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."*
* A gate of the palace, then inscribed A.E.I.O.U. meaning Austria est imperare orbi universo; i.e., "Austria is to govern the world."
"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.