Now the Prussians have arrived in force. Planchenoit, its churchyard and crooked street, its orchards and barnyards, are full of French and Prussian slain. The young Guard fought well, but they were outnumbered, and Blücher rides into the _chaussée_ at La Belle Alliance. A Uhlan band plays “God Save the King,” and farther along the road they meet the Duke returning on his way in the dark to write his despatches announcing the victory. The two soldiers embrace, and sit talking for ten minutes while the stream goes hurrying by. Then the fiery old German follows up the retreat with a fury that is incredible. At Genappe the Silesians have taken the Emperor’s baggage; Gneisenau mounts a drummer on one of the cream-coloured carriage horses, and away they go into the darkness after the fugitives, driving them from seven bivouacs, slaying, hacking, giving no rest, until the land is strewn for leagues with dead men, fallen under the Prussian steel. Merciless it may seem to us, looking back with fourscore years between us and that moonlit night; but such was the vitality of the French that the most drastic steps were necessary to prevent their army mustering again. * * * * * What can I say of the battle-field, after the pursuit had rolled away, and it was left to the searcher and the plunderer? If I could re-create one tithe of the horror those slopes and roads revealed you would sicken and turn away in disgust. Prussian, Belgian, _and_ British, there were, out on the plain that night, bent on no errand of mercy; stragglers and camp-followers creeping from group to group, tearing the rings from the fingers, and the teeth from the jaws! Many a life was foully taken that tender nursing might have saved; but there were some groups who sought for a lost comrade or a favourite officer, and women there were, with woman’s gentle sympathy, soothing and tending as only they can soothe. The bulk of the British force had gone to bivouac beyond and about Rosomme, which was behind the French position; but some detached portions remained where they had fought, too weary to advance with the others. Mercer was one of these, and creeping under the cover of a waggon, worn out with slaughter, he slept--waking to find a dead man stark and stiff beneath him! His men came to him in the morning, and asked permission to bury one of their comrades. “Why him in particular?” asked the captain, for many a bearskin-crested helmet was empty in “G Troop.” Then they showed him the horror of it. The whole of the man’s head had been carried away, leaving the fleshy mask of what had been a face, from which the eyes were still staring wildly. “We have not slept a wink, sir,” they said. “Those eyes have haunted us all night!” With daybreak men stood aghast at the spectacle of that battle-ground.