While I am thus disposed of at Eckernfiörd, it may not be out
of place to relate the adventures of the fair sisters (on their
being decoyed from Nyekiöbing), as I afterwards learned from
them, and so far as I can remember.
In the course of this narrative, many a long forgotten scene
and face have come back to my memory by pursuing a train of
thought. At first, it was my intention to have related only the
battles and sieges wherein our valiant Scots of the old invincible
regiment of Strathnaver distinguished themselves; but I have
been compelled to linger fondly over the past, and thus long
buried thoughts and hopes; the sentiments of my earlier years,
have come back to me in all their strength and freshness.
Hence I can relate the faith and pride of Ernestine, and the love
of poor Gabrielle—one man's knavery and another man's valour—as
if the events of those stirring times had all occurred but
yesterday.
On board the dogger which bore the sisters from Falster,
were only Bandolo, his friend Bernhard, the amiable woodman
of Korslack (who has been already introduced to the reader),
and three sailors of Dantzig, to whom the craft belonged.
Bandolo was disguised as a well-fed Lutheran clergyman of
Glückstadt, and Bernhard acted as his servant, and had knots of
black riband, on each of his shoulders. He had brought to
Ernestine a feigned message, that the count her father was dying
of wounds in Holstein; although quite aware that, by the
intrigues and jealousy of old Tilly, he had been summoned to
Vienna by the Emperor, who—as it was currently reported—now
viewed him with the utmost coldness. Bandolo had been
despatched by Tilly towards Assens and Falster, to inquire into
the number of the Danish forces, and the probable movements
of their king; but hearing that the count's daughters were at
Nyekiöbing, he immediately conceived the project of conveying
them away; and as he considered that he had now amassed a
sufficient sum to realise the dream of his ambition—a Hanoverian
count-ship—he resolved to retire from public life, to repose
upon his laurels, with the high-born bride whom, Tilly in his
cynical and mischievous spirit, had urged him by all means to
procure; for secretly the generalissimo owed the colonel-general
of the cavalry a mortal grudge.
By a profitable speculation, Bandolo had sold the younger
sister, Gabrielle, to Count Merodé for a thousand ducats; and,
being highly pleased with his investment, that gentle commander—who
had compelled a Holstein merchant to furnish the ducats
under terror of musket-shot, and place them in his hands—was
impatiently awaiting her arrival at the strong fortress of
Fredricksort, on the gulf of Kiel in Danische-wald, the
capital of which is Eckernfiörd. The castle was occupied by the
soldiers of the count; who, by a despatch from Vienna, had been
desired to constitute himself governor of all that district, the
poor boors of which were nearly driven mad by the severity
with which he exacted tribute.
Bandolo's dogger sailed towards Fehmarn, where he gave such
information to Colonel Butler as enabled that officer to afford us
a warm reception. The scout-master then bore away towards
the coast of Danische-wald; but on both sides of the isle of
Fehmarn he encountered such tremendous gales, that the whole
thoughts and energies of himself and his accomplice were
occupied by fears for their own safety; thus, without the sisters
being disturbed by their attentions or insults, the dogger
entered the gulf of Kiel, and anchored off the Wohlder shore.
Confined to the little cabin during this cold and dreary voyage
of nearly a hundred and fifty miles, and being wholly occupied
by anxiety to reach their father, the sisters had failed to observe
the very remarkable conduct of their guardian, the Lutheran
clergyman, and his valet, who seemed to be on the most familiar
terms with each other; and who, when the wind blew, and the
dogger dipped surging down into the trough of the angry sea,
drank schnaps out of the same horn, and swore a few round
oaths as emphatically as a couple of Merodeurs.
A large black doublet, well bombasted in front, white clerical
bands, and black satin knee breeches, with a white wig and
smoothly shaven chin, so completely metamorphosed Bandolo
into a sleek oily clergyman, with a somewhat comical but leering
eye, that his own mother would not have recognised the bravo
she had brought into the world—that dreaded and avowed
bravo, who was usually to be seen loitering like a bull-dog about
the door of Tilly's tent, wearing a leather doublet, and a belt
stuck full of poniards, a long lovelock, a rapier five feet in
length, and a visage bloated by beer and excesses of every
description.
Whatever strange ideas might have floated through his evil
brain, or whatever promptings to mischief, the circumstance of
these two beautiful girls being far out on the open ocean, and
completely at the mercy of him and Bernhard, might have been
suggested by his bad angel, thank Heaven! which sent the
stormy wind to furrow up the deep, and roll the little bark upon
its waters like a cork, their coward hearts were solely occupied
by fears for their own safety—fears which every bottle of schnaps
in the locker could not allay. Thus, without the least suspicion
of the trick which had been played them, or the trap into which
they had fallen, the sisters saw, from a window in the little
cabin, the setting sun of the 20th of April reddening the shores
of Holstein, as the dogger ran into the little gulf of Kiel.
Ernestine was pleased to perceive that Gabrielle had revived
a little during this brief voyage. Either the separation from Ian,
a transference to new scenes, or that all her thoughts were with
her dying father, had produced this salutary effect; and she
hoped that in time, this passion, which she deemed so degrading
even to her impulsive nature, would soon be forgotten like a
dream.
Instead of entering the harbour of any of the large towns, the
dogger was anchored off a miserable little village, inhabited by
poor people, who subsisted by dressing the skins of squirrels,
which abound in that neighbourhood.
The first object of Bandolo was to separate the sisters, and,
without creating any alarm, to exchange Gabrielle for the
thousand ducats of Count Merodé, whose garrison of Fredricksort
was but a few miles off. About sunset he presented himself
in the cabin, and, with all the suavity of manner he could muster,
requested that "the ladies would prepare for going shoreward."
During the short voyage they had seen but little of him; for,
as I have already mentioned, the stormy weather had given him
ample occupation elsewhere; and in truth, he was invariably
awed into a state of unpleasant stupidity in their presence, and
found himself almost unable to address them. This wretched
man—this spy and assassin—steeped to the lips in a thousand
secret crimes and dishonourable acts, found his blustering spirit
and savage heart quail before the dignity of perfect innocence,
and the angelic purity which pervaded the presence of Ernestine
and Gabrielle.
Arrayed in his white wig, ample black doublet, white bands
and Geneva cloak, like a Lutheran churchman, and wearing a
broad velvet hat with a steeple-crown, an enormous pair of
barnacles, and a silver-headed cane dangling at his dexter wrist,
to increase the respectability of his appearance, Bandolo
presented a hand to each of the sisters, and conducted them into
the boat, by which they were rowed ashore. Bernard of Korslack,
dressed in modest dark livery, carried the mails and saddlebags;
but Ernestine remarked that there was one mail, which
the worthy clergyman averred to be full of MS. sermons, but
would scarcely trust out of his hand for a single moment, and
which seemed to be very heavy, and his own peculiar care.
In fact, this mail afterwards proved to be filled with gold,
and ample orders on the Imperial treasury, signed by Wallenstein,
by Tilly, and Count Leslie of Balquhan, high chamberlain
of the Empire—the dear-earned fruits of a long career of
espionage and atrocity; and on the contents of that beloved
mail, Bandolo (that human compound of avarice and cruelty),
based all his ambitious hopes of future rank; for it contained
the price of his expected county.
Now, when in the open boat, and when the bright flush of
the setting sun shone along the rippling water, Ernestine for
the first time remarked, with undefined uneasiness, the peculiar
aspect of those who accompanied them. The countenance of the
clergyman—he called himself Doctor, having taken degrees at
Leyden—was somewhat livid, and marked by two or three
unseemly scars; but he might have served as a chaplain in the
army, or fought a few college duels. He had certainly a very
remarkable expression of eye; and, whichever way Ernestine
turned, it was fixed upon her in a manner that made her feel
inexpressibly uncomfortable; but the moment her calm, steady,
and inquiring glance met his, the reverend doctor turned abruptly,
and gazed in another direction.
Bernhard, the valet, had a somewhat bloated countenance, and
sleepy red eyes, like those of a sot; with a continual expression
of suppressed merriment about them, as if he would gladly
have indulged himself in a hoarse laugh, but dared not.
Gabrielle did not see these things; her mind was too
intently occupied by the shore they were nearing; by the
expectation of embracing her father; and by heartfelt satisfaction
to exchange the miseries of the dingy little cabin for the
comforts and confidence experienced on terra firma, to observe
either the eyes or noses of those who were conducting her there.
"What is the name of this village, Herr?" asked Ernestine,
as the boat ran alongside a little jetty built of large rough
stones.
"I do not know, madam," replied Bandolo, adjusting his
barnacles, and gazing intently at the half-dozen of red-tiled
cottages occupied by the squirrel-curriers; "do you, Bernhard?'
"Nay, not I—how should I? I never was in Danische-wald
before."
"Then do you know, how far it is from this to Fredricksort?"
"Where the count awaits you—ten miles—is it not so, Bernhard?"
Bernhard growled an assent.
"Ah, if we should be too late to reach my father!" said
Gabrielle, clasping her hands; "and we have been so many hours
in yonder little vessel."
"What is Fredricksort?" asked Ernestine.
"A castle of vast strength, lady."
"And what troops are with our father there?"
"I do not know, grafine," replied Bandolo; for he knew that
to have mentioned Merodé and his Merodeurs might excite
suspicion; "do you know, Bernhard?"
"Why, Herr Doctor," stammered the pretended valet; "I
thought that you knew very well that the regiment of——"
"Carlstein—oh yes!" interrupted Bandolo just in time, but
eyeing his valet savagely out of the corners of his barnacles;
"how could I forget! yes, lady, the musketeers of Carlstein—none
know them better than I do—occupy the fortress."
"Musketeers!" reiterated Ernestine; "our father's regiment is
Cavalry!'
"To be sure—how could I forget—you blundering ass,
Bernhard!—'Tis my valet who makes such mistakes; but here we
are. Welcome to Wohlder, ladies!" said Bandolo, raising his hat,
and with it his long white wig, a mistake by which he nearly
discovered his black hair and face, by which Ernestine might
have recognised the terrible familiar of Count Tilly, who had been
pointed out to her on two occasions—once in Vienna, and once
in the Imperial camp.
During this brief conversation, Bandolo had experienced all
the uneasiness already described; and his admiration for the fine
person of Ernestine combated with restraint and fear, which
at times kindled a spark of rage in his heart, and made him
almost hate her for possessing a power that awed him by a glance.
Yet Ernestine was quite unconscious of possessing this power, and
knew not that it was required.
Feeling, she knew not why, a sentiment of disdain for her
conductors, she relapsed into silence, and permitted herself and
Gabrielle to be led to a cottage, the poor occupants of which
received them with the utmost respect. This was increased by the
appearance of the leathern mails, and still more by a piece of gold,
which Bandolo placed in the hand of the goodman of the cottage,
requesting him to search the whole neighbourhood, and hire horses
for Fredricksort, whither they were travelling on the service of
the King of Denmark.
The husbonde replied, that "close by there was a farm, the
goodman of which had been cruelly murdered last week by the
Merodeurs in Fredricksort; and whose widow, he believed, would
gladly lend the Herr her spouse's horses for a small consideration,
as she and her children were starving, Count Merodé's men having
made every thing march, from the haystacks in the yard to the
eggs in the coop."
"Away then, boor, get these horses, and this shall be the
happiest night of your life."
"What was the peasant saying, reverend sir?" asked the
anxious Ernestine on the departure of the Jutelander, whose
language she did not understand.
"Alas, Lady!" said Bandolo, seating himself with an air of
dejection; "prepare yourself for melancholy intelligence. The
poor count—ah me—well, what a world it is!"
"My father—what of my poor father?" asked both girls
together, rushing to his side with their eyes full of tears.
"He is still lingering at Fredricksort, but life is scarcely
expected for him; and the emperor has sent his own physician,
Herr Blyster, to attend him."
"Oh! the dear, good emperor!" exclaimed Gabrielle, with
sorrowful ardour.
"Herr Blyster!" mused Ernestine; "I did not think that
was the name of the emperor's physician." Neither it was; but
the name was the suggestion of Bandolo's own imagination,
which sometimes was not a very happy one.
"Trust in the Lord, lady—trust in the Lord!" said he, turning
up his eyes.
Gabrielle clung to her sister, and did nothing but weep.
Bernhard stood behind them, making grimaces and grotesque
contortions of visage at his reverend master, who one moment
seemed inclined to laugh, and the next to swear, at a folly
which might undo all, and perhaps prevent their obtaining
peacefully the Count of Merodé's thousand ducats, of which
Master Bernhard was to receive a good share—as Bandolo had
promised faithfully; but without the least intention of giving
him a stiver.
Darkness set in; the poor woman of the cottage lighted a
solitary candle, and from her cupboard brought a glass of birch-wine
for each of the ladies, and another of schnaps for the Herr
and his valet.
Ernestine was just expressing to Gabrielle her impatience to
be gone—her uneasiness to be in this unknown cottage at night,
on an enemy's coast, with two strangers—for when in the dogger
with the sailors, she did not feel herself so desolate—when the
boor returned with the horses, two of which had side-saddles,
and they all mounted hastily.
After securely buckling his beloved portmanteau to the crupper
of his horse, after paying the peasant, and after carefully
examining in the dark four small pistols and two poniards,
which he carried under his clerical doublet, señor Bandolo
whispered to Bernhard the project he wished to accomplish—the
quiet separation of the sisters by a little piece of finesse, which
he was certain they would never suspect or discover, until too
late to retrieve themselves. It was simply this—
He had learned from the boor which couple of the four horses
were the swiftest, and on them he mounted Bernhard and
Gabrielle, instructing the former to spur on to the front, and
wheel off by a certain bypath towards Fredricksort; while he,
with the other sister, meant to ride slowly, and pursue a path
quite different towards a certain cottage, which they both knew
of in the wood of Eckernfiörd. There Bernhard was to meet
them, and bring the ducats of Count Merodé—the price of
Gabrielle.
"Now, ladies," said Bandolo, "are you good horsewomen?"
"Ernestine was the best at Vienna," said Gabrielle, whipping
up her Holsteiner, which caracoled under her light weight.
"Gabrielle—Gabrielle!" exclaimed her eldest sister; "take
care what you are about, madcap! You will unhorse yourself
and me too. Will she not, reverend sir?"
"Now, ladies, we have ten miles of clear road before us, and
the moon will soon rise. Let us start by pairs along this bridle
road, and see which couple will first reach Fredricksort."
"Away—I shall be first with our dear father," said Gabrielle,
anxious to keep in front, and giving a lash to her Holsteiner,
which shot away at a headlong pace. Bernhard dashed on by
her side, for he was a good horseman, having been a valet to
Merodé at Vienna, where he had been scourged and dismissed
for selling his master's cloaks and doublets.
Ernestine and Bandolo followed at full gallop; but as the
road was narrow, the bravo contrived to incommode her horse
and his own in such a manner, that their speed was considerably
retarded. Bernhard and Gabrielle bore on at an uninterrupted
pace, and, despite all the entreaties of Ernestine, disappeared into
the darkness in front. This was the very thing Bandolo had
hoped to accomplish.
"Do not be alarmed, grafine, they will not reach the fortress
ten minutes before us," said he, quite enchanted by the sudden
success of his scheme.
