第60章

In this way:--Ce belitre de Lor Lake, after calling up his cavalry, and placing them in front of Holkar's batteries, qui balayaient la plaine, was for charging the enemy's batteries with his horse, who would have been ecrases, mitrailles, foudroyes to a man but for the cunning of ce grand rogue que vous voyez."Montholon.--"Coquin de Major, va!"

Napoleon.--"Montholon! tais-toi. When Lord Lake, with his great bull-headed English obstinacy, saw the facheuse position into which he had brought his troops, he was for dying on the spot, and would infallibly have done so--and the loss of his army would have been the ruin of the East India Company--and the ruin of the English East India Company would have established my empire (bah! it was a republic then!) in the East--but that the man before us, Lieutenant Goliah Gahagan, was riding at the side of General Lake."Montholon (with an accent of despair and fury).--"Gredin! cent mille tonnerres de Dieu!"Napoleon (benignantly).--"Calme-toi, mon fidele ami. What will you? It was fate. Gahagan, at the critical period of the battle, or rather slaughter (for the English had not slain a man of the enemy), advised a retreat."Montholon. "Le lache! Un Francais meurt, mais il ne recule jamais."Napoleon.--"STUPIDE! Don't you see WHY the retreat was ordered?--don't you know that it was a feint on the part of Gahagan to draw Holkar from his impregnable intrenchments? Don't you know that the ignorant Indian fell into the snare, and issuing from behind the cover of his guns, came down with his cavalry on the plains in pursuit of Lake and his dragoons? Then it was that the Englishmen turned upon him; the hardy children of the north swept down his feeble horsemen, bore them back to their guns, which were useless, entered Holkar's intrenchments along with his troops, sabred the artillerymen at their pieces, and won the battle of Delhi!"As the Emperor spoke, his pale cheek glowed red, his eye flashed fire, his deep clear voice rung as of old when he pointed out the enemy from beneath the shadow of the Pyramids, or rallied his regiments to the charge upon the death-strewn plain of Wagram. Ihave had many a proud moment in my life, but never such a proud one as this; and I would readily pardon the word "coward," as applied to me by Montholon, in consideration of the testimony which his master bore in my favor.

"Major," said the Emperor to me in conclusion, "why had I not such a man as you in my service? I would have made you a Prince and a Marshal!" and here he fell into a reverie, of which I knew and respected the purport. He was thinking, doubtless, that I might have retrieved his fortunes; and indeed I have very little doubt that I might.

Very soon after, coffee was brought by Monsieur Marchand, Napoleon's valet-de-chambre, and after partaking of that beverage, and talking upon the politics of the day, the Emperor withdrew, leaving me deeply impressed by the condescension he had shown in this remarkable interview.

CHAPTER III.

A PEEP INTO SPAIN--ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND SERVICES OF THEAHMEDNUGGAR IRREGULARS.

HEAD QUARTERS, MORELLA, Sept. 16, 1838.

I have been here for some months, along with my young friend Cabrera: and in the hurry and bustle of war--daily on guard and in the batteries for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, with fourteen severe wounds and seven musket-balls in my body--it may be imagined that I have had little time to think about the publication of my memoirs. Inter arma silent leges--in the midst of fighting be hanged to writing! as the poet says; and I never would have bothered myself with a pen, had not common gratitude incited me to throw off a few pages.

Along with Oraa's troops, who have of late been beleaguering this place, there was a young Milesian gentleman, Mr. Toone O'Connor Emmett Fitzgerald Sheeny, by name, a law student, and member of Gray's Inn, and what be called Bay Ah of Trinity College, Dublin.

Mr. Sheeny was with the Queen's people, not in a military capacity, but as representative of an English journal; to which, for a trifling weekly remuneration, he was in the habit of transmitting accounts of the movements of the belligerents, and his own opinion of the politics of Spain. Receiving, for the discharge of his duty, a couple of guineas a week from the proprietors of the journal in question, he was enabled, as I need scarcely say, to make such a show in Oraa's camp as only a Christino general officer, or at the very least a colonel of a regiment, can afford to keep up.

In the famous sortie which we made upon the twenty-third, I was of course among the foremost in the melee, and found myself, after a good deal of slaughtering (which it would be as disagreeable as useless to describe here), in the court of a small inn or podesta, which had been made the head-quarters of several Queenite officers during the siege. The pesatero or landlord of the inn had been despatched by my brave chapel-churies, with his fine family of children--the officers quartered in the podesta had of course bolted; but one man remained, and my fellows were on the point of cutting him into ten thousand pieces with their borachios, when Iarrived in the room time enough to prevent the catastrophe. Seeing before me an individual in the costume of a civilian--a white hat, a light blue satin cravat, embroidered with butterflies and other quadrupeds, a green coat and brass buttons, and a pair of blue plaid trousers, I recognized at once a countryman, and interposed to save his life.

In an agonized brogue the unhappy young man was saying all that he could to induce the chapel-churies to give up their intention of slaughtering him; but it is very little likely that his protestations would have had any effect upon them, had not Iappeared in the room, and shouted to the ruffians to hold their hand.