What was it that the storm said to the unconscious soldier? By what mysterious law, yet to be made plain, does the sub-consciousness move and speak when deep sleep or the delirium of disease has paralyzed the normal consciousness of man? We do not know. In poetry, the sub-conscious produces the weird “Kubla Khan”; in music it notates “The Devil’s Sonata.” It is the sub-conscious which often gives warning of evil to come; it is the sub-conscious that sometimes tells us the right road when all is doubt. As the thunder volleyed over Longwood, and the roar of the storm held on, the dying Captain was strangely affected. Just such thunder had rolled over his head that Saturday night and Sunday morning, when he went the rounds of his outposts in the drenching rain--which may have been the main cause of his loss of Waterloo. He and the faithful Bertrand had made those night-rounds alone, and Napoleon, as he stopped to listen to the thunder, muttered, “We agree.” It must have been that in his delirium he fancied he was again on the front line, listening to the storm which preceded his last battle. “The Army! The head of the Army!” he muttered. “Desaix! Bessiéres! Hasten the attack! Press on! The enemy gives way--they are ours!” With a convulsive start he sprang up, out of the bed, and got upon his feet. Montholon seized him, but he bore the Count to the floor. Others rushed in; he was already exhausted, and they put him back in bed. Afterward he lay still, and the boat drifted on, quietly on, toward the bar. The storm had passed away, and the Emperor, lying on his back, with one hand out of the bed, fixed his eyes “as though in deep meditation.” Those about the bed thought they heard him say, “France! Josephine!” Then he spoke no more. A light foam gathered on the parted lips. There was peace on his face--for the pain had done what it came to do. As the clear sun dipped beneath the distant rim of the sea, Napoleon died. It was May 5th, 1821. * * * * * In Hillaire Belloc’s magnificent study of Danton, the author makes reference to a legend which is said to be current among the peasants of Russia. It is a story of “a certain somber, mounted figure, unreal, only an outline and a cloud, that passed away to Asia, to the East and North. They saw him move along their snows through the long, mysterious twilight of the Northern autumn, in silence, with the head bent and the reins in the left hand, loose, following some enduring purpose, reaching toward an ancient solitude and repose. _They say that it was Napoleon._ After him, there trailed for days the shadows of the soldiery, vague mists bearing faintly the forms of companies of men. It was as though the cannon-smoke of Waterloo, borne on the light west wind of that June day, had received the spirits of twenty years of combat, and had drifted farther and farther during the fall of the year over the endless plains.