At last he and Ernestine passed on their right the narrow
path which led towards the gulf of Kiel, and by which he knew
that Bernhard and Gabrielle had struck off to the castle of
Fredricksort; and far along the level way his quick and practised
ear detected the tramp of their horses' hoofs. He passed it, and
spurring on, slyly administered now and then a lash to the horse
of Ernestine, urging it along a road which he knew conducted
them straight to the place of rendezvous—the solitary cottage in
the forest of Eckernfiörd.
Ernestine whipped and caressed her horse. Every pace the
poor girl supposed was bringing her nearer and more near to
the couch of her dying father.
Bandolo, who knew every foot of the way, avoided the villages
and rode towards Eckernfiörd, which, from the landing-place,
was double the distance he had mentioned to Ernestine as the
space to be travelled. As she was too acute not to perceive this,
after they had ridden without speaking for some miles in the
dark (for there was no moon, and scarcely a star visible, as the
clouds were coming up in heavy masses from the Baltic on their
right), she made some inquiries about this fortress, where, as he
had said, her father commanded, and how far it might yet be
distant.
"It should be just beyond those trees, lady," replied the
disguised spy.
"Should," retorted Ernestine in great displeasure; "are you
not quite certain that it is?"
"How can one be certain of any thing in so dark a night?
But trust in the Lord, lady—trust in the Lord!"
"Herr Doctor, you are very fond of repeating that tiresome
phrase; but remember, sir, that at present I trust to you, and it
seems that you are leading me towards a dense forest.
"Through that forest lies our way, grafine. I did not make
the road. If I had, I should perhaps have taken it round by the
shore of the haven; but, as it lies through the forest, we must
pursue it, or remain where we are."
The narrow horse-path, which hitherto had been bordered only
by smooth green meadows, divided by quickset hedges, now
became gradually lost in that forest of tall trees which lies
between Eckernfiörd and Kiel,* and so dense became the entwined
branches and other obstructions incident to a wood growing in a
state of nature, that their horses could scarcely move at times, and
Bandolo now dispensed with his circular barnacles (a severe
impediment to the vision of one who did not require them), and gazed
around with all the air of a man who had completely lost himself.
"Now, sir," said the impatient Ernestine, "what a scrape you
have brought me into! Separated from my sister, who cannot
have come this way, else we should have found her in this
labyrinth; and separated also from my dear father, who may die
before I reach Fredricksort, and while we are fruitlessly
wandering in this provoking wood; besides, there may be wild animals
or robbers in it, and you are, of course, without arms."
"Heaven forbid, lady, I should ever trust to other weapons
than those of the spirit. Maldicion—Maldicion de Dios!" he
growled between his teeth; "if once I have her safe in the cottage
of old Dame Krümpel, I will make her pay dearly for all the
trouble her pride has cost me, and for having my face scratched
in this rascally thicket."
"What did you say, Herr Doctor?"
"Only a prayer, that we may not meet with any robbers or
wild animals, as you said—ha—ha!"
"Or broken soldiers."
"Or with Bandolo," he added.
"Count Tilly's spy?" said Ernestine; "'tis rumoured that he
knows every foot of ground in Denmark, so I wish that we could
meet with him; though he is a guilty wretch of whom even the
Merodeurs speak with contempt and horror."
Bandolo uttered a low, ferocious laugh. Ruffian as he was,
and callous to every sentiment of humanity, her words stung him
to the soul; for there was something inexpressibly cutting in
this hearty and undisguised contempt, as expressed by a beautiful
woman. He writhed under it, and a savage glow of mingled
triumph and revenge spread through his breast, as he exultingly
contemplated the terror, the catastrophe, and the downfall that
were awaiting her. His eagerness sharpened his faculties.
"I see a light—a spark—to our left. This way, lady," said he,
seizing the bridle of her horse, and conducting her down a narrow
track, where the pine trunks grew so close that there was
scarcely room for steed and rider to pass between them; but in
a few minutes they reached a small and rudely built cottage,
which stood by the margin of a little tarn. It was the place
where Bernhard was to rejoin Bandolo, and pay over the price
of poor Gabrielle.
The bravo alighted from his saddle, and, fastening the bridles
of both horses to the branch of a tree, threw open the cottage
door, and led in Ernestine.
An oil lamp shed a faint light on the interior of this poor
habitation, the furniture of which consisted of a table and couple
of stools, of such rough construction that the bark yet adhered
to the wood. Here and there a naked spar of the rough wooden
roof came out of the obscurity in which dust, cobwebs, and darkness
involved it; the floor was of hard-beaten clay. The cottage
consisted of what we Scots call a but and a ben, or two
apartments. One end of the outer was spanned by the rude lintel of
a wide chimney, within which, and close to a few smouldering
embers, an old hag, with hands like a kite's claws, sat on a block
of wood, skinning squirrels and chattering over her work. She
looked up, and Bandolo, as he expected, recognised Dame
Krümpel, who, after her expulsion from Glückstadt by order of
the puissant burgomaster, Herr Dubbelsteirn, had found her way
to the eastern coast of the peninsula.
They greeted each other in a dialect of the German so guttural
that Ernestine did not understand it. Then the old woman
snatched up her lamp, and, holding it aloft, surveyed with her
fierce eyes—which were keen and deep as two gimlet holes—the
tall figure of Ernestine, who, on seeing this repulsive old woman
approach with her shrivelled hands dyed in blood, shrunk back,
and drew herself up to her full height, while a disdainful
expression stole over her beautiful face, on which her broad Spanish
hat and long black feather cast an impressive shadow.
Old Krümpel croaked and grinned as she set down her iron
lamp, and quietly resumed her occupation.
Bandolo now brought in his heavy portmanteau, which he
carefully deposited on the table; he then placed beside it two
leathern bottles, which he took from his pockets, after securing
the cottage-door.
"Be seated, madame—and here Krümpel, old hag! get us
glasses, cups, or whatever you have; I long for a taste of schnaps,
as doubtless the lady does for a drop of kirschwasser—for I have
both."
"I beseech you, sir, to lose no time in procuring a guide," said
Ernestine, whose heart was bursting with impatience, grief, and
alarm.
"A guide—for where?"
"Fredricksort."
"Content yourself, my pretty one; what the devil would you
do at Fredricksort?" he asked, abandoning all his assumed
manner. "Surely one of you is quite enough among the rough
Merodeurs."
Ernestine was petrified by this speech, and still more when
the pretended clergyman threw aside his wig, revealing his coal
black hair, and that long and peculiar lock by which he was
generally known; and, opening his ample doublet, displayed
below, his cases of poniards and pistols.
"Maldicion de Dios! ha, ha! what use is there in masquerading
any longer? I am Bandolo, Madame Ernestine, and
we may as well be friends at once; so give me a kiss to begin
with, though I am one upon whom even the wild Merodeurs
look with contempt and horror!"
He bluntly approached her, but paused; for the expression
of her eyes arrested him, and he quailed before it—he,
Bandolo!
Never did terror, anger, and aversion lend a brighter flash to
more beautiful eyes than those of Ernestine; and their lofty
gaze arrested the insolence of Bandolo, charming the steps of one
whom the laws of neither God nor man could bind. He growled
an oath and a laugh together; sat down and took a mouthful of
schnaps. Ernestine turned anxiously towards the old woman;
but that worthy appeared to have neither ears nor eyes for what
was passing, and was tearing the skin from the body of a squirrel
with the utmost unconcern.
Disdaining to say a word, Ernestine grasped her riding-rod,
gave another fiery glance at Bandolo with her tearless eyes,
and boldly prepared to retire. Seizing her arm, he forced her
into a seat, and, placing his back against the door, burst into a
shout of derisive laughter, which made her blood curdle.
The thought of Gabrielle, away, she knew not where, with
this man's companion, filled her whole soul with alarm; and in
that thought all sense of her own danger was swept away. Terror
almost paralysed her, and she burst into tears.
Bandolo eyed her with a strange glance of mingled ferocity,
perplexity, and admiration; for in every impulse—his anger, his
avarice, and all his passions—this man was a mere animal. He
took another draught of the strong schnaps, and warned her to
take care what she was about, and what she did and said now;
for she was alone with one who would not stand trifling—alone
in the heart of a forest where no living thing could hear her
outcries but the birds in their nests, or the foxes in their
holes—that she was perfectly helpless, and beyond all rescue.
Alone—and with him! ........
Let us see how these two lovers conducted themselves towards
the fair sisters whom they had entrapped;—the ruffian, who was
laudably ambitious of becoming a count; and the count, who was
in no way ashamed of being esteemed an accomplished ruffian.
At the narrow path indicated by Bandolo, his accomplice
Bernhard had wheeled off towards the castle of Fredricksort, and
its square outline, with little minarets at the angles, soon rose
before the riders. High and sloping bastions faced with stone,
surrounded by stockades and bristling with brass cannon, enclosed
this stately castle, the lights of which were visible between the
trees and plantations with which the fields were interspersed.
"My father—my father!" murmured Gabrielle, whipping on
her horse; "but where is Ernestine? Ah, Heavens! I do not
hear the hoofs of her horse, nor those of the doctor's nag. Ah
me, if they should lose the way, and fall among Danes! Does
your master know the country well?"
"Well? none know it better between the gulf of Lïïm and
the Elbe; but now that we are arrived, I pray you to rein in
your horse, lady, lest the sentinels fire on us."
They were now close to the fosse, the bridge of which was
drawn up; beyond it, a deep archway yawned in the fortifications,
and near it the figure of a soldier was dimly visible. He
challenged in pure German.
In the same language Bernhard replied, and in her eagerness
Gabrielle did so too. On hearing a woman's voice, there was
a shout of laughter from the sentinels, and from several soldiers
of the barrier-guard, who were loitering at the gate, and smoking
their long German pipes. The bridge was lowered, and, as soon
as the travellers had crossed, it was raised again; a lantern was
brought from the guard-house, and Gabrielle found herself
surrounded by soldiers—by Merodeurs!—or the Merodistas, as
the Spaniards named them—a term now synonymous with one
of the greatest of human crimes—for such was the atrocious
character of the regiment of Merodé.
"Merodeurs!" said Gabrielle, shrinking back on seeing the
ferocious visages, the ragged uniforms, and the rusty corslets of
those who surrounded her, with their features seamed by scars,
bloated by beer, and their eyes expressive of the most cruel and
sinister thoughts that could animate the minds of men, hardened
by civil crime, by the camp and the jail, the scourge and the
fetter, the riddlings of Vienna, the scum of European wars—for
murderers, deserters, and vagabonds of every description,
readily found pay, plunder, and service in the ranks of Merodé—where
they hardened each other afresh by their ferocious example.
At times they quarrelled with each other on parade, and even when
before the enemy, and exchanged a few slashes and shots in the
colonel's presence. Their officers were all broken gamesters,
hardened roués and high-born desperadoes; but the greatest and
the worst was the count himself. Such was the battalion of
Merodé; and never, perhaps, since an army was constituted, were
a thousand such rascals assembled under baton, to surpass the
cruelties of Nero, and disgrace the glorious profession of arms.
"Bernhard, your master told us that the castle was occupied
by my father's regiment of horse."
But Master Bernhard did not hear Gabrielle's expostulating
tone: for having recognised several old acquaintances of the
Prison-house and Rasp-haus among the Merodeurs, he was
engaged in a lively conversation, the slang terms of which made
it totally incomprehensible to the startled girl, who had now
some secret misgivings of betrayal and misfortunes to come.
However, she dismounted without assistance, and addressing one
whom, by his ample scarf and boots edged with lace, she
recognised to be a sergeant, said,—
"Lead me immediately to the count—for it is most improper
that I should loiter here."
"This way, then, madame," said the halberdier, with a bow which
Gabrielle mistook for politeness, as she did not perceive how he
winked to one soldier, thrust his tongue in his cheek to another,
poked a third in the ribs, and set the whole guard laughing as
he guided her into the body of the fortress; but she heard them
saying—"Oho Kaspar! 'tis a girl who seeks the count."
"Der Teufel! ha! ha!"
"For so dainty a bird, what a taste she must have! Old
Schwindler."
"I warrant me, Schwaschbückler, the count will scarcely have
eyes even for so pretty a woman by this time."
"Ah, my Heavens!" sighed the poor girl, appalled by these
brutal observations; "my poor father must indeed be dying, or
discipline would never be so relaxed. And Ernestine—where is
she loitering? Quick—quick, good sir! conduct me to the count."
The sergeant, who did not seem quite so bad as his comrades,
led her straight towards a hall, the uproar proceeding from which
made her poor little heart sink within her.
"Oh, if my misgivings become verified! It is impossible that
my father can be in life," she thought; "if so, neither in camp
nor quarters dare even the Merodeurs have been so outrageous
and disorderly."
The hall was lighted, partly by flambeaux placed here and
there irregularly, and partly by an enormous fire that blazed in
the wide chimney, and was fed by doors and shutters, &c., brought
from other parts of the edifice. The tapestry with which it was
hung, and which represented the wars of Frederick II. with the
Ditmarschen, was torn down in some places, leaving the bare wall
exposed; in others, the fragments yet remaining were waving in
the currents of air that floated through the vast apartment, and
made the wavering flambeaux stream like yellow ribands.
At the long table nearly a dozen of Merodé's officers were
seated at a debauch, which seemed to have lasted pretty long.
All were richly, even magnificently dressed, and had their long
curled hair and mustaches dressed to perfection. Their doublets,
cloaks, and breeches were of the newest fashion, and of the
finest Florence silk and Genoa velvet; and the enormous chains
of pure gold which encircled their necks, and to which their
crucifixes, miraculous medals, and jewelled poniards were attached,
amply proved, that on the march they could help themselves to
occasional trinkets as freely as their soldiers and camp-followers.
Many of them were noble in feature and in bearing; but
recklessness, defiance, debauchery, and crime were stamped heavily
and ineffaceably on every brow, and in the lack-lustre expression
of every drunken eye. Those who sat by the large table were
absorbed in the chances of several games—(Post-and-pair, Tric
Trac, and Ombre); their minds were wholly occupied, and they
were watching the turns of fortune, with their bleared and
bloodshot eyes fixed on those pieces of painted pasteboard, which had
already cost one of their number his life; for on the floor there
lay a cavalier, whose right hand yet grasped an unsheathed rapier.
Gabrielle thought him intoxicated, but a cry almost escaped her
on perceiving that he was ghastly, stiff, and dead; that his
unclosed eyes were turned back within their sockets, and his long
fair hair was clotted by blood. Near him sat the slayer in his
shirt sleeves, binding up a thrust which he had recently received
in the sword arm, and whistling the while with a grim expression
on his sunburnt visage. It was evident that a brawl had
interrupted the gambling—that one of their number had been
slain; but so intent were the Merodeurs on their favourite
amusement, that they had quietly resumed their play without even
removing the corpse—a terrible illustration of their reckless
ferocity and familiarity with outrage.
In the dark shadow which obscured the lower end of the hall
Gabrielle passed unnoticed, and her light step was unheard.
From thence the halberdier conducted her along several passages,
and then stopped before a door, over which swung a lamp.
"In that chamber you will find the count," said he, pointing
to the door.
"My father—my father!" said Gabrielle in a soft and almost
breathless voice; "at last—at last—oh, my father!" she sprung
forward, and, opening the door, entered the room—not, as she
expected, to throw herself by the sick couch of her father, and
to embrace him with all the gush of filial tenderness that welled
up in her pure and joyous heart, but to find herself folded with
ardour to the breast of a stranger.
