my terrible old grey-whiskered
veteran was there within a pistol-shot, his eyes turned in my direction.

But the good guardian angel did not desert me.

Quick as a flash there came into my memory the name of the general who
commanded the advance of the Prussians.

{illust. caption = "There is Marshal Blucher. Deliver your message!"}

"General Bulow!" I cried. The Uhlan let go my bridle. "General Bulow!
General Bulow!" I shouted, as every stride of the dear little mare took
me nearer my own people. Through the burning village of Planchenoit
I galloped, spurred my way between two columns of Prussian infantry,
sprang over a hedge, cut down a Silesian Hussar who flung himself before
me, and an instant afterward, with my coat flying open to show the
uniform below, I passed through the open files of the tenth of the line,
and was back in the heart of Lobau's corps once more. Outnumbered and
outflanked, they were being slowly driven in by the pressure of the
Prussian advance. I galloped onward, anxious only to find myself by the
Emperor's side.

But a sight lay before me which held me fast as though I had been turned
into some noble equestrian statue. I could not move, I could scarce
breathe, as I gazed upon it. There was a mound over which my path lay,
and as I came out on the top of it I looked down the long, shallow
valley of Waterloo. I had left it with two great armies on either side
and a clear field between them. Now there were but long, ragged fringes
of broken and exhausted regiments upon the two ridges, but a real army