'All this time I had not waked Uncle Job,but now I began to be afeared that they might light upon us,because uncle breathed so heavily through's nose.I put my mouth to his ear and whispered,"Uncle Job.""What is it,my boy?"he said,just as if he hadn't been asleep at all.
"Hush!"says I."Two French generals--"
"French?"says he.
"Yes,"says I."Come to see where to land their army!"'I pointed 'em out;but I could say no more,for the pair were coming at that moment much nearer to where we lay.As soon as they got as near as eight or ten yards,the officer with a roll in his hand stooped down to a slanting hurdle,unfastened his roll upon it,and spread it out.Then suddenly he sprung a dark lantern open on the paper,and showed it to be a map.
"What be they looking at?"I whispered to Uncle Job.
"A chart of the Channel,"says the sergeant (knowing about such things).
'The other French officer now stooped likewise,and over the map they had a long consultation,as they pointed here and there on the paper,and then hither and thither at places along the shore beneath us.Inoticed that the manner of one officer was very respectful toward the other,who seemed much his superior,the second in rank calling him by a sort of title that I did not know the sense of.The head one,on the other hand,was quite familiar with his friend,and more than once clapped him on the shoulder.
'Uncle Job had watched as well as I,but though the map had been in the lantern-light,their faces had always been in shade.But when they rose from stooping over the chart the light flashed upward,and fell smart upon one of 'em's features.No sooner had this happened than Uncle Job gasped,and sank down as if he'd been in a fit.
"What is it--what is it,Uncle Job?"said I.
"O good God!"says he,under the straw.
"What?"says I.
"Boney!"he groaned out.
"Who?"says I.
"Bonaparty,"he said."The Corsican ogre.O that I had got but my new-flinted firelock,that there man should die!But I haven't got my new-flinted firelock,and that there man must live.So lie low,as you value your life!"'I did lie low,as you mid suppose.But I couldn't help peeping.
And then I too,lad as I was,knew that it was the face of Bonaparte.
Not know Boney?I should think I did know Boney.I should have known him by half the light o'that lantern.If I had seen a picture of his features once,I had seen it a hundred times.There was his bullet head,his short neck,his round yaller cheeks and chin,his gloomy face,and his great glowing eyes.He took off his hat to blow himself a bit,and there was the forelock in the middle of his forehead,as in all the draughts of him.In moving,his cloak fell a little open,and I could see for a moment his white-fronted jacket and one of his epaulets.
'But none of this lasted long.In a minute he and his general had rolled up the map,shut the lantern,and turned to go down toward the shore.
'Then Uncle Job came to himself a bit."Slipped across in the night-time to see how to put his men ashore,"he said."The like o'that man's coolness eyes will never again see!Nephew,I must act in this,and immediate,or England's lost!"'When they were over the brow,we crope out,and went some little way to look after them.Half-way down they were joined by two others,and six or seven minutes brought them to the shore.Then,from behind a rock,a boat came out into the weak moonlight of the Cove,and they jumped in;it put off instantly,and vanished in a few minutes between the two rocks that stand at the mouth of the Cove as we all know.We climmed back to where we had been before,and Icould see,a little way out,a larger vessel,though still not very large.The little boat drew up alongside,was made fast at the stern as I suppose,for the largest sailed away,and we saw no more.
'My uncle Job told his officers as soon as he got back to camp;but what they thought of it I never heard--neither did he.Boney's army never came,and a good job for me;for the Cove below my father's house was where he meant to land,as this secret visit showed.We coast-folk should have been cut down one and all,and I should not have sat here to tell this tale.'
We who listened to old Selby that night have been familiar with his simple grave-stone for these ten years past.Thanks to the incredulity of the age his tale has been seldom repeated.But if anything short of the direct testimony of his own eyes could persuade an auditor that Bonaparte had examined these shores for himself with a view to a practicable landing-place,it would have been Solomon Selby's manner of narrating the adventure which befell him on the down.
Christmas 1882.
