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СКАЧАТЬ offices are closed to-day,

       I have brought it round to you.

       [Handling the paper.]

       What does it say?

       For God's sake, read it out. You know the tongue.

      MALMESBURY [with hesitation]

       I have glanced it through already—more than once—

       A copy having reached me, too, by now...

       We are in the presence of a great disaster!

       See here. It says that Mack, enjailed in Ulm

       By Bonaparte—from four side shutting round—

       Capitulated, and with all his force

       Laid down his arms before his conqueror!

       [PITT's face changes. A silence.]

      MULGRAVE

       Outrageous! Ignominy unparalleled!

      PITT

       By God, my lord, these statement must be false!

       These foreign prints are trustless as Cheap Jack

       Dumfounding yokels at a country fair.

       I heed no word of it.—Impossible.

       What! Eighty thousand Austrians, nigh in touch

       With Russia's levies that Kutuzof leads,

       To lay down arms before the war's begun?

       'Tis too much!

      MALMESBURY

       But I fear it is too true!

       Note the assevered source of the report—

       One beyond thought of minters of mock tales.

       The writer adds that military wits

       Cry that the little Corporal now makes war

       In a new way, using his soldiers' legs

       And not their arms, to bring him victory.

       Ha-ha! The quip must sting the Corporal's foes.

       PITT [after a pause]

       O vacillating Prussia! Had she moved,

       Had she but planted one foot firmly down,

       All this had been averted.—I must go.

       'Tis sure, 'tis sure, I labour but in vain!

       [MALMESBURY accompanies him to the door, and PITT walks away

       disquietedly towards Whitehall, the other two regarding him

       as he goes.]

      MULGRAVE

       Too swiftly he declines to feebleness,

       And these things well might shake a stouter frame!

      MALMESBURY

       Of late the burden of all Europe's cares,

       Of hiring and maintaining half her troops,

       His single pair of shoulders has upborne,

       Thanks to the obstinacy of the King.—

       His thin, strained face, his ready irritation,

       Are ominous signs. He may not be for long.

      MULGRAVE

       He alters fast, indeed,—as do events.

      MALMESBURY

       His labour's lost; and all our money gone!

       It looks as if this doughty coalition

       On which we have lavished so much pay and pains

       Would end in wreck.

      MULGRAVE

       All is not over yet;

       The gathering Russian forces are unbroke.

      MALMESBURY

       Well; we shall see. Should Boney vanquish these,

       And silence all resistance on that side,

       His move will then be backward to Boulogne,

       And so upon us.

      MULGRAVE

       Nelson to our defence!

      MALMESBURY

       Ay; where is Nelson? Faith, by this time

       He may be sodden; churned in Biscay swirls;

       Or blown to polar bears by boreal gales;

       Or sleeping amorously in some calm cave

       On the Canaries' or Atlantis' shore

       Upon the bosom of his Dido dear,

       For all that we know! Never a sound of him

       Since passing Portland one September day—

       To make for Cadiz; so 'twas then believed.

      MULGRAVE

       He's staunch. He's watching, or I am much deceived.

       [MULGRAVE departs. MALMESBURY goes within. The scene shuts.]

ACT FIFTH

       Table of Contents

      SCENE I

       OFF CAPE TRAFALGAR

       [A bird's eye view of the sea discloses itself. It is daybreak,

       and the broad face of the ocean is fringed on its eastern edge

       by the Cape and the Spanish shore. On the rolling surface

       immediately beneath the eye, ranged more or less in two parallel

       lines running north and south, one group from the twain standing

       off somewhat, are the vessels of the combined French and Spanish

       navies, whose canvases, as the sun edges upward, shine in its

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