It was some time before Gabrielle recovered from her astonishment
and grief, or could fully realise all the terrors of her
situation.
Merodé seated her in a chair, and closed the door. The
apartment was very handsome, being completely hung with red
Danish cloth, stamped over with rich silver flowers. A fire
burned in an iron basket in the chimney, which was lined with
gaudy Delft ware. In one corner stood a small bed, covered with
green silk, brocaded with gold, and surmounted by plumes. The
count's magnificently embossed helmet and cuirass hung on the
knobs of one chair; his buff-coat, pistols, and rapier lay on
another; and now, while the terrified Gabrielle is recovering
her faculties, and surveying all these things by the light of a
beautiful girandole, which occupied the centre of a small tripod
table, let us take a view of the famous Ulrick.
He was about thirty-five years of age, above the middle height,
and strongly made; handsome enough in face and figure to
please any woman, but in his dark and devilish eye there was
an expression which, while it fascinated with the fascination of
fear, had that gloating expression, which the eye of an honest or
honourable man never possesses.
His doublet of sky-blue velvet was completely covered with
silver embroidery; his lace collar was a little awry, and stained
with wine; his hair and mustaches were untrimmed, for he had
just been awakened out of a sleep into which he had smoked
himself two hours before, and his tasselled pipe still hung at a
buttonhole of his doublet—the same honoured buttonhole at
which he had suspended the diamond star of St. George of
Carinthia. His cloak and breeches were also of sky-blue velvet,
laced with silver; he wore white buff-boots and silver spurs; a
white buff-belt and diamond hilted stiletto; a white satin scarf,
with a cross and eagle embroidered at the ends of it. Having
slept off his first drunken nap, there was a jaunty devil-may-care
expression in his face, and he regarded the young girl with
a smile full of desire and admiration.
"Count of Merodé," said she, abruptly; "is not my father
with you here in Fredricksort?"
"No, Madame Gabrielle (you see I have not forgotten that
name, nor the magic it once had for me), he is not. Thank
Heaven! I am my own commanding-officer—at least none can
have authority over me save your charming self; and I will
consider it the duty and the glory of my life to obey you—to
be your servant—your slave—your——"
As Merodé had all this kind of stuff off by rote, and by
frequent repetition could have poured forth speeches which would
fill three folio pages, Gabrielle cut him short by saying—
"I beseech you, sir, to tell me where my father is."
"I believe the old gentleman is with the Emperor at Vienna,
where I hope they are both enjoying good health."
"Vienna! Impossible!"
"By the immortal Jove I swear to you that he is, unless—as
report says—he is banished to his own castle of Giezar; for
Ferdinand did not like the management of that piece of work at
Oldenburg, and the escape of the count in the same ship with
Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, whom he has sworn to hang (Duke
and Elector though he be) over the gate of the Five Vowels at
Vienna."*
"Ah, mercy! what will become of me? Oh, Ernestine,
Ernestine! where are you? why are we separated? why am I here?"
"'Pon my soul, little one, by all this noise I could imagine
that, like the old fellow Daniel, you had fallen into a den of lions,
or among outrageous wolves, instead of a few lively young men,
who can appreciate so well a pretty face. Adorable Gabrielle!
I have never—never since we last saw each other at Vienna—had
an opportunity of saying how much your beauty has taken possession
of my whole thoughts. If I am stupid or timid just now,
I pray attribute it to your presence here, which overwhelms me."
"Timidity!—I should think, my lord, you have very little of
that, who have dared to entrap a daughter of Count Carlstein."
"Dared! Der Teufel! 'tis a word rarely addressed to a
Merodista. (At that frightful word Gabrielle shuddered.) In
love, as in war, we take all advantages; but, poor innocent! how
can you be able to judge of a passion to which you must be
a stranger? Yet be assured you will find love a more pleasant
study than I found Latin at college; and, dearest Gabrielle, if I
might be your preceptor——"
He placed both his hands on the fine figure of Gabrielle, and
endeavoured to clasp her slender waist. The moment he touched
her person, she drew herself up with loftiness and hauteur; her
eye flashed and her cheek reddened, while a haughty indignation,
which startled even Merodé, beamed on her beautiful brow.
"Der Teufel! but you are enchanting!" said Merodé, stepping
back a space and surveying her with all the air of a profound
connoisseur. "'Pon my soul, little one, I like you all the better
for this display of temper; you shall see how friendly we shall
be by and by. Believe me, I have not the least feeling of
revenge for all the contempt with which you treated me at
Vienna—not the least. Ah, by my life, what a charming pout!"
"I will leave this place, and go to my sister. Oh! Ernestine,
where are you, and why are you not here to protect me?"
"She is in very good keeping by this time; and 'tis well, for
she is a little bit of an Amazon," said Merodé, somewhat maliciously;
for he knew right well that she was to become the prey
of Bandolo.
"Count," said Gabrielle, clasping her poor little hands, and
approaching with a trembling heart and imploring eyes; "by all
the mercies of Heaven, I conjure you to tell me what you mean!"
"Delicious Gabrielle!" murmured the count, looking at her
from side to side as one would do a fine horse; "why, I merely
mean that she is safe among the Lutheran nuns of St. Kund at
Kiel, where some of my fellows are very anxious to pay a visit."
"On your honour, count, you assure me of this?"
"On my soul I do!" replied Merodé, for that he considered of
infinitely less importance.
Though thankful for the imaginary safety of her sister,
Gabrielle, being overcome by the desolation and dangers of her
position, sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands.
Without touching her, Merodé hung over the chair, and gazed at
the beautiful and harmonious outline of her young bust and
curved shoulder; and thought, that although there was every
chance of old Carlstein putting a bullet through his head, sans
parley or ceremony, on the first opportunity, the pleasure he now
experienced was well worth the risk to be run.
"Why so very sad?" said he, after a pause; "I don't comprehend
it. Really I must have a rival, and that is the most
troublesome animal a lover can have in his way. Now, pretty
one, say—have I?"
"You have none here, at all events," sobbed Gabrielle, a little
spitefully.
"Then I can have none any where else," replied the count,
twirling his enormous Austrian mustache. "You charm me
more and more! and has no man ever said that he loved you?"
Ian's stately figure seemed to rise at these words, and as the
young maiden thought of her modest, her hopeless, and secret
love, she could only weep.
Merodé uttered a deep sigh, which had its origin in art,
rather than purity of passion; for that was a purity which the
heart of Merodé never knew.
"Ah, Gabrielle, you do look seducing at this moment! Those
dear white hands—and beautiful tears," he resumed, attempting
to place an arm round her.
"For the love of Heaven, Count Merodé, do not touch me!"
implored Gabrielle, in a voice so tender that he withdrew his arm,
and stammered out—
"Der Teufel! Faith, I always thought that girls preferred
a brisk and toying lover to a man who made long faces and
long speeches. To-night I see that nothing can be achieved—not
even the smallest caress. To-morrow we shall be better
friends. 'Tis always thus with little ones like you. They make
a devil of a fuss at first; and, from hating me alone, I have
known twenty girls come at last to love the whole regiment,
from right flank to left—positively! Pray, do not get into a
passion with a poor Pickle like me, who fires off whatever
ammunition comes first to hand; and so now I will leave you,
and go to supper with my bon camarados in the hall. In these
matter-of-fact days, my pretty one, love—however strong—cannot
subsist without plenty to eat and drink," continued
Merodé, rising and bowing, as he slowly retired towards the door.
"We should grow sad if we did not drink; we should die if we
did not eat. Now; were I a young damsel, I would always
choose a lover who had a good appetite and loved his can of
wine; for he that does so, is sure to be a strong and healthy
fellow, with good sense, a good heart, and a good pair of sturdy
legs; and what more would the most fastidious lady, even the
Lady Margarethe of Skofgaard, or the Empress herself, require?
What—you are still angry and perverse; and your father will
have me broken alive upon the wheel, will he? No—no—I am
sure he could never be such a hard-hearted old crocodile. But
good-night, dearest Gabrielle; I will send you a companion—the
best of many we have here in Fredricksort; but, until to-morrow,
I will not trouble you again."
He retired, and closed the door.
For a time Gabrielle remained buried in the most tormenting
thoughts, and shedding a torrent of tears.
Near the elegant couch already described, a door opened
softly; but not so softly as to be unheard by Gabrielle. She
turned with eyes expressive of alarm, and a lady stood before her.
It was the señora Prudentia—the Spanish dancer, whom
Gabrielle had seen charming thousands in the theatre of Vienna;
but whom, of course, she did not recognise in her Spanish
costume, and with a face so pale—for excesses of many kinds
had robbed the fair actress of many of her charms since she had
made such a blockhead of me when in garrison at Glückstadt;
but still she was beautiful, and her deep, dark, and magnificent
eyes were fixed on Gabrielle, with a smile so lively and seducing
that she was quite charmed. Rejoiced to see one of her own
sex she sprang towards her, and said—
"Ah, madame, you will protect me, will you not?"
"Protect you from what—from whom? There is no danger
here," said Prudentia, kissing the soft white cheek of Gabrielle,
who threw herself into her arms. Her pretty foreign accent
gave a girlish simplicity to all the señora said.
"Do not leave me, and I shall love you!" exclaimed Gabrielle.
"Upon my honour, child, you are beautiful!" said the dancer
(who was her senior by a year or two), holding Gabrielle at
arm's length, and surveying her timid face and fine figure;—"you
are perfectly beautiful!"
"And so are you," said the poor little captive, with the
most perfect innocence; "but you will be kind to me, will you
not? Oh, yes I—for you have eyes just like my dear sister. And
you will set me free?"
"Free—for what?" laughed the dancer; "is not one much
better here?"
"In this frightful place! Are you the wife of Count Merodé?
I hope you are not—I should be so sorry if one so pretty——"
"No, I am called the Señora Prudentia," replied the dancer
with a loud laugh.
"Prudentia!" said Gabrielle, musing; "I have surely heard
that name before. There was a dancer so called in Vienna—a
Spaniard. Six months ago there was a brawl in her house, and
an officer of Camargo's regiment was murdered. The woman
had to fly."
"I have heard of it," replied Prudentia, who was the identical
personage referred to, and had then around her graceful neck
and tapered wrists the jewels given to her by the murdered man,
who had fallen beneath her brother's poniard—a catastrophe
which had banished her from Vienna for ever, though it was no
blemish in the eyes of Merodé and his officers, to the female staff
of whose regiment she had attached herself. "She was a
countrywoman of mine—but a mere dancer," said Prudentia, with a
toss of her pretty head; "we know that persons of that
profession are all alike."
"It was very horrid—it was infamous!"
Prudentia gave the unconscious girl a spiteful glance from
the corners of her dark eyes.
"Ah! madame, when shall I leave this place—when will you
set me free?"
"Foolish child! it is for your own good you are brought here.
The count is gallant, rich, generous, and will make up for the
fortune your father is about to lose; for, although no one has
been found murdered in his bedroom, he has fallen into disgrace
with the Emperor. I am sure Merodé is very loveable. He will
give you the most magnificent dresses—with flowers and diamonds
for your hair, jewels and circlets for your neck and arms,
a gilded caleche and six white horses with switching tails if
you wish them, for in this place he has half the spoil of South
Juteland."
"Oh, that I was out of it!" said Gabrielle, wringing her hands
in bewilderment, and abandoning herself to the most violent
grief. "Ernestine! Ernestine! why do you not come to me?
I will be destroyed here. Madame, my father will give you all
you have enumerated, and a thousand doubloons to boot, if you
will set me free."
"I am not mistress here, any more than yourself," replied
Prudentia, with a cold smile.
There was a pause, during which nothing was heard but the
sobs of Gabrielle, and distant din of roistering in the hall, where
Merodé and his officers were drinking and gambling like mad
ruffians, as they were; and the roar of mingled laughter, with
the clatter of drinking-horns, came on the currents of air through
the long echoing corridors of the old Danish fortress.
"Oh!" moaned Gabrielle, covering her fine blue eyes with her
hands; "I wish that some great illness would come and kill
me."
"What a foolish wish!" retorted Prudentia; "upon my word,
girl, I believe you are just what I was at your age—dying for a
husband. But come with me to my room; by this time, Merodé,
who with all his generosity is a mere sot at night—a regular
borracho—will not trouble us until to-morrow——"
"But his comrades?"
"They dare not cast even an insolent glance upon the lady-friends
of their commander—so come with me, and rest assured
that, until morning at least, you are safe."
This was the truth. Gabrielle declined all refreshment, though
offered every delicacy by Prudentia. She was permitted to pass
that night unmolested; and, though she could not by any means
be prevailed upon to undress, shared the sleeping-place of one
from whose touch—had she known all—she would have shrunk
as from contamination.
The Spanish danzador went through the ceremony (a somewhat
useless one for her), of telling her beads before retiring to
repose; but Gabrielle, who knelt by her side, clasped her little
white hands, and, from her pure and virgin heart, addressed to
Heaven one of those deep and voiceless prayers, which are all the
more deep and fervent because the lips cannot utter them.
While these little matters were occurring at his Danish
majesty's castle of Fredricksort, Ernestine was still at the
sequestered cottage in the wood; the old hag was yet skinning
her squirrels in a corner of the chimney; the oil lamp was yet
shedding its sickly gleam to the pale face of Ernestine, on the
coal black hair, the rattlesnake eyes, and ferocious mouth of
Bandolo, who had imbibed many a draught of schnaps, slightly
tinctured with water. He was still awed by the presence of her
he had dared to decoy by an artful story; thus his love affair
had not made much progress.
Had Gabrielle fallen into the hands of Bandolo, she had been
inevitably lost; for the extreme buoyancy and girlishness of her
nature would have been totally overcome by terror. But
Ernestine, with all her sweetness, retained that majestic
calmness and admirable self-possession which dazzled and confounded
this man of a hundred crimes. She awed him by her placid
dignity—even as still waters awe us by their depth, more than
the turbulent and shallow. Yet in her inmost heart Ernestine
deplored with voiceless bitterness her irreparable folly, in
committing herself without my advice to the guidance of a perfect
stranger; though that stranger had presented himself at Falster
as the count's accredited messenger. But now the danger which
she was certain must beset Gabrielle, gave her a desperate courage.
"Heaven—blessed heaven!" said she, clasping her hands and
raising her fine eyes; "hast thou abandoned me!"
"Por el Santo nombre de Dios!" cried the Spaniard, with a
hoarse laugh; "what the d—l! do you think that Heaven cares
about all your little piques and perversities. Heaven would
indeed have plenty to do if it attended to all the nonsense of
women. Have done with ha's and oh's, and listen to me. I
remember a time when I was ass enough to starve and scourge
myself in the forty days of Lent, to make up for my enormities
during the Neapolitan carnival—but, faith! I am wiser now, and
St. Mary——"
"Wretch, name her not!"
"Well, if I am such a rascal that your precious saints will
not interest themselves in my affairs, I must just have recourse
to the schnaps in the first place, and the devil in the
second—ha! ha! What a hen-hearted fellow I am to sit here all
night without having one kiss from you! Trumpery! I am turning
a cowardly blunderbuss, like Bernhard; and now, when I
think of it, I wonder why that schwindler tarries with my
thousand ducats. Lady," continued this ogre, with a ghastly leer;
"I am rich. In this mail are bills on the Imperial treasury,
and gold to the value of a hundred thousand dollars—the fruits
of many years of valour and industry."
