I had just looked over my shoulder toward Longwood, letting the Conqueror sink back again into a thing no bigger than a model on a mantelpiece, when, all at once, I saw some one standing near the brow of the cliff I mentioned, apparently watching the vessel, with a long glass at his eye, like myself. 'Twas farther than I could see to make out anything, save so much; and, ere I had screwed the glass for such a near sight, there were seven or eight figures more appearing half over the slope behind; while my hand shook so much with holding the glass so long, that at first I brought it to bear full on the cracks and blocks in the front of the crag, with the large green leaves and trailers on it flickering idly with the sunlight against my eyes, till I could have seen the spiders inside, I daresay. Next I held it too high, where the Admiral and Lord Frederick were standing by their horses, a good way back; the Governor, as I supposed, sitting on his, and two or three others along the rise. At length, what with kneeling down to rest it on one knee, I had the glass steadily fixed on the brow of the rocks, where I plainly saw a tall dark-whiskered man, in a rich French uniform, gazing to seaward--I knew him I sought too well by pictures, however, not to be sadly galled. Suddenly a figure came slowly down from before the rest, with his hands behind his back, and his head a little drooped. The officer at once lowered the telescope and held it to him, stepping upward, as if to leave him alone--what dress he had on I scarce noticed; but there he was standing, single in the round bright field of the glass I had hold of like a vice--his head raised, his hands hiding his face, as he kept the telescope fixed fair in front of me--only I saw the smooth broad round of his chin. I knew, as if I'd seen him in the Tuileries at Paris, or known him by sight since I was a boy--I _knew_ it was Napoleon!
During that minute the rest of them were out of sight, so far as the glass went--you'd have supposed there was no one there but himself, as still as a figure in iron; watching the same thing, no doubt, as I'd done myself five minutes before, where the noble seventy-four was beating slowly to windward. When I _did_ glance to the knot of officers twenty yards back, 'twas as if one saw a ring of his generals waiting respectfully while he eyed some field of battle or other, with his army at the back of the hill; but next moment the telescope fell in his hands, and his face, as pale as death, with his lip firm under it, seemed near enough for me to touch it--his eyes shot stern into me from below his wide white forehead, and I started, dropping my glass in turn. That instant the whole wild lump of St Helena, with its ragged brim, the clear blue sky and the sea, swung round about the dwindled figures above the crag, till they were nothing but so many people together against the slope beyond.