n PART SECOND
FIRST DESERTER
You He low with your picking off, or he may pick off you! Thank God the babies are gone. Maybe we shan't be noticed, if we've but the courage to do nothing, and keep hid.
NAPOLEON dismounts, approaches the fire, and looks around.
NAPOLEON Another of their dead horses here, I see.
OFFICER
Yes, sire. We have counted eighteen hundred odd From Benavente hither, pistoled thus. Some we'd to finish for them : headlong haste Spared them no time for mercy to their brutes. One-half their cavalry now tramps afoot.
NAPOLEON And what's the tale of waggons we've picked up ?
OFFICER
Spanish and all abandoned, some four hundred ; Of magazines and firelocks, full ten load ; And stragglers and their girls a numerous crew
NAPOLEON
Ay, devil — plenty those ! Licentious ones These English, as all canting peoples are. — And prisoners ?
OFFICER
Seven hundred English, sire ; Spaniards five thousand more.
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