"Murder and espionage."
"Call it what you will—call it what you will! With that sum
I can purchase a county, either in Germany or Naples, and thou
shalt share that county with me."
Ernestine almost uttered a scornful laugh.
"'Twill be a glorious revenge upon that haughty noble, who,
when caprioling through the streets of Vienna with all his
waving feathers and plates of polished steel, rode over me near the
palace gate, and passed on without pity, because I was
Bandolo—'twill be a glorious vengeance, I say, when this man, Rupert
Count of Carlstein, Lord of Giezar and Kœningratz, has to greet
me as his son-in-law—ha! ha!" He attempted to take in
his the hand of Ernestine.
"For the sake of Heaven, do not sully me by your touch!"
"Beware, lest by haughty words and scornful glances you
turn my softness to anger; my love to hatred; my persuasions
to that violence which I may put in force when I choose; and
thus, in grim earnest, sully the illustrious blood of
Carlstein—ha! ha! Sully, I think, was the term you used, lady—as if
the blood in one body was better, or purer, or more divine, than
the blood in another."
Full of scorn and fear, Ernestine gazed at him as she would
have gazed at a serpent. Anger and horror alternately rendered
her silent and motionless. At times she could scarcely believe
that all she saw and heard was real—that she was so completely
in the power of this man, the touch of whose hand—that hand
so often dipped in human blood—struck a chill through her.
Was she really awake? Was it not all a hideous dream, from
which she would awake to find herself by her sister's side, in
their little bed-chamber at Nyekiöbing?
"Mercy on me!" she thought wildly; "to what a fate am I
exposed! Here, without a hope, without a chance of escape, but
by death—and not even by that, for I am without a poniard.
Oh, wretch! would that I could find one, either for myself or for
thee!"
Bandolo, who sat on the top of his precious mail, which he
had placed upon a stool, swung his legs to and fro, laughed
boisterously as the schnaps mounted to his brain; for she had
uttered the last wish aloud.
"Bandolo—man—monster! what wrong have I ever done
you, that you should persecute me thus?"
"You have not done any thing, but your father has. He rode
me down in the streets of Vienna; and the man you love has,
for he defeated and disgraced me at Glückstadt. He has stabbed
and discovered me in various disguises; and, by robbing him of
you, I rob him of that which he prizes more than his miserable
life, which I could have taken by a pistol-shot at any
time—ha! ha! So do not talk in that way again, my bride, or,
zounds! I will come and kiss you."
Terrified by this threat, Ernestine remained silent for a
time.
He uttered a succession of savage chuckles; then whistled a
bolero, and resumed his swinging to and fro on the stool and
his beloved portmanteau, eyeing his prisoner all the time as a
cat does a mouse.
"Bandolo—Herr or Señor—for I know not by which to address
you," said Ernestine; "you are said to love gold as a fish loves
water, or flowers the sun."
"As flowers love water, or a fish the sun—what a fine simile! ha! ha!"
said Bandolo, who was rapidly becoming tipsy;
"Well—what if I do?"
"Conduct me to the nearest Austrian garrison, and I will see
that you are paid a thousand ducats in gold."
"Bah!" said he; "I have just sold your sister for that very sum."
"My sister—my sister!" reiterated Ernestine in a breathless
voice—"to whom?"
"The virtuous and honourable Count of Merodé."
At this cruel reply, the heart of Ernestine ceased to beat, and
a palsy seemed to shake her beautiful form. A glazed expression
stole over the ferocious eyes of Bandolo; they seemed to roll on
vacancy, and the terror of Ernestine was redoubled.
"Gold—yes, gold!" he muttered; "when gold is spread before
me, when a poniard is in my hand, I am mad! I am no longer
myself! Something like a red curtain descends between me and
the sun, bathing in redness all before my eyes. A hand passes
over my heart—there is a whisper in my ears; it is destroy—destroy
and be rich! Then I can see nothing before me, above
me, and below me, but blood—red blood in pouring torrents, but
spotted with sparkling stars; these stars are coins—they are
gold—yellow gold—they are the price of my soul! Every deed
I have done—every deed I am yet to do—even the murder of
thee, perhaps, all beautiful as thou art—was written down ages
before I was born, and they were all foretold to me by an old gitana
of Arragon. Oh, yes! I remember that night in the wood near
Almudevar. The wind was still, and the red sheet lightning
was reddening the midnight sky, behind Huesca and the spire
of San Lorenzo. We sat near the margin of the Gallego, and a
thousand cork-trees hung their branches over its stupendous
torrent, the roar of which shook the earth beneath our feet, yet
not even the smallest of their leaves was stirring. I remember
yet the solemn stillness of the wood, and roaring fury of the
torrent, but I heard only the voice of the old gitana; and she
foretold how, wading through a sea of crime, I should wed the
daughter of a valiant noble, and die rich, powerful, feared, and
respected; and the hour is at hand for accomplishing the first part
of my destiny—for turning the first leaf in the great book of my
fate. I am not drunk—Maldicion de Dios—no!" he continued,
rolling his head from side to side; "do I speak like a man who
is so?"
Ernestine turned anxiously and hopelessly to the old woman;
but Dame Krümpel had fallen asleep by the dying embers, and
lay half reclined against the fireplace, with a knife in one hand,
and a half-skinned squirrel in the other; and while Bandolo
had run on thus concerning the gitana, her prophecy and his fate,
a sickness, the very sickness of intense fear, came over Ernestine.
She bent her head upon her hand, but still continued to watch
him between her white fingers. Suddenly the wretched cottage
seemed to swim around her; and she felt herself sinking.
"Blessed Heaven!" she prayed, "preserve me from the deadly
faintness that is coming over me!"
"The bottle of kirschwasser is rather nearer you than heaven,"
said Bandolo, pouring some of the cherry-wine into the two tin
cups which were on the table. Ernestine, who thought it might
revive and strengthen her for what she might have yet to
encounter, made no objection; but while watching Bandolo
between the pretty fingers which shaded her eyes, she perceived
him hastily shake a little white powder into one of the cups!
Instead of increasing her terror, this gave her a new and
sudden courage, and she immediately conceived a bold and
decisive project, for my brave Ernestine had a man's head with
all her woman's heart.
She cared not whether the drugged cup contained merely a
narcotic or a deadlier draught. In either case she knew that it
was meant for her, with some terrible ulterior object—and that
the cup was full of peril; hence she resolved that it should be
drunk by Bandolo himself.
"Drink with me," said he; "you cannot refuse me that. To
our better acquaintance, lady sweetheart—and to your better
humour—ha! ha!"
Gathering all her energies, she uttered a shrill cry of alarm,
and exclaimed—
"See—see—what is that at the window?"
Dame Krümpel sprang to her slipshod feet. Bandolo grasped
a pistol, rushed to the lattice, and, pressing his nose against it,
peered out into the darkness of the forest, and at that instant
Ernestine set down her drugged cup of the kirschwasser, and
took up his.
"No one is there—por el nombre de Dios, if there was!"
growled Bandolo grinding his teeth as he uncocked his pistol,
and for a moment became almost sobered; while the beldam in
the corner snorted herself asleep again. "Hoity, toity, my poor
little Tit—'tis only your perverse fancy! Come, drink with me;
this cup of cherry-water will brace your nerves, and set all right
in heart and head—it will, by the henckers! (I am half German,
you see—even as you are half Spaniard;) ha! ha! Come, my
bride—let us clink our cans and be merry."
With a pale and trembling hand Ernestine raised the cup in
the old German fashion, clinked it side by side, above and
below, with the drugged cup of the subtle but unconscious bravo,
and then drained its contents. He gave her a long stare of
triumph and derision; then burst into a loud laugh, and drank
off his wine at one gulp.
He then set down the cup, and while continuing to look at
Ernestine with a leering expression, broke into a German drinking
song which he had heard among Tilly's Reitres, and, mingling with
it scraps of a Spanish gipsy ballad, rolled his head from side to
side with a wild expression of face, that increased every moment.
The song died away in quavering murmurs on his lips; once
or twice he raised his hands, but they fell heavily by his side.
Then it seemed suddenly to flash upon his mind, the faculties
of which were fast obscuring, that he had drunk of the wrong
cup; and the smile of bitter triumph that curled the beautiful
lip of Ernestine, and the wonder that sparkled in her haughty
eyes, convinced him that it was so!
"Ah, traitress—that cry—you have outwitted me! I thought
you had swallowed this drag—it now spreads a drowsy numbness
over every limb. Traitress—ass that I am—I have fallen
into my own trap—I have drugged myself—she will escape!
Maldicion—de—de—Maldetto! By the henckers; I will put a
ball through you—I will—I will!——"
Erecting himself on his feet, where he swayed to and fro like
a figure on a pivot, he endeavoured to grasp Ernestine; but
she started back.
At that moment his aspect was frightful.
Inflamed by passion and desire, ferocity and revenge, his
features were alternately brightened by a wild leer, or contracted
and savage. His eyes were glittering with that white ghastly
glare which some Spanish eyes can alone assume; and, balancing
himself on each leg alternately, he approached the bold but
startled girl, while his hands wandered nervously among the
weapons in his belt. Suddenly he fell prostrate, speechless, and
almost unable to move; but his glaring eyes—still fixed on
Ernestine—shewed that, though the drugged kirschwasser had
fettered every limb, his senses had not yet left him.
"And this would have been my situation!" thought Ernestine,
with a heart full of horror.
Stooping down, she deliberately, but not without a shudder,
drew from his belt four pistols and threw away the priming, and
took possession of his poniard, which she placed in her
girdle—uttering a joyful laugh, for she knew that her moment for
triumph had come. If Bandolo's eyes could have slain, at that
crisis their glare would have immolated her. She was about to
rush from the cottage when another thought occurred to her;
and grasping the heavy portmanteau, which contained all
Bandolo's vast amount of treasury bills and gold—that gold which
the perpetration of a hundred complicated crimes had amassed
and enabled him to hoard up, like the very blood of his heart—she
shook it tauntingly before his fixed and frenzied eyes, and,
rejoicing that she could thus rob the robber, issued from the
cottage with the intention of throwing the ponderous mail into
the first deep well she came to, that the price of blood might be
lost to men for ever.
As she disappeared, a cry almost left the paralysed tongue of
Bandolo, on seeing all the fruit of his crimes and avarice
vanishing into smoke, together with the prophecy of the gitana and
his hopes of a count's coronet; and as he sank lower and lower
upon the clay floor, and the power of a narcotic that was to last
for six-and-thirty hours spread over him, the tramp of a horse's
hoofs receding into the distant paths of the wood, were the last
sounds he heard; and they informed him, that his beautiful
prisoner and his beloved gold were gone together.
Notwithstanding the wildness of her terror, Ernestine, who
was a bold and expert horse woman, retained sufficient
presence of mind to select her own nag, to give a glance at the
saddle, and before mounting to throw the mail with all its
contents into the deep tarn that lay before the cottage-door.
Relieved of this encumbrance, and feeling that she had revenged
herself, she dashed at full speed along the same path by which
they had come; and though she frequently paused to listen, and
cry aloud the name of her sister, in the hope that she might be
in her vicinity, the echoes alone replied.
A torrent of tears again came to her relief; her hat flew off,
and with all her loosened hair streaming behind her, in such a
manner that it frequently became twisted among the branches of
the trees, she urged on her horse by the unsparing use of the
whip at the bridle-end. All the energy and courage that the
presence of immediate danger had summoned, and which had enabled
Ernestine to conduct herself so stoutly and so well throughout
the trying events of the evening and night, were now passing away,
and she could only weep and murmur the name of her sister.
She had left the wood far behind her, and was now in the
open country, where all was still and solemn; and, as she had
long since committed the bridle to the care of her horse, on
recovering sufficiently she found that he had slackened his pace,
and commenced cropping the long grass that grew by the wayside.
She looked around, and began to reflect on the many terrors
and peculiarities of her situation.
The moon was waning, and its pale white disc was slowly
sinking behind the flat shore of Eckernfiörd, and the long shadows
of every tree and hedge were thrown far across the fallow and
neglected fields. All was quiet and voiceless as a vast
burial-ground. There was no house near. Without money, jewels, or
friends, she was alone in a land where the rough, morose, and
uncultivated boors were jealous of all strangers, and unmerciful to the
straggling Imperialists, whom they slew without mercy wherever
they met them. Her mind became filled with new alarms, and the
poor girl knew not which way to turn for succour or for protection.
Bandolo had spoken of having sold her sister to Merodé, who
occupied Fredricksort. She shuddered at the idea of Merodé
and his officers, but her first thought was to seek that fortress;
then she paused. Should her sister really be there, she could
only hope to achieve her freedom by being herself free. To visit
Fredricksort might be to become also a prisoner; besides, bad
as Merodé was, Gabrielle might be safer with him than she
could have been with Bandolo. Where now were all their
father's rank and power, when the debauched Merodé, and Tilly's
ruffian follower, dared to commit the acts they had done? Her
mind became a prey to the most bitter anguish. Then came
other ideas; for as the white moon disappeared, and inky blackness
stole over the darkened sea and level landscape, her German
education brought many a strange and wild story to her memory,
and made her tremble as she watched the quaint, fantastic
shapes assumed by every object between her and the distant
horizon, where, rising from a black and strongly defied outline,
there shone a pallid flush of light, but silvery and uncertain, the
last rays of the moon that had waned; and she was weak
enough to fear that a swarm of little Trolds might surround
her; for, unlike the beautiful and merry little fairies of our
Scottish traditions, those of Denmark are impish, heavy, and
ungainly gnomes, with hump-backs and long hook-noses, wearing
grey doublets and conical red caps; but, as the land was
moorish and level, she feared still more to meet with some of
the Elk people, who are usually said to dwell in such places,
and whose touch causes a wasting that ends in death.
While these thoughts crowded through her mind, and mingled
with her more solid causes of grief and terror, she suddenly
found herself beneath the walls of a high square building,
surrounded by a number of copper beeches and tall poplars.
Not without some fear that it might prove the castle of Grön
Jette, or King Waldemar the wild huntsman, and consequently
that it might vanish at her touch, she approached the arched
gateway and raised the knocker, which was of good substantial
iron, and rang heavily. She knocked repeatedly without
receiving any answer, and her heart beat with increased rapidity.
After a time she heard the sound of voices within, and thanked
Heaven to find them all belonging to females. One named
Grethe was frequently summoned.
"Grethe! Grethe!—where are you, Grethe?"
Grethe, who proved to be the old portress of this edifice,
which in former times had been a Catholic convent, dedicated
to St. Knud, but was now an establishment of Lutheran nuns,
opened the gate, and uttered a cry on beholding the pale face, the
long black hair, the wild and disordered expression of Ernestine.
"An Elle woman!" she exclaimed; "an Elle woman from
the moor!"
Half sinking with emotion and fatigue, Ernestine slipped from
her saddle, and entered among the nuns, who received her with
wonder and fear, but with kindness, on finding that she was a
mortal like themselves, and neither an Elle woman nor one of
the Stille Volk (the silent people), spirits who appear to give
warning of approaching danger.
