yself
double I ran swiftly forward to the lighted window.

Raising my head I peeped through, and there was the Emperor lying dead
before me.

My friends, I fell down upon the gravel walk as senseless as if a bullet
had passed through my brain. So great was the shock that I wonder that I
survived it.

And yet in half an hour I had staggered to my feet again, shivering in
every limb, my teeth chattering, and there I stood staring with the eyes
of a maniac into that room of death.

He lay upon a bier in the centre of the chamber, calm, composed,
majestic, his face full of that reserve power which lightened our hearts
upon the day of battle. A half-smile was fixed upon his pale lips, and
his eyes, half-opened, seemed to be turned on mine. He was stouter
than when I had seen him at Waterloo, and there was a gentleness of
expression which I had never seen in life. On either side of him burned
rows of candles, and this was the beacon which had welcomed us at sea,
which had guided me over the water, and which I had hailed as my star
of hope. Dimly I became conscious that many people were kneeling in
the room; the little Court, men and women, who had shared his fortunes,
Bertrand, his wife, the priest, Montholon--all were there. I would have
prayed too, but my heart was too heavy and bitter for prayer. And yet
I must leave, and I could not leave him without a sign. Regardless of
whether I was seen or not, I drew myself erect before my dead leader,
brought my heels together, and raised my hand in a last salute. Then I
turned and hurried of through the darkness, with the picture of the wan,
smiling lips and the steady grey eyes dancing always before me.

It had seemed to me but a little time that I had been away, and yet the
boatman told me that it was hours.

Only when he spoke of it did I observe that the wind was blowing half
a gale from the sea and that the waves were roaring in upon the beach.
Twice we tried to push out our little boat, and twice it was thrown back
by the sea. The third time a great wave filled it and stove the bottom.
Helplessly we waited beside it until the dawn broke, to show a raging
sea and a flying scud above it. There was no sign of the Black Swan.
Climbing the hill we looked down, but on all the great torn expanse of
the ocean there was no gleam of a sail. She was gone. Whether she had
sunk, or whether she was recaptured by her English crew, or what strange
fate may have been in store for her,