Old Guard, the last reserve, to his support.

It was now after six o'clock, the declining sun was already low on the
horizon, the long June day was drawing to a close. The main force of
the Prussians had not yet come up to the hill and ridge of Mont St.
Jean. Wellington, in great anxiety, was clinging desperately to the
ridge with his shattered lines wondering how long he could hold them,
whether he could sustain another of those awful attacks. His reserves,
except two divisions of light cavalry, Vivian's and Vandeleur's, and
Maitland's and Adams' brigades headed by Colborne's famous Fifty-second
Foot, among his troops the de luxe veterans of the Peninsula, had all
been expended.

Lobau was still holding back the Prussians by the most prodigious and
astounding efforts. If Napoleon succeeded in his last titanic effort
to break that English line, Bluecher would be too late. Unless night or
Bluecher came quickly, if Napoleon made that attack and it was not
driven back, victory in this struggle of the war gods would finally go
to the French.

Hougomont still held out. The stubborn defense of it was Wellington's
salvation. While it stood his right was more or less protected. But
La Haye Sainte offered a convenient point of attack upon him. If
Napoleon brought up his remaining troops behind it they would only have
a short distance to go before they were at death's grapple hand to hand
with the shattered, exhausted, but indomitable defenders of the ridge.

CHAPTER XXXI

WATERLOO--THE LAST OF THE GUARD

Long and earnestly, one from the heights of Mont St. Jean, the other
from those of Rossomme, the two great Captains scanned the opposing
line. Napoleon seemed to have recovered from his indisposition.
Indeed, he had undergone frightful fatigues which would have been
incredible if sustained by a younger man, and which would have been
impossible to any other man than he. To add to his fatigue, he was
ill. He could not sleep and the nature of his illness was such that it
was agony for him to mount a horse. This condition had been aggravated
by the awful exertion, physical and mental, he had made and the strain
of that long afternoon of desperate fighting. Nor had he eaten
anything the livelong day. Yet at about half after six that night he
did get into the saddle again. Conquering his anguish, he rode down to
the fifteen battalions of the Guard still held in reserve at La Belle
Alliance, all that was l