He always lagged in the rear of the advancing army, and as each fresh regiment arrived he mingled with the soldiers, and asked them in a fierce whisper, “Is the emperor coming now?  Isn’t he coming?”

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!”