The two generals bowed silently and followed the emperor, who went hastily down to the shore. A boat with four oarsmen lay waiting for him, and his two valets, Constant and Roustan, stood beside the skiff to help the emperor enter.
He thrust back their hands with a swift gesture of repulse, and stepped slowly and proudly down into the swaying, rocking boat which was to bear the Cæsar and his first misfortune to his headquarters, Castle Ebersdorf. He darted a long angry glance at the foaming waves roaring around the skiff, a glance before which the bravest of his marshals would have trembled, but which the insensible waters, tossing and surging below, swallowed as they had swallowed that day so many of his soldiers. Then, sinking slowly down upon the seat which Roustan had prepared for him of cushions and coverlets, he again propped his arms on his knees, rested his face in his hands, and gazed into vacancy. The companions whom he had ordered to attend him, and his two valets followed, and the boat put off from the shore, and danced, whirling hither and thither, over the foam-crested waves.
But amid the roar of the river, the plash of the dipping oars, was heard the piteous wailing of the wounded, the loud oaths and jeers of the soldiers who had rushed down to the shore, and, with clenched fists, hurled execrations after the emperor, accusing him, with angry scorn, of perfidy because he left them in this hour of misfortune.
Napoleon did not hear the infuriated shouts of his soldiery; he was listening to the tempest, the waves, and the menacing voices in his own breast.
Once only he raised himself from his bowed posture and again darted an angry glance at the foaming water as if he wished to lash the hated element with the look, as Xerxes had done with iron chains.
"The Danube, with its furious surges, and the storm with its mad power, have conquered me," he cried in a loud, angry voice. "Ay, all Nature must rise in rebellion and wrath to wrest a victory from me. Nature, not Archduke Charles, has vanquished me!"
The waves roared and danced recklessly on, wholly unmindful of the emperor's wrathful exclamation; they sang and thundered a poem of their might, jeering him: "Beware of offending us, for we can avenge ourselves; we hold your fate in our power. Beware of offending us, for we are bearing you on our backs in a fragile boat, and the Cæsar and his empire weigh no more than the lightest fisherman with his nets. Beware of offending us, for you are nothing but an ordinary man; mortal as the poorest beggar, and, if we choose, we will drag you down to our cold, damp grave. Beware of offending us!" Did he understand the song of the mocking waves? Was that why so deep a frown of wrath rested on his brow?