The kind Danish ladies (whose superior was a daughter of
the old Baron Fœyœ) conveyed Ernestine into the parlour of
the establishment, where they had all been assembling previous
to morning prayers. Refreshments were brought, and her story
heard. Notwithstanding that she was a daughter of one of those
Imperialists who were carrying war and desolation to the heart
of Denmark, she was treated with the most sisterly kindness.
The lady superior left nothing undone or unsaid to reassure
Ernestine, and promised that with dawn every means should be
taken to trace her sister. The Lutheran nuns did not conceal
their satisfaction at having within their walls a daughter of the
great Imperialist, Count Carlstein, colonel-general of the cavalry,
fully believing that her presence would protect them from any of
the unscrupulous Merodeurs, who occupied the castle of
Fredricksort, a few miles distant.
These kind sisters did all in their power to comfort Ernestine;
but every thing in their establishment excited her surprise,
being so different from the Catholic convents of the empire.
Instead of the long flowing robe, the wimple, veil, and hood,
they wore the dress of the world, and had ample fardingales, with
starched collars and bands, puffs, cuffs, ruffs, and all the newest
fashions of France.
Ernestine expressed her astonishment at this, and said she
could not believe them to be nuns in sober earnest.
"Why so, child?" retorted the Lady Fœyœ; "is it because we
dress like other women of the present day, and do not make our
piety to consist in the modish garments of a bygone age, like
the religious of your empire?"
"I crave your pardon, mother," said Ernestine, gently; "but
it seems so strange to me—and your vows——"
"Vow me no vows!" replied the lady; "we are all daughters
of the best families in Denmark, and only remain here so long
as we please, consequently we do not require vows to restrain
our inclinations to evil."
Ernestine had no wish to offend the kind superior, by instituting
comparisons between her establishment and those which
she considered more perfect, and consequently remained silent.
She was three days with the nuns of St. Knud. As it was
the rule of these Lutheran establishments that the sisters should
sleep by pairs, Ernestine slept with one of them. Each couple
had their little dormitory and working-room, where they made
clothes for the poor, drew landscapes and pious pictures without
number, representing the miracles of St. Knud, and the spiders
spinning their webs over that hole in which he concealed
himself from the Wends, who, deceived by the appearance of the
gossamer web, believed there was no one within, and prosecuted
their search elsewhere; others painted on velvet, or made flowers
and ornaments for sale; in short, nothing could be more blameless
and amiable than the tenor of their way.
They had a chapel, having a crucifix, altar, and candles, where
the village curate gave them a sermon twice every week; though
the crucifix and other et cetera are at variance with the catechism
of Martin Luther, as printed at Kiöbenhafen in 1666.
The nun who shared her bed and apartment with Ernestine,
was a very pretty and fair-haired girl, the youngest daughter
of the old Count of Rantzau. Sister Gunhilda informed her, in
that solemn confidence which the circumstance of being
bed-fellows establishes at once between young girls, that she was
only residing in this tiresome convent until the close of the
weary war would permit the Baron Karl of Klosterfiörd to
leave his troop of pistoliers for a few months and marry her;
and no sooner did she ascertain that Ernestine had once seen
her dear Karl, than she overwhelmed her with questions as to
what he said and did; and whether his air was not noble, his
voice the most pleasant, his mustaches the most captivating, and
his figure the most handsome, she had ever met with.
To find nuns so impatient for marriage, and speaking of it
quite as an occurrence of their everyday life, was a fresh source
of wonder to poor Ernestine.
During the three days she was with them, no tidings could
be learned of Gabrielle; for as the sentinels of Merodé at
Fredricksort invariably shot every Dane who approached their posts,
the boors were too wary to trust themselves within a mile of
the Imperial quarters.
Another day would have found her despairing and inconsolable,
had not an unexpected visitor arrived at the convent.
This was no other than Father d'Eydel (or Daidle, which you
please), the Jesuit, who had just made his escape from the
uproar and carnage of Eckernfiörd, where he had been with the
Imperial garrison, the story of whose destruction he related.
Ernestine received him almost with joy, and wept upon his
hand; the Lutheran abbess and her ladies received him with
hospitality and respect, though the good man certainly cut a very
remarkable figure for a follower of St. Ignatius Loyola. He
had escaped from Eckernfiörd just as he had sprung out of bed,
i.e. in his shirt and drawers; and he had picked up and donned
a drummer's doublet, which was covered with tawdry lace, and
was too small for him. Thus his long and bony arms protruded
far through the sleeves, while the short tails were dangling high
up between his shoulders; and on his head was a broad plaited
straw hat, such as the peasant women wore; and these garments,
when his severely solemn face, and long lean figure, thrust
into a pair of tight flannel drawers, are taken into account,
made him much more comical than reverend in aspect. Even
his own brother, the dominie, would not have recognised him.
He had no sooner consoled Ernestine (who was his favourite),
and recovered from his fatigue and general discomposure, than,
without doffing the drummer's yellow doublet, with its tags of
scarlet lace, he turned his grave grey eyes upon the Lady Fœyœ,
and asked her if she was not ashamed of the frippery exhibited
by the ladies of her establishment.
"I ask you, madame—for reverend mother I cannot call you—if
all this pinning and unpinning, combing, and brushing, and
other looking-glass work—this ado with corsets and carcanets,
busks and boddices, bracelets and borders,—these partlets and
friglets, kirtles and fardingales,—this concatenation of trumpery
and trash, are becoming women who retire from the world as
sisters of St. Knud? Alas! it was neither velvet nor satin, purple
nor fine linen, that were worn in better times by the true sisters
of that blessed saint, who gathered the rich harvest of conversion
among the Danish isles, in those dark ages when, at the sound
of his inspired voice, the vanities and atrocities of the Eleusynian
rites fled and disappeared—when the fires of superstition were
quenched, and the blood of the human sacrifice was dried on the
stone of Odin, never to stain it more. Their garments were of
sackcloth, their hoods and wimples the fruits of their own
industry. But you, madame, and these around you—oh, get you
gone! for all this frippery is enough to bring the vengeance of
Heaven, if it does not bring the Merodeurs among you!"
He said a great deal more to the same purpose, and wound up
his discourse by almost convincing the poor harmless women
that they were thoroughly disreputable, and a mere society of
sinners; but in the midst of his harangue Gunhilda of Rantzau
whispered to Ernestine, that she was now convinced the convent
was not a proper place for her, and more than ever wished that
her dear Karl would come and take her away.
On questioning the Jesuit concerning the troops who had
made the midnight attack on Eckernfiörd, he happened to
mention to Ernestine our regiment of Strathnaver, having seen the
tartans waving, and heard the pipes braying, as we defiled in
close column through the main street to assail the great church.
Filled by new fears and anxieties, Ernestine determined to seek
the battalion, and discover me, if I had not fallen in the night
attack, "which," as Father d'Eydel said, "was not improbable,
for I saw the poor Scottish lads lying across each other on the
causeway, like fish in a net."
Her new terrors were irrepressible. With daybreak she set
out on horseback, riding on a pillion behind the priest, who was
disguised as a layman, in a dress given to him by the Lady
Fœyœ, who received in return a protection for all her establishment,
written in strong terms, and running in the name of Count
Tilly.
An hour's riding brought him and Ernestine to Eckernfiörd,
where every thing bore terrible witness of the recent conflict;
the burned and ruined houses; the church razed to its foundations;
the streets strewed with wounded, with killed, and spotted
by gouts of blood; with spent cannon-shot and exploded bombs;
while the blackened wrecks of the storeship, lay half-burned
and stranded on the sandy shore. Others had gone down at their
anchors when the flames had reached the water edge. Thus the
harbour, which yesterday had presented a fair and busy scene,
was now desolate and empty, or covered with scorched timber
and floating corpses.
It happened luckily that Angus Roy M'Alpine, with his
company, guarded the gate which faces the road from Kiel; and he
sent a Highland soldier to conduct Ernestine and the Jesuit to
a house, where I and several others had been carried, for the
purpose of being examined by the chirurgeon to the forces—the
famous Dr. Alexander Pennicuik of that Ilk, who afterwards
was chirurgeon-general to Sir John Banier in Germany.
I need not expatiate on the emotions of poor Ernestine, when
she beheld me lying in a stupor of pain and exhaustion, on a
little straw spread on the floor of this temporary hospital, with
a plaid rolled up and placed under my head for a pillow, and a
dead soldier on each side of me; for many a poor fellow expired
of agony or loss of blood before their wounds could be attended
to, in the bustle and excitement succeeding the desperate business
of the night attack.
Struck senseless by a piece of falling timber, as I have related,
I lay in a state of blessed unconsciousness of the horrors
and of the carnage around me; but I can still remember the
gradual struggling back to life again, and a partial relapse into
insensibility—a vibrating of the pendulum, as it were, between
life and inanity, while many a strange vision floated around me.
My home came before me, and the pleasant voices of other
days were in my ears, mingling with the hum of bees, and the
rustling leaves of my native forests. I wept with joy to find
my feet again on the purple heather—again on Scottish earth;
but that joy was tinged with fear and doubt, lest the vision
would pass away; for the distant and the present—the past and
the future—were conflicting for place and coherence in my mind.
I beheld my own home, and the roof beneath which my mother
bore me into this world of sorrow; the morning sun seemed to
redden the walls of the old grey tower, that rose above the
woods of Scottish pine; its dun smoke was curling in the pure
air of the mountains. Then methought I was at sea in a small
shallop, and I felt the waters heaving beneath me. The Sutors
of Cromartie, whose ivied fronts of rock—the home of the
sea-bird—guard the Portus Salutis of the ancients, rose before me,
with their bases wreathed in surf; mists came around me; the
shore receded, and I felt myself alone on the ocean. Farther
and farther the boat went seaward, and the shore diminished to
a speck. I was feeble and unable to use hand or voice, and I
felt that the moment was approaching when I would perish,
and the waters close over me.
Then the current of the tide seemed to turn again; the boat
was wafted slowly towards the shore; emotions of joy and pain
arose within me; old voices came to my ear, and among them
were the soft tones of Ernestine. I strove to speak, but my
tongue was feeble and fettered; and I tried vainly to embrace
her through the mist that enveloped us.
Her voice became more distinct—the shore was very close
then; the visionary boat grounded; I felt her hands upon me,
and awoke from a stupor, to find myself in the military hospital
of Eckernfiörd, with Ernestine kneeling beside me, pale as
death—pale as the dead soldiers near us; but bathing my temples
with some cool and aromatic essence.
Now, I have no doubt that the imaginary shore from which
I seemed to recede, and again approached, was this world; and
that in reality my spirit hovered between time and eternity;
for, as Doctor Pennicuik informed me afterwards, the contusion
on my head, notwithstanding my bonnet of steel, was a very
severe one, being upon the very place where I was struck before.
The dead, half stripped, with eyes unclosed and glazed, and
with their coagulated blood forming black pools among the straw
on which they lay, were stretched at intervals between the
wounded and dying. One of the former was a muscular
Highlander from the braes of Lochaber, whose breast was gored by
three pike wounds; another, close by me also, was a handsome
young chevalier of Montgomerie's French musketeers, whose
head had been partially fractured by a spirole shot, and his
brains were actually oozing over his eyes.
Father d'Eydel had taken off his masquerading doublet,
tucked up his shirt sleeves, and like a thoroughly good, but
somewhat long-legged and long-armed Samaritan, was dressing
wounds and bruises, tying up cuts and slashes, distributing food,
refreshments, clean shirts, and dry straw, with a celerity that
made old Pennicuik of that Ilk, our chirurgeon-general, declare
him well worth a dozen of doctors.
A bed being found for me in an adjacent house, Ian and
Phadrig Mhor took me up between them, as if I had been a
child, and conveyed me there. Being anxious to have some
conversation with Ernestine, I would not permit them to undress
me, but lay on the mattress in my doublet and kilt, with a
plaid spread over me; and after kind old Sandy Pennicuik
(afterwards chief Medico to the Scottish army which invaded
England) had dressed my wound, the dear girl was permitted
to visit me for a half hour, during which she gave me a brief
sketch of her adventures; but, to avoid agitating me unnecessarily,
concealed for the present the mystery which involved
the fate of Gabrielle.
The half hour during which we were permitted to be alone,
passed like a minute; and yet the excitement of it nearly put
me into a fever. In fact, Pennicuik fully expected that it would
do so; but believed, as he afterwards said, that if the interview
was withheld, a fever from vexation might prove more fatal.
We embraced each other repeatedly, with that full and
impassioned tenderness which the dangers we had both encountered
and escaped, and the separation we had endured, made more
endearing to us than ever.
For a time we could do nothing but sigh and utter tender
appellations, which would seem very droll even to lovers if
transferred to paper; although, moreover, none but lovers could
understand them.
"Ah! these wars are frightful!" said poor Ernestine, when she
had related all her escapes, and heard all mine. "On one side, I
tremble for the loss of my father; on the other, for the loss of you."
"But weep no more, Ernestine; a happy time is in store for
us all."
"For such scenes as these—for this town with its shattered
walls and corpse-strewn streets—you have left those quiet glens
and silent hills, of which I have heard my poor father often speak
with so much rapture and regret."
"Ay, Ernestine," said I; "but on those blue hills, where
the mountain bee sucks the honey from the purple heath, and
the white butterfly floats over the yellow broom bells; and in
those green glens, where the hirsels graze and the sheep bleat by
the whimpling burn, or the smoke of the sequestered cottage
ascends through the summer woods—the din of war is often heard,
and the gleds and corbies are summoned to a feast from the four
winds of heaven. The cross of fire gleams across the country,
flung from hand to hand; the war-pipe rings from the echoing rock;
the beacon blazes on the muster-place, and the clink of arms with
the fierce slogan rise among the lonely hills; tribe pours forth
against tribe, with banners waving and pibroch yelling; the
heather is in flames—the flocks are seized—the valley is strewn
with dead—the cottage is sheeted with fire, and the green sod
drenched with the blood of the inmates; for the world never
saw quarrels more bitter than the hereditary feuds of our Scottish
clans; and while the human heart and the human mind are
constituted as they now are, there will be wars and crimes, the
sack of cities, and the rush of armies; for men are but men,
Ernestine, all the world over."
Three days we remained at Eckernfiörd, burying the dead,
collecting provisions, curing the wounded, or embarking them
for Zealand. Thanks to the skill of Dr. Pennicuik, and the
sisterly attentions of Ernestine, I was able to attend parade on
the evening of the fourth day; but I was so ghastly and pale,
that one would have imagined all the experiments of the college
of physicians had been tried upon me.
So M'Alpine told me, on seeing me almost staggering at the
head of my company, and added, "On my honour, Rollo, I did
not expect to see you again after hearing that you were wounded;
for I thought our Danish doctors would soon do the rest."
"They are much obliged to you for your high opinion of their
skill, Angus," said I; "but I have been under the hands, not of
a Copenhagener, but a barber-chirurgeon, regularly graduated at
King James' College, in the good town of Edinburgh—hence my
rapid recovery, perhaps."
Ernestine had by this time informed me of the manner in
which she believed Gabrielle had been betrayed into the hands
of Merodé; and that she was only some ten or twelve miles
distant from us, at Fredricksort on the gulf of Kiel. I would
have given the world—had the world been mine—to have been
permitted to march a wing of our stout Highland blades to
overhaul Merodé in his quarters; but King Christian, who occupied,
the house of the Herredsfoged of Wohlder, had other objects in
view; and the result of various councils of war, which he, Ian,
Count Montgomerie, the Baron Karl, and others, held there,
soon became developed.
