And, as if Nature wished to add her bold alarum to the mournful dirge of men, the storm-lashed waves of the Danube thundered around the island, dashed their foam-crested surges on the shore, and, in many places, created crimson lakes where, instead of boats, blood-stained bodies floated with yawning wounds.

It seemed as if the Styx had flowed to Lobau to spare the ferryman Charon the arduous task of conveying so many corpses to the nether world, and for the purpose transformed itself into a single vast funeral barge.
Napoleon, the victor of so many battles, the man before whom all Europe trembled, all the kings of the world bowed in reverence and admiration; he who, with a wave of his hand, had overturned and founded dynasties, was now forced to witness all this--compelled to suffer and endure like any ordinary mortal! He sat on a log near the shore, both elbows propped on his knees, and his pale iron face supported by his small white hands, glittering with diamonds, gazing at the roaring waves of the Danube and the throng of human beings who surrounded him.
Behind him, in gloomy silence, stood his generals--he did not notice them.
His soldiers marched before him--he did not heed them.

But they saw him, and turned from him to the mountains of corpses, to the moaning wounded men, the pools of blood which everywhere surrounded them, then gazed once more at him whom they were wont to hail exultingly as their hero, their earthly god, and whom to-day, for the first time, they execrated; whom in the fury of their grief they even ventured to accuse and to scorn.
But he did not hear.

He heard naught save the voices in his own breast, to whose gloomy words the wails and groans of the wounded formed a horrible chorus.
Suddenly he rose slowly, and turning toward Marshal Bessieres, who, with his wounded arm in a sling, stood nearest to him, Napoleon pointed to the river.
"To Ebersdorf!" he said, in his firm, imperious voice.

"You will accompany me, marshal.