Is it your
wish, my General, that I should now describe that plan?"
"Not now," replied Napoleon, pulling out a watch of English make, "but
in your next letter. I start for Paris in an hour's time. You will hear
of things soon which will add very greatly to the weight and success of
this grand enterprise. We shall have perfidious Albion caught in her own
noose, as you shall see. You have not heard of one Captain Wright,
and the landing-place at Biville. We will have our little Biville
at Springhaven. There will be too many of us to swing up by a rope.
Courage, my friend! The future is with you. Our regiments are casting
dice for the fairest English counties. But your native county is
reserved for you. You shall possess the whole of it--I swear it by
the god of war--and command the Southern army. Be brave, be wise, be
vigilant, and above all things be patient."
The great man held up his hand, as a sign that he wanted his horse, and
then offered it to Caryl Carne, who touched it lightly with his lips,
and bent one knee. "My Emperor!" he said, "my Emperor!"
"Wait until the proper time," said Napoleon, gravely, and yet well
pleased. "You are not the first, and you will not be the last. Observe
discretion. Farewell, my friend!"
In another minute he was gone, and the place looked empty without him.
Carne stood gloomily watching the horsemen as their figures grew small
in the distance, the large man behind pounding heavily away, like an
English dragoon, on the scanty sod, of no importance to anybody--unless
he had a wife or children--the little man in front (with the white plume
waving, and the well-bred horse going easily), the one whose body would
affect more bodies, and certainly send more souls out of them, than
any other born upon this earth as yet, and--we hope--as long as ever it
endureth.
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