At last, one dark rainy evening, the wild outcast saw the man for whom he was seeking. Wrapped in an old grey overcoat, and wearing a cocked hat from which the rain dripped heavily, Napoleon stood on a hill, with his hands clasped behind his back, his head sunk deep between his shoulders, looking towards Ligny. But he was guarded; a crowd of officers stood close behind him, waiting for orders.
Suddenly a bareheaded soldier came riding along the road, spurring and flogging his horse as if for dear life; galloping wildly up the hill he handed the emperor a dispatch. Napoleon glanced at it, and spoke to his staff officers. With a wild movement of joy they drew their swords, and waved them in the air, shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!" Napoleon smiled. His star was again in the ascendant! The Prussians were retreating from Ligny; he had struck the first blow, and it was a victory!
Near the hill on which he was standing was a deserted farmhouse; he gave orders that it should be prepared for his reception. But, as he rode down the hill at the head of his staff, the man who had been watching him divined his intention, and reached the house before his attendants. The soldiers who searched the place before Napoleon entered failed to see the dark figure crouching up in the corner of a loft among the black rafters.
"Leave me," said Napoleon to his men, after he had finished the plain meal of bread and wine set before him.
To-morrow he would meet for the first time, on the rolling fields of Waterloo, the only captain of a European army whom he had not defeated. He wanted to think his plans of battle over in silence. Some time he paced up and down the room, his chin drooping forward on his breast, and his hands clasped upon his back. Through the wide, clear spaces of his mind great armies passed in black procession, moving like storm-clouds over the stricken earth; burning cities rose in the distance, amid the shrieks of dying men, and the thunder of cannon. His plan was at last matured. Victory? Yes, that was certain! So his thoughts ran. An aide-de-camp entered with a dispatch. He tore it open, and ran his eye over it.
"It is nothing," he said. "Don't disturb me for two hours except on a matter of great importance. I want to sleep."
Going up to the old armchair of oak that was set before the fire, he fell on his knees, and covered his eyes and prayed.
"What!" said the man who was watching him up in the rafters. "Does Cain dare to pray? Surely God will not answer his prayers! He is praying that he may wipe the English to-morrow from the face of the earth, and again cement his throne with blood, and forge his sceptre of fire!"
That, no doubt, was what Napoleon prayed for. Yet, when he rose up his face was wonderfully changed and softened by the religious light which had shone on it for a few moments. Then, throwing himself into the armchair, he closed his eyes. And, as the fire burnt low, Rohan Gwenfern silently descended from the loft, and something gleamed in his hand. He crept up to the sleeping emperor, and stared at his face, reading it line by line. Napoleon moved uneasily in his sleep, and murmured to himself, and his hand opened and shut.
As Rohan raised his knife to strike home to the heart of the tyrant he saw the hand--white and small, like a woman's or a child's. Again he looked at the face. Ah, there was no imperial grandeur here! Only a feeble, sallow, tired, and sickly creature, whom a strong man could crush down with one blow of his fist. Rohan grew weak as he looked, and the long knife almost fell from his clutch.
"I must kill him--I must kill him!" he kept saying to himself. "His one life against the peace and happiness of earth--the life of a Cain! If he awakens, war will awaken, and fire, famine, and slaughter! Kill him, Rohan, kill him!"
Perhaps if Napoleon had not prayed before he slept, his enemy would have carried out his purpose. But he had prayed; his face had become beautiful for a moment, and he fell asleep as fearlessly as a child. No! Rohan Gwenfern was not made of the stuff of which savage assassins are formed; though there was madness in his brain, there was still love in his heart. He could not kill even Cain, when God had sanctified the murderer with sleep. God had made Napoleon, and God had sent him; bloody as he was, he, too, was God's child.
Opening the great casement window of the room in the farmhouse, Gwenfern gazed for a moment with wild eyes and quivering lips on the pale, worn face of the great conqueror, and then leaped out into the darkness. When Napoleon awoke, a long knife was lying at his feet; but he heeded it not, and little dreamt that a few minutes ago it had been pointed at his heart.
Ah, Rohan Gwenfern had done well to leave the mighty emperor in the hands of God, and go back, a wild, tattered, mad beggar to his sweetheart Marcelle, in the little Breton village of Kromlaix. For as Napoleon came out of the farmhouse, and looked at the dawning sky, there rose up, clouding the lurid star of his destiny, the blood-red shadow--WATERLOO!
JOHN BUNYAN
The Holy War
John Bunyan was born at Elstow, near Bedford, England, in 1628. After receiving a scanty education at the village school, he worked hard at the forge with his father. In his sixteenth year he lost his mother, and soon after he joined the army, then engaged in the Civil War; but his military experience lasted only a few months. Returning to Elstow, he again worked at the forge, and married. After various alternating religious experiences, in 1655 he became a member of the Baptist congregation at Bedford, of which he was ere long chosen pastor. His success was extraordinary; but after five years his ministry was prohibited, and he was incarcerated in Bedford Gaol, his imprisonment lasting for twelve years. There he wrote his immortal "Pilgrim's Progress." Released under the Act of Indulgence, he resumed his ministry, and ultimately his pastoral charge in Bedford. He took fever when on a visit to London, and died on August 31, 1688. The "Holy War" is considered by critics even superior to the "Pilgrim," inasmuch as it betrays a finer literary workmanship. It was written in 1682, after molestation of Bunyan as a preacher had ceased, and when he was known widely as the author of the first part of the "Pilgrim's Progress," the second part of which was published two years later. Macaulay held that if there had been no "Pilgrim's Progress," "Holy War" would have been the first of religious allegories. No doubt its popularity has been due in some degree to its kinship to that work; but the vigour of its style overcomes the minute elaboration of an almost impossible theme, and the book lives, alike as literature and theology, by its own vitality. An elaborate analysis of it may be found in Froude's volume on Bunyan. He said of it: "'The Holy War' would have entitled Bunyan to a place among the masters of English Literature."
I.--The Founding of Mansoul
In the gallant country of Universe there is a fair and delicate town, a corporation called Mansoul, a town for its building so curious, for its situation so commodious, for its privileges so advantageous, that there is not its equal under the whole heaven.
As to the situation of the town, it lieth between two worlds, and the first founder and builder of it was one Shaddai, who built it for his own delight. And as he made it goodly to behold, so also mighty to have dominion over all the country round about.
There was reared up in the midst of this town a most famous and stately place--for strength it may be called a castle; for pleasantness, a paradise. This place King Shaddai intended for himself alone, and not another with him; and of it he made a garrison, but committed the keeping of it only to the men of the town.
This famous town of Mansoul had five gates--Eargate, Eyegate, Mouthgate, Nosegate, and Feelgate. It had always a sufficiency of provisions within its walls, and it had the best, most wholesome and excellent law that was then extant in the world. There was not a rogue, rascal, or traitorous person within its walls; they were all true men, and fast joined together.