AN OFFICER [after speaking to the prisoner in French] He still repeats That the whole body of the British strength Is even now descending on Boulogne, And that self-preservation must, if need, Clear us from Bonaparte ere many days, Who momently is moving. MACK Still retain him. [He walks to the fire, and stands looking into it. The soldier is taken out.] JELLACHICH [bending over the map in argument with RIESC] I much prefer our self-won information; And if we have Marshal Soult at Landsberg here, [Which seems to be truth, despite this man,] And Dupont hard upon us at Albeck, With Ney not far from Gunzburg; somewhere here, Or further down the river, lurking Lannes, Our game's to draw off southward--if we can! MACK [turning] I have it. This we'll do. You Jellachich, Unite with Spangen's troops at Memmingen, To fend off mischief there. And you, Riesc, Will make your utmost haste to occupy The bridge and upper ground at Elchingen, And all along the left bank of the stream, Till you observe whereon to concentrate And sever their connections. I couch here, And hold the city till the Russians come. A GENERAL [in a low voice] Disjunction seems of all expedients worst: If any stay, then stay should every man, Gather, inlace, and close up hip to hip, And perk and bristle hedgehog-like with spines! MACK The conference is ended, friends, I say, And orders will be issued here forthwith. [Guns heard.] AN OFFICER Surely that's from the Michaelsberg above us? MACK Never care. Here we stay. In five more days The Russians hail, and we regain our bays. [Exeunt severally.] SCENE IV BEFORE ULM. THE SAME DAY [A high wind prevails, and rain falls in torrents. An elevated terrace near Elchingen forms the foreground.] DUMB SHOW From the terrace BONAPARTE surveys and dictates operations against the entrenched heights of the Michaelsberg that rise in the middle distance on the right above the city. Through the gauze of descending waters the French soldiery can be discerned climbing to the attack under NEY. They slowly advance, recede, re-advance, halt. A time of suspense follows. Then they are seen in a state of irregular movement, even confusion; but in the end they carry the heights with the bayonet. Below the spot whereon NAPOLEON and his staff are gathered, glistening wet and plastered with mud, obtrudes on the left the village of Elchingen, now in the hands of the French. Its white- walled monastery, its bridge over the Danube, recently broken by the irresistible NEY, wear a desolated look, and the stream, which is swollen by the rainfall and rasped by the storm, seems wanly to sympathize.