Wet science was what did it.If it hadn't been for the rain, my little Duke, I should have been in London within a week, my grenadiers would have been camping in your Rue Peekadeely, and the Old Guard all over everywhere else.""You must have had a gay army, then," laughed Caesar."What are French soldiers made of, that they can't stand the wet--unshrunk linen or flannel?""Bah!" observed Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders and walking a few paces away."You do not understand the French.The Frenchman is not a pell-mell soldier like you Romans; he is the poet of arms; he does not go in for glory at the expense of his dignity; style, form, is dearer to him than honor, and he has no use for fighting in the wet and coming out of the fight conspicuous as a victor with the curl out of his feathers and his epaulets rusted with the damp.There is no glory in water.But if we had had umbrellas and mackintoshes, as every Englishman who comes to the Continent always has, and a bath-tub for everybody, then would your Waterloo have been different again, and the great democracy of Europe with a Bonaparte for emperor would have been founded for what the Americans call the keeps; and as for your little Great Britain, ha! she would have become the Blackwell's Island of the Greater France.""You're almost as funny as Punch isn't," drawled Wellington, with an angry gesture at Bonaparte."You weren't within telephoning distance of victory all day.We simply played with you, my boy.It was a regular game of golf for us.We let you keep up pretty close and win a few holes, but on the home drive we had you beaten in one stroke.
Go to, my dear Bonaparte, and stop talking about the flood.""It's a lucky thing for us that Noah wasn't a Frenchman, eh?" said Frederick the Great."How that rain would have fazed him if he had been! The human race would have been wiped out.""Oh, pshaw!" ejaculated Noah, deprecating the unseemliness of the quarrel, and putting his arm affectionately about Bonaparte's shoulder."When you come down to that, I was French--as French as one could be in those days--and these Gallic subjects of my friend here were, every one of 'em, my lineal descendants, and their hatred of rain was inherited directly from me, their ancestor.""Are not we English as much your descendants?" queried Wellington, arching his eyebrows.
"You are," said Noah, "but you take after Mrs.Noah more than after me.Water never fazes a woman, and your delight in tubs is an essentially feminine trait.The first thing Mrs.Noah carried aboard was a laundry outfit, and then she went back for rugs and coats and all sorts of hand-baggage.Gad, it makes me laugh to this day when Ithink of it! She looked for all the world like an Englishman travelling on the Continent as she walked up the gang-plank behind the elephants, each elephant with a Gladstone bag in his trunk and a hat-box tied to his tail." Here the venerable old weather-prophet winked at Munchausen, and the little quarrel which had been imminent passed off in a general laugh.
"Where's Boswell? He ought to get that anecdote," said Johnson.
"I've locked him up in the library," said Holmes."He's in charge of the log, and as I have a pretty good general idea as to what is about to happen, I have mapped out a skeleton of the plot and set him to work writing it up." Here the detective gave a sudden start, placed his hand to his ear, listened intently for an instant, and, taking out his watch and glancing at it, added, quietly, "In three minutes Shem will be in here to announce a discovery, and one of great importance, I judge, from the squeak."The assemblage gazed earnestly at Holmes for a moment.
"The squeak?" queried Raleigh.
"Precisely," said Holmes."The squeak is what I said, and as Ialways say what I mean, it follows logically that I meant what Isaid."
"I heard no squeak," observed Dr.Johnson; "and, furthermore, I fail to see how a squeak, if I had heard it, would have portended a discovery of importance.""It would not--to you," said Holmes; "but with me it is different.
My hearing is unusually acute.I can hear the dropping of a pin through a stone wall ten feet thick; any sound within a mile of my eardrum vibrates thereon with an intensity which would surprise you, and it is by the use of cocaine that I have acquired this wonderfully acute sense.A property which dulls the senses of most people renders mine doubly apprehensive; therefore, gentlemen, while to you there was no auricular disturbance, to me there was.I heard Shem sliding down the mast a minute since.The fact that he slid down the mast instead of climbing down the rigging showed that he was in great haste, therefore he must have something to communicate of great importance.""Why isn't he here already, then? It wouldn't take him two minutes to get from the deck here," asked the ever-auspicious Le Coq.
"It is ******," returned Holmes, calmly."If you will go yourself and slide down that mast you will see.Shem has stopped for a little witch-hazel to soothe his burns.It is no cool matter sliding down a mast two hundred feet in height."As Sherlock Holmes spoke the door burst open and Shem rushed in.
"A signal of distress, captain!" he cried.
"From what quarter--to larboard?" asked Holmes.
"No," returned Shem, breathless.
"Then it must be dead ahead," said Holmes.
"Why not to starboard?" asked Le Coq, dryly.
"Because," answered Holmes, confidently, "it never happens so.If you had ever read a truly exciting sea-tale, my dear Le Coq, you would have known that interesting things, and particularly signals of distress, are never seen except to larboard or dead ahead."A murmur of applause greeted this retort, and Le Coq subsided.
"The nature of the signal?" demanded Holmes.
"A black flag, skull and cross-bones down, at half-mast!" cried Shem, "and on a rock-bound coast!""They're marooned, by heavens!" shouted Holmes, springing to his feet and rushing to the deck, where he was joined immediately by Sir Walter, Dr.Johnson, Bonaparte, and the others.
"Isn't he a daisy?" whispered Demosthenes to Diogenes as they climbed the stairs.
"He is more than that; he's a blooming orchid," said Diogenes, with intense enthusiasm."I think I'll get my X-ray lantern and see if he's honest."