I may mention that a party under Phadrig Mhor was despatched
to the cottage in the wood; but neither Bandolo nor dame
Krümpel were found there. After burning it to the ground,
they fished the tarn for the portmanteau, which I told them
might be kept by the finders; and Gillian M'Bane, who when at
home had been an expert pearl-fisher, after diving down once or
twice, discovered its locality; the spoil was soon hooked out, and
generously distributed by him fairly and equally among the
privates of the regiment. It came to a handsome sum per man,
and many of our musketeers wore silver buttons and
silver-mounted sporrans to the end of their days.
Meanwhile the increasing preparations of the great Albrecht,
Count of Wallenstein, who had been created Duke of Friedland,
Sagan, Glogau, and Mechlenburg, General of the Baltic and Oceanic
seas, compelled Christian IV. to exert himself without delay.
Entering fully into the ambitious views of his master, the
Emperor, who, in making him Duke of Mechlenburg, had violated
the laws and trampled upon the rights of the Germanic
confederation, this great and warlike noble resolved to
bend his whole energies to destroy the political independence
of Germany, exterminate the heresy of Luther, and conquer
Scandinavia. We heard that, for this gigantic project, he was rapidly
building and equipping a flotilla of ships and gunboats at Rostock,
Weimar, and other Hanse towns, which his Spanish fleet had seized.
Lavishing by thousands florins and ducats, the spoil of
ravished kingdoms, on all sides among his reckless favourites and
military followers, he led an army a hundred thousand strong
across the Elbe, from whence it poured through Saxony and
spread along the shores of the Baltic sea. Terror, extortion,
outrage, and contribution, levied by beat of drum, at the sword's
point, and the cannon's mouth, amassed to Wallenstein in seven
years, the vast sum of sixty thousand millions of dollars!
Extolling his generosity, his soldiers adored him, while the
ruined burghers and rifled boors viewed him with horror and
aversion. Thus, amid wealth and rapine, conquest and desolation,
splendour, dissipation, and crime, the great army of the Empire
flourished, and rolled like a cloud of flame over Germany; while
provinces became deserts, and their people perished by famine,
by disease, and by the sword.
On being joined by a regiment of Dutch, under Colonel
Dübbelstiern, brother of the burgomaster of Glückstadt, the
expedition resolved upon by the council of war was against
Kiel, where Count Kœningheim, lately Tilly's aide-de-camp,
commanded. Knowing well the reputed bravery of the count,
and, moreover, that, notwithstanding his Germanised name, he
was our own countryman, we expected to encounter unusual
difficulties and dangers in the performance of our duty.
Spring had passed and summer come again; the snows had
melted; the woods were putting forth their bright green leaves,
and the migratory storks had returned, from the unknown regions
of the south, to their former nests under the cottage eaves, or on
the steep old burgh gables and the older village spires.
At daybreak on the morning of the first of May, the whole of
the king's small force embarked on board his vessels; the colonels
of regiments, with their staffs and colours, were all on board the
Anna Catharina; with my company, I accompanied Ian Dhu.
Though we were at sea, and ploughing the waves of the Baltic,
as we ran round Danische-walde our men did not forget to
welcome the rising sun on that auspicious morning, by baking
their Beltane bannocks in the old Highland fashion, and breaking
them crosswise, with as much ceremony as if they were at
home in the land of hills and valleys.
The sorrow and alarm of Ernestine were increased by the
greater distance which was now to be placed between her and
her sister, whom, from various reports that reached us, she firmly
believed to be, as Bandolo had said, in the power of Merodé at
Fredricksort. The good King Christian, to whom Ernestine
was presented by Ian, did all in his power to console her.
"Madame," said he, among many other remarks, "it is useless
now to regret that you so unwisely permitted your sister
and yourself to be wiled away from the castle of the queen, my
mother, at Nyekiöbing, by the cunning tale of a rascal. It is
enough that you were so—that much evil has come of it—evil
that we must undo. Necessity has seldom pity for women's
tears—and war, never! Yet, though my necessities are sore, and
that, with scarcely three thousand men, I am wandering like a
pirate among my own Danish isles, while Wallenstein and Tilly,
with one hundred and thirty thousand men, have marched along
the Elbe, and through all Juteland, even to the Skagen Cape,
I will endeavour to free your sister from Fredricksort, though I
may lose all in the attempt. Rest assured of that, lady. A week
will not pass until I have done something in the matter. By
force of arms perhaps I cannot reach her; but in my desperate
fortune, though valour may fail, craft and guile may ultimately
succeed."
"Within a week!" thought Ernestine, who could only weep
and murmur her thanks; for in a week rescue might come too
late, and under such terrible circumstances it seemed an age.
Considering the nature of the expedition we were bent on—the
bombardment of a town—I was somewhat inclined to have
left Ernestine behind us; but where could she have been left
with safety to herself? Besides, as the honest and soldier-like
king (who enjoyed as a capital joke the story of her throwing
Bandolo's portmanteau into the duck-pond) said, this
aggrieved personage was slippery and subtle as the great serpent,
ferocious as a tiger, and now, being deprived of his gold, would
place no bounds to his revenge; "consequently," said he, "the
safest place for our pretty Imperialist is under the pennon of
Sir Nickelas Valdemar, and the hatches of the Anna Catharina." The
consciousness that Christian judged correctly, alarmed me
so much that I could scarcely trust her out of my sight; but he
gallantly relinquished to her use the great cabin, and dined
among us in the gun-room, on cold salted beef and Dantzig beer:
for this brave monarch loved better the jovial commeradrie of
military society, than the hollow pomp that surrounded him as
a king. As we rounded the point of the Danische-walde, and
the yards were braced up, to run us into the Kielerfiörd, the
magazines were opened, the guns cast loose, and the signal to
stand to arms and to quarters was given from the king's ship.
Ernestine was conveyed to a place of safety in the deep dark
hold of the Anna Catharina, where a little berth had been
hastily fitted up for her accommodation, and where she was
attended by the wife of one of our musketeers, a red-cheeked
Holsteiner. There the din of the approaching cannonade would
be less heard, and there could be little danger of shot striking
the hull so far beneath the water-line.
As the wind blew hard, and veered almost a-head, we carried
Austrian colours to deceive the garrison while tacking frequently
across that narrow fiörd; but the breeze changed twice, and,
about sunset, we found ourselves abreast of the capital of
Holstein, above the close steep roofs of which rose the square
brick tower of its church, and the ramparts of that grim castle
where the dukes of old resided, and on which, as well as on the
university, we saw the white flag with the Imperial eagle
unfurled; for, though our colours had misled Kœningheim, our
manœuvres (after we came abreast of the town, and began to
lie around it in the form of a half circle, as it occupies a
peninsula) no longer deceived him as to our intentions.
The old town of Kiel, which covers what had anciently been
an island, is yet completely separated from the land by the wet
ditch of the castle, the base of which is in some places washed
by the sea. A large suburb, called the New Town, interspersed
by pleasant rows of trees, was then rising on the mainland, and
was connected with the old by an ancient bridge, at the end of
which was a drawbridge and gate, constantly guarded by a
company of soldiers.
The walls of the strong and spacious castle became rapidly
manned by musketeers in white buff-coats, and cannoniers in
scarlet. Its eastern ramparts rose sheer from the salt water,
along the margin of which, on the other side, lay the ducal
garden, two hundred paces broad, and consisting of terraced walks
rising above each other, beautifully arranged in the form of a
labyrinth, and having in the centre a stone Triton, whose brass
conch shot up a silver current of water high above the green
shrubbery; but now, among those fair parterres and terraced
walks, the cannon baskets were placed at intervals, and between
the deep fascines the grim culverins peered forth to sweep the
harbour mouth.
The bells of the great church, of the university, and of the
castle, were tolling an alarm as we approached, for each of these
edifices was occupied by Austrian troops; and the seven ships of
the king (we had three large and four small frigates) had now
taken up their positions crescent-wise on three sides of the
insulated city, hauled down their false colours, and run up the
Royal standard of Denmark to the masthead. Then a simultaneous
cannonade was opened upon us from the castle and its
terraced gardens.
Being strong and active, our Highlanders were of great service
in working the ship-artillery, by running back and urging
forward the carriages; while the more skilful Danes pointed the
cannon with great success, and thus the fascine batteries in the
garden were soon ruined, the guns dismounted, and their men
driven for shelter into the castle.
Sparing the tower of the church and the university, the three
great ships maintained an unsparing and indiscriminate
cannonade on the town; for though the capital of the duchy, the
seat of its trade and government, and containing the hotels of its
principal nobles, Christian IV. was resolved at all hazards to
dislodge the enemy, and more than once sent a redhot thirty-two
pound ball at the Count of Rantzau's mansion, which had a number
of wooden galleries around it, hoping by these to set the whole
place on fire—but without effect.
The whole fleet and town were soon enveloped in smoke, and
we could only direct our fire by seeing the vane of the church
and the towers of the castle shining in the last flush of the
sunset above this murky cloud. A hundred pieces of cannon, ranging
from carthouns (48-pounders) to demi-culverins (9-pounders), were
discharged by the fleet upon the town, from whence the garrison,
the strength of which was very great, maintained a desperate
cannonade, pouring in reply a shower of balls and missiles of every
sort and size, shot from bombards and carthouns, fieldpieces, and
iron slings. Their mortars and bombards (100 lb pieces) were
loaded with stones, tiles, old jars, junks of iron and lead, nails
and chains, which swept over our decks, and tore through the
sails and rigging like a volley from a volcano. The whole
conflict was maintained by great guns; hence the din was terrible.
I believe there were not less than two hundred and forty pieces
engaged on both sides. Strewed with killed and wounded men,
some of whom were minus legs, arms, or heads, others cut in two,
with their entrails shot away and twisted round the ragged and
torn rigging, or wallowing in blood among the ruin of booms and
boats, or splintered planks and shattered bulwarks, the main decks
of the fleet presented the most frightful scene of carnage, smoke,
and fire, united with the most infernal medley of appalling
sounds—stern orders, bellowed in hoarse Danish through tin
speaking-trumpets, shrieks, cries, and groans—the grating of the
gun-carriages, the trampling of many feet, the crash of falling
spars, the rattle of striking shot, and the hiss of those that swept
over us into the water.
An immense number of our Highlanders were killed and wounded;
of the foreigners I make no account. Torquil Gorm, our
piper-major, who sat upon the capstan blowing Brattaich bhan
clan Aoidh, was knocked off his perch by a twelve-pound shot,
and only escaped death by a miracle. Lieutenants Stuart and
Lumsden (Invergellie) were severely wounded, and Kildon and
Culcraigie had each a brother—who was sergeant of their
pikes—killed beside them.
Finding that nothing was to be made of Kiel—that his ships
were becoming mere slaughter-houses and wrecks, which bled at
every port and pore—the king, as it was too dark to see flags,
hoisted a lantern at his foremast-head as a sign to cease firing.
and drop down the fiörd before the wind. I cannot say that the
order was obeyed with reluctance; and, favoured by a strong
western breeze, the fleet rapidly bore away beyond reach of
cannon shot, and lay to waiting for fresh orders.
Far out on the open fiörd, with the stillness of the midnight
ocean round us, and no sound to break it but the cries that came
from the wounded and the dying, there seemed something dull,
monotonous, and deathlike in our vessels now; they were but
floating charnel-houses. Some of the smaller were under
masts, and the sides of all were perforated by round shot-holes,
like the top of a pepper-caster. In others, the torn sails were
flapping against the splintered masts, and the rigging hung in
disorder. It was a sad scene of desolation, agony, and death,
which in twenty minutes had succeeded the fury of the bombardment.
I hastened to Ernestine, whom I found in a little nook
of the hold, in a stupor of astonishment and terror, and unable
to weep. I had only time to assure her of my perfect safety,
when I heard a drum beating on the main deck, and Phadrig
Mhor shouted down the hatchway, that the king required the
presence of all the officers in the great cabin.
There I hastened, and found him with the Count de Montgomery,
the colonels of the Scots, Danes, and Dutch, Ian, the
Baron Karl, and other officers, many of whom had their heads
and arms bandaged. The cabin bore sufficient token of the
number of heavy shot that had passed through it; the ports were yet
open, and the dead bodies of several seamen were still lying by
the larboard guns, just where they had fallen.
"Cavaliers and comrades," said the king; "I wish to burn
Kiel, that no shelter may remain there for the Austrians. One
among you must undertake to do this for me, as I am less active
than I was wont to be; but, as the duty is desperate, I will not
select any of my allies. Let the Scots, French, Dutch, and
Danish colonels cast lots for who shall have the honour of performing
this arduous service, after which we shall all sail merrily,
and land at Gottenburg."
It was at once assented to; we crowded round the table; lots
were cast in Karl's helmet, and the duty fell to the Dutch, as the
prize was drawn by old Dübbelstiern, whom the king desired to
select a party for the service, and accordingly he chose his entire
battalion. This was considered absurd; but whether it was
that Herr Dübbelstiern was of opinion that he had seen quite
enough of fighting for one night, or that it was the constitutional
phlegm and slowness of the Dutch character which operated, I
know not; but the impetuous king became enraged at their
delay, and ordered lots to be cast again.
"Nay," said Ian nobly; "may it please your majesty to
excuse me from drawing lots again, for I cannot condescend to
do so twice. Give me but a hundred musketeers of my own regiment,
and I will burn Kiel to your majesty's entire satisfaction."
"My company and I are at your service, Ian," said I, acting
on the first impulse of the moment.
"It is gallantly offered," said the king; "a thousand thanks,
my valiant Scots. Away then to your boats, for before the
Dutch are under arms day will have broken."
In ten minutes my company were all in three large boats,
sitting closely packed with their muskets between their knees;
and with muffled oars we pulled softly towards the town. Our
Highlanders roughly jeered the Dutch, desiring them to beat
the Scots March, and keep up their courage thereby, as they
were often glad to do in Flanders, when they wished to deceive
and scare the enemy.*
We were provided with several fireballs and pots of wild-fire,
a combustible composition so called from its ready ignition, for
the amiable purpose of burning Kiel, and were guided by the
purser of Sir Nickelas Valdemar, who, in more peaceful times,
had been a distiller of corn brandy, and was wont to attend the
great annual fair in that town—the Kieler umschlag. We
pulled softly over the darkened water. Ian sat in the stern
of the leading boat, and between me and the dull sky I saw
the eagle's wing that surmounted the cone of his steel bonnet,
as he sat erect and towering above all his soldiers. His drawn
sword, with its long Gaëlic motto—that old hereditary heirloom
of his race, which was never a moment from his side—was in
his hand. I have heard Ian assert that this ancient blade
possessed the property of inspiring courage, like the Feadhan
Dhu of the Clanchattan. "The sword of a brave man always
stirs the heart to gallant deeds," he would say; "and this sword
has been wielded by many generations of heroes."
Behind him, the Lochaber axe of Phadrig Mhor was glinting
in the starlight; for wherever Ian was, there Phadrig was sure
to be.
