Mock on, Shade, if thou wilt! But others find Poesy ever lurk where pit-pats poor mankind! [The scene is cloaked in darkness.] SCENE II THE SAME [It is nearly midnight. The fugitives who remain in the cellar having slept off the effects of the wine, are awakened by a new tramping of cavalry, which becomes more and more persistent. It is the French, who now fill the road. The advance-guard having passed by, DELABORDE'S division, LORGE'S division, MERLE'S division, and others, successively cross the gloom. Presently come the outlines of the Imperial Guard, and then, with a start, those in hiding realize their situation, and are wide awake. NAPOLEON enters with his staff. He has just been overtaken by a courier, and orders those round him to halt.] NAPOLEON Let there a fire be lit: Ay, here and now. The lines within these letters brook no pause In mastering their purport. [Some of the French approach the ruined house and, appropriating what wood is still left there, heap it by the roadside and set it alight. A mixed rain and snow falls, and the sputtering flames throw a glare all round.] SECOND DESERTER [under his voice] We be shot corpses! Ay, faith, we be! Why didn't I stick to England, and true doxology, and leave foreign doxies and their wine alone!... Mate, can ye squeeze another shardful from the cask there, for I feel my time is come!... O that I had but the barrel of that firelock I throwed away, and that wasted powder to prime and load! This bullet I chaw to squench my hunger would do the rest!... Yes, I could pick him off now! FIRST DESERTER You lie low with your picking off, or he may pick off you! Thank God the babies are gone. Maybe we shan't be noticed, if we've but the courage to do nothing, and keep hid. [NAPOLEON dismounts, approaches the fire, and looks around.] NAPOLEON Another of their dead horses here, I see. OFFICER Yes, sire. We have counted eighteen hundred odd From Benavente hither, pistoled thus. Some we'd to finish for them: headlong haste Spared them no time for mercy to their brutes. One-half their cavalry now tramps afoot. NAPOLEON And what's the tale of waggons we've picked up? OFFICER Spanish and all abandoned, some four hundred; Of magazines and firelocks, full ten load; And stragglers and their girls a numerous crew. NAPOLEON Ay, devil--plenty those! Licentious ones These English, as all canting peoples are.-- And prisoners? OFFICER Seven hundred English, sire; Spaniards five thousand more. NAPOLEON