第30章 LETTER VII(12)

Occupying then the door of my tent--by way of vantage ground,as soon as the stranger was come within earshot,I lifted up my voice,and cried in a style of Arabian familiarity,"O thou that ridest so furiously,--weary and disappointed one,--turn in,I pray thee,into the tent of thy servant,and eat bread,and drink wine,that thy soul may becomforted."To which he answered and said,"Man,--dweller in sulphureous places,--I will not eat bread,nor drink wine,neither will I enter into thy tent,until I have measured out a resting-place for my Lord the Prince."At this interesting moment our acquaintance was interrupted by the appearance of two other horsemen--the one a painter,the other a geologist--attached to the expedition of Prince Napoleon.They informed us that His Imperial Highness had reached Reykjavik two days after we had left,that he had encamped last night at Thingvalla,and might be expected here in about four hours:they themselves having come on in advance to prepare for his arrival.My first care was to order coffee for the tired Frenchmen;and then--feeling that long residence having given us a kind of proprietorship in the Geysirs,we were bound to do the honours of the place to the approaching band of travellers,--I summoned the cook,and enlarging in a long speech on the gravity of the occasion,gave orders that he should make a holocaust of all the remaining game,and get under way a plum-pudding,whose dimensions should do himself and England credit.A long table having been erected within the tent,Sigurdr started on a plundering expedition to the neighbouring farm,Fitzgerald undertook the ordering of the feast,while I rode on my pony across the morass,in hopes of being able to shoot a few additional plover.In a couple of hours afterwards,just as I was stalking a duck that lay innocently basking on the bosom of the river,a cloud of horsemen swept round the base of the distant mountain,and returning home,I found the encampment I had left so deserted--alive and populous with as merry a group of Frenchmen as it might ever be one's fortune to fall in with.Of course they were dressed in every variety of costumes,long boots,picturesque brigand-looking hats,with here and there a sprinkling of Scotch caps from Aberdeen;but--whatever might be the head-dress,underneath you might be sure to find a kindly,cheery face.My old friend Count Trampe,who had accompanied the expedition,at once presented me to the Prince,who was engaged in sounding the depth of the pipe of the Great Geysir,--and encouraged by the gracious reception which His Imperial Highness accorded me,I ventured to inform him that "there was a poor banquet toward,"of which I trusted he--and as many of his officers as the table could hold--would condescend to partake.After a little hesitation,--caused,I presume,by fear of our being put to inconvenience,--he was kind enough to signify his acceptance of my proposal,and in a few minutes afterwards with a cordial frankness I fully appreciated,allowed me to have the satisfaction of receiving him as a guest within my tent.

Although I never had the pleasure of seeing Prince Napoleon before,I should have known him among a thousand,from his remarkable likeness to his uncle,the first Emperor.

A stronger resemblance,I conceive,could scarcely exist between two persons.The same delicate,sharply cut features,thin refined mouth,and firm determined jaw.

The Prince's frame,however,is built altogether on a larger scale,and his eyes,instead of being of a cold piercing blue--are soft and brown,with quite a different expression.

Though of course a little Barmicidal,the dinner went off very well,as every dinner must do where such merry companions are the convives.We had some difficulty about stowing away the legs of a tall philosopher,and to each knife three individuals were told off;but the birds were not badly cooked,and the plum-pudding arrived in time to convert a questionable success into an undoubted triumph.

On rising from table,each one strolled away in whatever direction his particular taste suggested.The painter to sketch;the geologist to break stones;the philosopher to moralize,I presume,--at least,he lighted a cigar,--and the rest to superintend the erection of the tents which had just arrived.

In an hour afterwards,sleep--though not altogether silence--for loud and strong rose the choral service intoned to Morpheus from every side--reigned supreme over the encampment,whose canvas habitations,huddled together on the desolated plateau,looked almost Crimean.This last notion,I suppose,must have mingled with my dreams,for not long afterwards I found myself in full swing towards a Russian battery,that banged and bellowed,and cannonaded about my ears in a fashion frightful to hear.

Apparently I was serving in the French attack,for clear and shrill above the tempest rose the cry,"Alerte!

alerte!aux armes,Monseigneur!aux armes!"The ground shook,volumes of smoke rose before my eyes,and completely hid the defences of Sebastopol;which fact,on reflection,I perceived to be the less extraordinary,as I was standing in my shirt at the door of a tent in Iceland.The premonitory symptoms of an eruption,which I had taken for a Russian cannonading,had awakened the French sleepers,--a universal cry was pervading the encampment,--and the entire settlement had turned out--chiefly in bare legs--to witness the event which the reverberating earth and steaming water seemed to prognosticate.Old Geysir,however,proved less courteous than we had begun to hope,for after labouring uneasily in his basin for a few minutes,he roused himself on his hind-legs--fell--made one more effort,--and then giving it up as a bad job,sank back into his accustomed inaction,and left the disappointed assembly to disperse to their respective dormitories.