Though weakened, and by my recent bruises somewhat nervous
and excitable, I thought I was rather rash in venturing on this
desperate service; and now, when in the open boat, came the
reflection of what would be Ernestine's desolation and grief, if I
was knocked on the head as the reward of my restless ambition.
As we pulled shoreward the night became intensely dark, so
much so that we feared, unless lights were burned, we should
never be able to regain our ships.
All seemed quiet as we approached the town, and, save an
occasional light glimmering in the vast masses of the old castle,
there was no sign of life in the place; but we knew that Count
Kœningheim had not less than 2000 men in garrison, and of their
determination we had recently received the most ample proof.
Ian had observed that on the right flank of the town, along
the gulf or haven, there lay a beautiful walk, bordered by several
rows of lofty trees, which were now in full foliage, and would
conceal our approach.
Where the boats grounded the beach was silent and still. The
whole place seemed deserted. Not a leaf was stirring now, for
even the western wind had died away, and we heard only the
waves of the Kielerfiörd chafing on the bulwarks of the path,
as we landed. Ian Dhu was the first who sprang ashore, and,
with their muskets loaded, our men formed in file, and marched
towards the town, the walls of which were about two hundred
yards distant. Our service was a strange and desperate one; for
the enemy had cavalry, whose patrols might have cut us off,
and, if an alarm had been given, our boats must have run the
gauntlet along the lower gun batteries before we could regain
the fleet.
"However," said Ian, to whom I mentioned these probabilities;
"our firepots will find them work enough, and enable
us to get clear off."
Marching in silence, and halting once or twice to listen while
shrouded by the bordering trees, we found ourselves near the
strong postern gate, over which grinned a couple of forty-eight
pounders; but our guide, the purser, who had been in the habit
of conveying his barrels to the fair without the ceremony of
showing them to the keepers or leviers of duty at the barriers,
led us towards a small house that he knew of. This place proved
to be deserted. He raised the flooring, and revealed to us a
secret passage which led under the walls, and directly into the
town.
I shall never forget the exciting emotions we experienced,
when, after crawling through a hole, dark and dusty like an
ancient drain, we issued from a small shed, under which it
opened, into a gloomy and deserted street, where, with Phadrig
Mhor, his chief, and six chosen Highlanders, I found myself
within the walls and gates, the guards and cannon, of Kiel. The
rest of our men, to the number of ninety-four, occupied the
cottage without, ready to succour us or secure our retreat.
The storks uttered unearthly sounds, and flapped their wings
over our heads. They appeared to be the only inhabitants in
that part of the town; and from the postern already mentioned,
a street opened westward in one unbroken line straight to the
market place.
"What large building is that, Herr?" asked Ian, pointing
with his sword to an edifice near us; "is it a church?"
"No," replied the purser, "it is the hall where the high
Court of Appeal for the duchy sits; the enemy have turned it
into a magazine for powder."
"Powder! then the high Court of Appeal shall sit there no
more, Mein Herr; for we will blow it up."
"It is guarded—see, yonder is the sentinel, walking to and
fro before the building," said the purser; but the soldier
indicated could not discern us, as our men stood with their backs
close to the houses, and under their shadow. "But as to blowing
it up, Herr Schottlander, I beseech of you not to think of
that," continued the purser, "for it will create an alarm, and
totally prevent our escape. Let us content ourselves by placing
these firepots with lighted matches in some of the empty houses,
and then retiring the way we came."
"Dioul! but I think you are right, master purser," said Ian;
"besides, Herr, when the town is on fire the magazine must blow
up as a matter of course. Softly, then, comrades—this way,"
he added, to the six Highlanders, who had slung their muskets
to enable them the better to bear the combustibles with which
they were loaded.
At that moment we heard the Imperialist who guarded the
front door of the Court of Appeal, challenge some one who
approached his post.
A voice replied, and an officer muffled in a long mantle, wearing
a broad hat and slouching feather, followed by three pikemen,
passed down the centre of the street, to visit the guard at
that postern gate which the purser's friendly cottage, with its
smuggling trapdoor, had enabled us to avoid.
They passed us within half a pistol-shot, and then we could hear
the rattle of arms as the sentinel at the gate turned out the guard,
and the officer with his escort departed to visit some other post.
"Now, there is not a moment to be lost," said Ian; "let us fire
these houses next the magazine, and then escape by yonder fox-hole."
It was done in less than five minutes.
We entered the empty houses, either by forcing the doors or
removing the windows, but as softly as possible. Ian selected one,
Phadrig a second, and I a third. We placed the firepots and
wild-fire in the centre of the floors; heaped them over with
straw and oiled chips of wood brought from the fleet; then we
ignited the matches, and hurried back to the street.
The matches were supposed to burn gradually for five minutes,
by which time we expected to be clear of Kiel, and on the
high-road to our boats. Accompanied by Gillian M'Bane and
Donald M'Vurich, I had just completed my preparations for
giving at least one house a comfortable heating, and, firing the
match, hastened out to the street, when we were met, face to
face, by—whom? The Imperial officer and his three pikemen,
returning leisurely from their rounds, and singing a carol to the
tramp of their own feet.
Having accomplished our work sooner than Ian or his
henchman, we were unfortunately the first in the street, and the
Imperialists were confounded to find themselves confronted by
three armed men in the Scottish garb. Our swords were ready,
my two musketeers blew their matches, and the Austrian
pikemen levelled their weapons to the charge.
"Fire and fagot! how came you here?" asked the officer,
whose voice made me start; "yield, sirs, for I would not have
you killed if I can save you."
"Count Kœningheim!" said I, recognising him; "back—back—give
way; for we will die weapon in hand, but never yield. For
the sake of Ernestine," I added, in a loud and earnest whisper,
"let this be a drawn conflict—for if I am slain she will be
without a protector."
"Villain!" he exclaimed, with fierce joy, "art thou the
Captain Rollo?"
"The same, at your service, count," said I, as our blades were
pressed hard against each other; "but why so bitter an epithet
to a brother Scot, for such I should be, though under a different
banner?"
"You have stolen the daughter of my friend from the court
of the Danish queen, and for these many weeks past have conveyed
her from ship to ship, and isle to isle—all to the severe
prejudice of her honour."
"It is a villain's thought and a falsehood, which none but a
villain could conceive," said I, furiously; "but she is your
affianced wife, and——"
The count uttered a bitter laugh, then, trembling with passion,
he rushed upon me like a cannon-ball, and gave me a succession
of fierce thrusts, all of which I succeeded in parrying.
"My affianced wife—my affianced wife, indeed!" he continued,
giving me another and another. "Oh, fool of fools! do you not
know that, with all her beauty, I would not wed her if she had
the Bohemian crown upon her brow, and the wealth of India
at her feet?"
While this was passing, the purser had dived into his secret
hole, and vanished like a ghost at cock-crow. Ian, the sergeant,
and our other four soldiers, came to the appointed place, and
found me fencing away like a sword-player with Kœningheim,
whom they only knew to be an Imperialist. The three pikemen
fled, believing the town to be in possession of the enemy; and
Ian, who, like a true Highlander, would not permit the single
combat to be interrupted, stood between us and the six musketeers
(who continued ominously to blow their matches), and, leaning on
his long sword, watched with a fierce but anxious eye every turn
of the desperate game.
The red sparks flew in showers from the steel blades; we were
both so expert, that not a scar was given or received on either
side; but I was still so weak, that step by step I was driven
back towards the Hall of Appeals. I called repeatedly to Ian,
to Phadrig, and the soldiers, to regain the boats and leave me to
my fate; but they still remained, although the blaze of the
burning houses began to flash across the thoroughfare, and we
heard the drums beating in every quarter, as the various guards
at different points of the city rushed to their colours, and the
whole garrison became alarmed.
It was a time of desperation!
Ian by one thrust of his long sword, Phadrig by one blow of
his tremendous axe, or our musketeers by a single shot, could
have ended the conflict and the life of Kœningheim together;
but this the chivalry of Highland warfare would by no means
permit. Thus the duel continued, the conflagration increased,
and the long angry roll of the drums rang the call to arms in
castle and cantonments, at the gates and all along the harbour.
Every moment I felt assured that Kœningheim was becoming
stronger than me. My sight became dim, and I was beaten
backward until I found myself driven against a door at the
corner of a lane. I staggered—it yielded; and then I fell
headlong—not into a passage—but down into a deep, dark hole—a
cellar or some such place.
The street, the wavering light that filled it, vanished from me
in an instant, as I descended into total darkness.
At that moment I heard a confused discharge of muskets, and
an awful explosion, with a roar and the sensation of every thing
being convulsed below and around me, as if the earth were splitting
into halves, and I knew that it was the stately Hall of
Appeals which had been blown up like a house of cards.
I cannot describe the crash—the mighty torrent of united
sounds—the rending asunder of massive walls—the bursting of
arches, knitted together centuries ago—the cracking of oaken
beams, amid a whirlwind of bricks and mortar, slates and rubbish,
as the house under which I had fallen crumbled into ruin in a
moment; and though I did not feel any thing crushing me down,
I had the horrible conviction of being entombed beneath a mass
of fallen masonry and timber.
My claymore was still in my hand; the earth was damp, and
I lay upon it breathless, gasping, and almost stunned for a time.
Then a drowsy sensation came over me, and for half an hour or
so I seemed to be in a kind of waking dream.
"Where the deuce am I?" was my first thought and exclamation
on rallying my scattered energies.
I was painfully certain of entombment under a mountain of
fallen masonry, which, for aught that I could foresee, might not
in these times of trouble be removed for years. The air soon
became close and oppressive. I began an examination of the
trap into which I had fallen, by feeling all round me with
outspread hands; for the darkness was as dense as if I had been
shut up in a block of marble.
The ceiling—if it could be called so—was composed of beams of
hard wood planked over, being evidently the floor of an apartment
above; and by the dull, dead sound those planks returned,
when striking on them with the hilt of my sword, I became
convinced that the whole debris of a fallen house was heaped above
me! Of this I was the more certain on discovering that the
trapdoor, through which I had passed, was choked up by
fragments of torn partitions, beams and stones, which I could
grasp with my hands when standing upon a barrel over which
I had stumbled in the dark. Around me were four stone walls,
forming an area of about twenty feet by fifteen, and below me
was the damp earth. I was undoubtedly buried alive in a cellar,
from which escape seemed hopeless.
As this terrible conviction came home to my mind, the
perspiration oozed from every pore, and a pang of agony entered
my heart like a sharp poniard. My emotions cannot be described,
and thoughts that were bitter and heart-rending came crowding
upon me like a torrent.
Ernestine, whom I would never see more—whose voice I
would never hear again—and whose dark eye would never turn
to mine with its mild inquiring glance, or its glad and roguish
smile, was left among rough soldiers and rougher sailors on
board of Christian's wandering fleet, exposed to danger and
perhaps to insult; for when I was dead to whom could she turn
with confidence for protection? And Gabrielle, too! Gabrielle,
whom I had hoped to free and restore to her, would now be left
hopelessly the prisoner of Merodé, exposed to greater perils, and
such as it was impossible to consider with calmness or
contemplate with patience.
Doubtless brave Ian Dhu might protect Ernestine and free
Gabrielle, even as I would have done; but, remembering the
dangers that surrounded him only an hour ago, and the musket
shots I had heard, it was more than probable that he and all
who were with him had fallen in combat, and were now lying
in the ruined street—perhaps not twenty yards from me.
Whether he and Kœningheim too had escaped, or perished by
the explosion, was all a mystery to me; but the former seemed
next to an impossibility; and I pictured the anguish of Ernestine
when morning stole into the dull and comfortless cabin of the
Anna Catharina—when the bright sun came to gladden the
grey waters—when the waves rolled in light, and Denmark's
flat but wooded shores were sparkling in the sunny haze—when
hour after hour would steal away, and when I did not come!
What would be her emotions when the terrible truth was told
her by some survivor of our Raid to Kiel?
The atmosphere of the place gradually became closer and more
difficult to inhale; at times I thought this was fancy—at others,
reality; but perhaps my nervous and excited state exaggerated
the truth. I thought with horror of the pangs of hunger and
thirst to be endured before I should die; my fate, ignominious
and unhonoured; my unshared, solitary, and unimagined
agonies—even my grave might never be known. My death might be
mourned for while I was yet alive; for I calculated on living
for many days yet to come.
Again and again all these thoughts, and others of home and
my dear native country, recurred to me; again and again they
returned, each time with renewed poignancy and bitterness, and
the anticipation of dying there unknown, was as bad for a time
as those of hunger and thirst. The vulgar fear of being devoured
by rats was not the least of my torments; for of these vermin, I
had born in me a powerful and unconquerable aversion.
The air seemed to grow stifling. I shouted with that loud
hallo which, many a time and oft, I had sent far through the
Highland deer forests; but my own voice sounded dull and
faint, as it was returned upon my ear.
Overburdened by thought and anxiety, my heart became sick
and weary; my head ached as the oppression of the atmosphere
became greater; and I have no doubt that the effect of my
recent wound—the contusion received at Eckernfiörd—greatly
contributed to exaggerate all that the darkness, mystery,
loneliness, and the anticipation of a most horrible death, could
produce on an active imagination.
The Imperialists would think no more of me than of the last
year's leaves; and the idea of their digging for me, even if
Kœningheim escaped, seemed simply absurd.
I endeavoured to picture the slow agonies of a death by
hunger and thirst, but shrunk from the task, and remembered to
have heard my mother tell me, that when David Duke of
Rothesay was found dead in the vault of Falkland-tower, in his
hunger and madness he had gnawed and torn with his teeth the
flesh from his left arm. Could I ever be reduced to such a state?
My bones might lie for ten, twenty, or even a hundred years,
before discovery; and I thought grimly of the speculation they
might excite, when some grave pathologist delivered his opinion,
and when men spoke of the wars of other times—those wars of
which their sires had spoken, and in which their grandsires
fought; and I remembered the various instances of bones being
brought to light under similar circumstances, and under my
own observation, the vague mystery and fear with which these
poor reliques of humanity were regarded by those who endeavoured
in vain to conjecture the story that belonged to them;
the crime perpetrated, or the wrong endured—the story that
none could tell, and which would never be known until the last
trumpet rent the earth to its centre.
I began to feel weak, helpless, and confused, and listened
with agonised intensity to catch any sound, however distant;
and then, as before, it seemed as if many a voice with which I
was familiar came to me. My mind wandered, I imagined myself
again on board the king's ship, and amid the smoke, carnage,
and boom of the cannonade. Then came other ideas of strife—an
imaginary conflict; Ian with his eagle's plume, red-bearded
Angus M'Alpine, Kildon with his M'Kenzies, M'Coll of that
Ilk, and all the gallant hearts of our regiment were by my side.
I heard the yell of Torquil's pipe; I saw the tartans waving, the
red musketry flashing as its echoes rolled over hill and valley; I
saw the gleam of steel, and felt the glow of the bright warm sun
of a summer noon, as it shone on the broad arena of a bloody
battle. I brandished my sword—I shouted. Kœningheim
was again before me; his steel rang on mine, and I was conscious
that Bandolo, poniard in hand, was gliding near me like a
serpent.
All this wild vision and its excitement evaporated, and I
believe that I must have slept; for long after, on awakening once
again to the horrors of that dark and living tomb, and worse
than all to my own tormenting thoughts, I found myself lying
on the damp ground.
Was it night or was it day on the upper earth? In that
palpable darkness, no one could tell.
I listened, and heard my heart beating. At times I thought
there came other sounds to me, in my loneliness. Once a horse's
hoofs rang on the pavement; a dragoon had perhaps passed
through an adjacent street. At another time I heard the faint
note of a trumpet; and these sounds served but to increase my
fretful eagerness to be free.
I do not think that I prayed aloud to Heaven to help me;
but many a deep, pious, and fervent thought swelled my heart;
and after a time I took courage, and searched my whole prison
minutely again for some crack, joint, or cranny, by which a passage
might be forced.
Around me the walls were as solid as stone could make
them; above me were the oaken beams and jointed planks,
rendered quite as solid and immovable by the superincumbent
load of a fallen house.
I sat down again in despair. My head was still aching, and
my breast was oppressed by the difficulty experienced in
respiration; my weakness and helplessness increased; sensations of
suffocation were coming on, and at length I lay on the earth in
the belief that I was dying. My soul trembled at the terrible
conviction that I was on the verge of eternity, and I endeavoured
to pray, but my thoughts and words were all too incoherent for
utterance.
Wild visions floated before me, with long blanks and pauses
between; and during these blanks I now believe that I must
have been insensible.
My tongue was parched and burning; then imaginary fountains
of pure water gushed and sparkled in the sunshine, as they
poured over cool and mossy rocks into deep and shady dells; in
some instances, when I approached them, the water seemed to
vanish, and the bare and arid rock alone remained; in others,
I was bound and fettered hand and foot, unable to move, and
saw the gurgling water winding between flowery borders into
the shady recesses of a wooded dell. I stretched my hands
towards it; but a mighty incubus weighed down my limbs, then
the vision passed away, and I lay prostrate and gasping amid a
dark, a moist, and noxious atmosphere.
Many hours must thus have passed away—not less, perhaps,
than six-and-thirty. I imagined that Ernestine spoke to me
from time to time, and I heard her voice coming as from a vast
distance. She was laughing, and we were among summer fields
where the yellow corn was waving; where the green trees rustled
their heavy foliage in the warm breeze, and the glossy ravens
were wheeling aloft into a blue and sunny sky.
Then I heard the sound of other voices, the clink of axes and
grating of shovels; I thought that the hour of deliverance was
at hand; that I was about to be dug out, and restored to the
upper world, and I laughed with joy. The German soldiers
were jesting and singing at their work, as they seemed to draw
nearer and nearer to me.
Then I heard Kœningheim say that their labour was in vain,
and might be relinquished, for by this time I must assuredly be
dead—and I heard them retire! Methought I strove to shout,
to let them hear that I still lived, but my tongue clove to the
roof of my parched throat—my hard and baked lips refused their
office, and the horror of the dream awoke me for an instant to
the life I had been assured was gradually passing away from me.
Still the same darkness, the same solemn stillness, the same
mysterious and horrible abandonment. I sank again; but the
old vision returned with the clank of shovels and axes, the
rattle of stones and crow-bars, with a laugh or an oath, as the
German pioneers cleared away the rubbish, till their feet and
implements sounded distinctly on the planks of oak. Oh! it
was a delicious and a joyous dream!
Then all at once there burst upon my half-blinded eyes a
stream of glorious sunlight, with the pure and refreshing air, as
one pickaxe was inserted, and a plank torn up; then, but not
till then, did I learn that it was no dream, but a dear reality,
and that I was saved! I heard three or four soldiers drop after
each other into the pit; strong hands were laid upon me, and
I was lifted up from among the ruins; then a horn of Neckar
wine was given me, for I was faint and trembling. I soon
revived, but with the utmost difficulty retained my eyes open,
after such a long immersion in Cimmerian gloom; and I was so
feeble, that Kœningheim and one of his officers had to support
me between them, as they conveyed me through the ruined
street towards the castle of Kiel.
Fresh air and light, a little food and wine, with one night's
sound sleep, completely restored me.
Partially undressed, and with a rich velvet mantle thrown
over me, I was lying upon a beautiful bed, which, as I afterwards
learned, was the couch of that valiant Duke of Holstein,
Adolph, archbishop of Bremen, who overran the Ditmarsch, and
compelled the proud Hamburgers do him homage. The four
columns sustaining the canopy were of exquisitely carved oak;
the canopy itself, and the coverlet, were of blue silk, brocaded
with gold flowers; the former was surmounted by plumes of
feathers, and was lined with white silk, fringed with silver within
and gold without. It was too luxurious, and seemed like a
beautiful toy, made only to be admired, or for a fairy to sleep
in. The apartment was neither wainscoted nor tapestried, but
was hung with matting of shining straw; the ceiling was composed
of oak, the beams of which intersected each other, forming
panels wherein had been recently emblazoned all the armorial
bearings of Christian IV.; the variously coloured lions of
Denmark, Sleswig, Norway, and Gothland; the golden dragon of
Schonen; the paschal lamb of Juteland; the blue cavalier of
Ditmarsch; the nettle leaves of Holstein; the cygnet of Stormar;
the cross of Oldenburg, &c. &c.; the leopard, the crossed
spears, and the crowned savages, wreathed and armed with clubs.
Three windows of stained glass faced the gulf of Kiel; one of
these had been broken by the passage of a cannon-shot, and
fragments of the iron bars and brass wire which formed the
latticed grating were visible beyond.
The whole furniture was in confusion; in some places mirrors
were broken; in others, were pictures that bore strong traces
of having received a passing slash from a sword.
I had just made a survey of all this by one glance, and throwing
aside the mantle was about to rise, when Count Kœningheim,
who had been writing in a recess of one of the windows—for the
castle walls were of enormous thickness—approached, and bade
me good-morning.
I gave my hand to this soldier of fortune, who, only a night
or two ago, had expressed his rage at me for loving a woman
whom he vowed not to marry even if she was a queen, with the
wealth of India for her dowery.
"Well, my comrade," said he, after a few words of compliment
and inquiry had passed; "Zounds! was not yonder blow-up
a rough interruption of our tilting-match?"
"Your magazine of powder, was it not?"
"Twenty tons were stored up in the Hall of Appeal. On the
night of the bombardment I had a saucisson laid, and the hall
undermined, to blow up the whole in case of being obliged to
abandon Kiel. Your partial conflagration fired the saucisson,
and has cost the emperor more powder than he will probably
commit to my care again—for some time at least."
"And my comrades—did they all escape?"
"All, save one. Favoured by the confusion, they vanished
from the streets, and, regaining their boats, got clear off; but
that secret entrance will not serve their purpose a second time."
"And he who did not escape?" said I.
"Is now hanging from yonder tower," said the count, opening
one of the pointed windows, and showing me a prospect of the
town, the chief feature of which was the great square tower of
the church, with its lofty and tapering hexagonal spire, from
the summit of which there dangled something like a crow. I
could perceive it to be a human figure, but diminished by
distance, and wavering in the sea breeze; it swung to and fro,
now against the spire, and now a few feet from it in the air.
"Count Kœningheim," said I, turning with anxiety and indignation
from this startling spectacle, "and have you—who, like
myself, am a Scottish soldier of fortune—dared to hang one of my
comrades?"
"If yonder Danish purser, whilome a distiller and smuggler,
was one of your comrades, then I have indeed dared to do so."
"The poor man was only serving his king and his country."
"He has cost the Emperor twenty tons of good gunpowder—an
unanswerable argument," replied the count, as he folded up
his despatch and endorsed it to Tilly, whose troops were down
somewhere about the mouth of the Elbe. "And did you really
imagine, Captain Rollo, that I would have hanged one of our
kindly Scots, as I hung yonder purser? Hawks dinna pyke oot
hawks' een; and I assure you, that although we fight under
different banners, I love the blue bonnet far too well to hang its
wearer as a Danish scarecrow. In the devilish mood I was in
on the night of the bombardment, I would have thought no
more of slaying you—if able—than of taking this glass of wine;
but after the affair was over—after I thought you fairly crushed
to death—and a day or two had elapsed, it seemed a shame and
a scandal to me that a brave Scot, with the tartan on his breast
and the kilt above his knee, should lie uncoffined like a dog under a
fallen house. I set the pioneers of Camargo to dig out your
remains, and had fully resolved to inter them with all the honours of
war in the great church of the good city of Kiel. We had not
the most remote hope of finding you alive in the vault, like
Holger Danske in that dungeon under Cronborg castle, where, as
the legend says, he has sat for a thousand years with his armed
knights around him."
"And where is the Danish fleet?"
"At the mouth of the gulf, where Christian has landed, and
ordered your regiment of Highlanders to erect a strong sconce
on the shore. But enough of these things at present. You will
breakfast with me, and then we will talk of military business
afterwards."
"Business," thought I; "that must mean my transmission as
a prisoner of war into Central Germany!" He led me through
various apartments to one, the princely magnificence of which
excited my admiration. Kœningheim laughed at me, saying—
"Erelong, there may be no other hangings on these walls than
such as the spider spins."
During breakfast he asked me many questions concerning
Ernestine—casually, concerning her health and amusements, but all
with kindness, and without the slightest tinge of jealousy.
Though his friendship was sincere, it was evident that he did not
love her. There was a riddle in this? The count, her father—old
Rupert-with-the-Red-plume—was at Vienna, and was soon expected
by the army to resume the command of his division. The
poor man consequently still believed that his daughters were in
perfect safety with the old Queen of Denmark.
"Then," said I, "neither you nor he are aware that Gabrielle
has been abducted by Merodé?"
"Merodé—abducted!" stammered Kœningheim, as his sun-burnt
cheek grew pale, and then flushed with anger; "do you
tell me that Merodé has dared——"
As briefly as possible I related the dangers into which the
sisters had fallen; the affair of Bandolo, and the retention of
Gabrielle at Fredricksort.
The count thrust his breakfast from him.
"Fire and sword!" he exclaimed; "to know now that they
have been in the Wohlder, within a few toises of my outposts,
and I knew not of it! Oh! Captain Rollo, I love those girls
as if they were my own sisters—for they are good, amiable,
winning, and indeed most loveable; yet withal, and notwithstanding
Carlstein's kind intentions, believe me I have no more
idea of marriage than of flying in the air. Oh no! I shall never
marry! I do not think that the world possesses a daughter of
Eve who could tempt me to forsake the camp for her bower,
or the head of my regiment for the poor pastime of dangling at
her skirt. Fortunately, it is not far from this to Fredricksort,
and Gabrielle shall be freed even if we must take the place by
storm. Ten devils! to think she has been so long with such a
man as Merodé!"
"Perhaps he is not so bad as rumour makes him. He
may respect the high rank and perfect purity of Gabrielle."
"Respect—he, Merodé!" reiterated Kœningheim, with an
angry laugh; "we might as well expect heaven and hell to
change places, as to find one virtuous emotion in the heart of
that ignoble soldier. The fool! he thinks that poor Carlstein
is in hopeless disgrace, when at this very hour he may be
travelling from Vienna with greater honours than any of us, save
Wallenstein, have yet attained. Rest assured that I will free
Gabrielle, and protect her until she is restored to her father or
her sister. If Merodé will not yield her," continued Kœningheim,
beginning to buckle on his cuirass and sword; "by
Heaven! I will pistol him at the head of his regiment. I am
not a man who stands on trifles, neither is Carlstein—old
Rupert-with-the-Red-plume—as we Imperialists call him."
"You lads of the black eagle make small account of human
life; and value blood no more than water."
"Blood!" he muttered, while continuing to arm himself;
"the shedding of it under harness is but a matter of necessity,
Yet, alas! Captain Rollo, by a fatal mischance, and in a moment
of ungoverned passion, my disastrous hand has shed the blood
of one whose fate hath cast a horror over my path in life.
Wherever I have gone—in the camp and in the city, in the field
and on the ocean, on the Scottish hills and on the German
plains—that cloud has overhung me! With my own existence
only, the cloud and the horror will pass away; but the memory
of the deed I have done will never die in the peaceful spot
which was blighted and cursed by its committal. I destroyed a
life, to preserve and to defend which, I would have given my
own a thousand times over, could such have been; but let me
not recur to these old memories, for they madden and unman me!"
A dark shade had overspread the handsome face of Kœningheim—his
eyes were saddened, and a spasm contracted his
features; but, without remarking the bitterness of his emotion,
I continued to assist him in accoutring, and also armed myself;
for I had begun to entertain faint hopes of not being kept as a
prisoner after all.
"Come, come, Kœningheim," said I; "you are not the only
man who has slain a dear friend in a sudden quarrel."
"Friend!" he repeated, in a voice that made me start.
"No; when wine is in the head, and when the sword is in
the hand, such things will happen," I continued, supposing that
he referred to an unfortunate duel.
"Oh no!" said he mournfully; "such deeds as mine are done
but seldom—yet, let me not think of it! Peace—solitude—at
such times madden me. Action! action! that is the only relief.
Come with me, then; let us ride for Fredricksort, and save
Gabrielle from Merodé—the lamb from the wolf—the dove
from the vulture."
We descended to the gate of Kiel, for the hope of liberty
and of freeing Gabrielle restored me to fresh energy; and though
Kœningheim expressed his doubts of my ability for exertion, I
waived every objection, and, accompanied by four dragoons of
the regiment de Wingarti, who wore black iron helmets and
corslets, white buff coats with wide skirts edged by red cloth,
jackboots, swords, musketoons and pistols, we set forth; and
though scarcely able to keep on my saddle, by weakness resulting
from recent mishaps at Eckernfiörd and Kiel, I was never
behind Kœningheim by the length of my horse's head.
To be brief, after a hard ride round the shore of the gulf, and
seeing every where the poor peasantry flying at our approach to
moor, morass, and woodland, we reached the great fortress of
Fredricksort, only to find it a pile of dismantled and blackened
ruins; for in some of their wild excesses, Merodé's officers (on
the very night we were bombarding Kiel) had set their quarters
on fire. They were thus compelled to remove to a neighbouring
village, from whence—by orders received direct from
Wallenstein—they had marched no one knew whither; but by
certain smoky indications at the horizon, we supposed their
route lay towards Flensborg. Merodé had several ladies with
him in caleches, and a number of other women, and a vast
quantity of plunder, in waggons and on horses; thus his regiment
marched off like a triumphal procession, singing in chorus,
with all their drums beating and colours flying, and with crowds
of camp followers mingling and shouting among their riotous
and disorderly ranks.
Such was the account we received from the tall Jesuit, Father
Ignatius, who had visited Fredricksort on the same good errand
that had brought us from Kiel, and whom we met fortunately,
in a narrow green lane (near the ruined castle), where the good
man had dismounted from his mule, and taken off its bridle,
that the animal might crop the herbage that grew by the wayside.
Accompanied by the Jesuit, we returned towards Kiel with
the unpleasant conviction that our journey had been perfectly
futile; and having a fresh source of anxiety in the doubt,
whether Merodé had taken Gabrielle away with his ladies who
occupied the carriages, or whether the poor girl had perished
among the flames of the burning fortress.
"There were no less than six waggons crowded by soldiers'
wives, all as drunk as liquor could make them," said Father
Ignatius.
"'Tis fortunate for those ladies that the old Roman law, by
which a husband could slay his wife if her breath indicated
wine, no longer exists," said I.
"But those ammunition wives smelt only of schnaps and
brandy," said the priest, turning up his eyes.