So great was the confusion of this conflict, maintained mid-leg in the water, that for a time I stood like a statue, with my sword raised above my head, incapable of deciding on which side the blow should descend.
The crash of musket-butts falling in full swing upon pike shafts and steel caps; the sharp rasp of sword-blades against each other, or upon tempered corslets, from which, by every thrust or blow, they struck the sparks in showers; the discharge of firelocks and pistols; the cries, groans, and oaths; the swaying to and fro, and the desperate struggles of those who, on their weapons being broken, grasped each other by the throat or beard, with hands ungloved, and strove on this side or on that to drag their adversary down beneath the bloodstained water, then reduced to a mass of dingy and gory mud; and all this combined when seen under the cold, ghastly glare of a northern moon, with the sea around us, the floating vapour on one hand, and on the other the confused background of Stralsund, and those trenches where old Leslie was waging a conflict as deadly, made up one of the most infernal medleys of horror that was ever beheld by the eye of a soldier.
Conspicuous in this melée, I perceived the high eagle's wings of Ian, as he dealt his cuts and thrusts, now under and now over the round shield which covered his breast; and by his side was gigantic Phadrig, swaying his ponderous pole-axe with all the coolness and deliberation of a mower.
Amid this brief but terrible conflict, by the irresistible decree of fate, or the strong instinct of deadly hatred, Red Angus M'Alpine encountered and recognised Colonel Hector M'Lean, and each greeted the other with an exclamation of ferocious joy.
"Hector of Lochdon!" said Angus, in a hoarse voice.
"Angus Roy!" cried the Imperialist, and they pressed upon each other with a fury too great to last. The former was fired by the memory of his son's death; the latter by the loss of his wife, and the undeserved sorrow, shame, and ruin, brought upon his hearth and home.
They were no longer men; they fought like wild animals; for all the long-treasured fury of a Highlander, who has wrongs to avenge and insults to wipe out by the sword, swelled up in their hearts, and Red Angus was no more the same man—the same merry comrade we had known and served with so long. Disdaining to parry the thrusts of M'Lean, he raised his heavy sword above his head with both hands, and clove him down through steel and bone to the edge of the gorget; at the same moment he received a shot in the breast, and with a wild cry threw his arms aloft, and fell lifeless, into the sandy water.
Enraged by his fall the regiment swept on, and who could resist them?—those children of the mist and the battle—those true sons of the sword, as Ossian called their sires in the times of old. Nor Goth, nor Spaniard—Imperial horseman, nor Walloon musketeer—for they were shred away like the red leaves when the autumn wind pours down the mountain side; and there, as at Lütter and Leipzig, the glorious valour of my Scottish comrades bore all before it.
So great was the confusion, that I do not think I struck one blow that night.
The brigade broke through like a mighty wedge, and, with the loss of three hundred men killed and wounded, reached Stralsund with all the waggons save one, after giving the foe such analerteas Wallenstein had never experienced before, while his trenches on the other flank received such a scouring, that his trench guards kept surer watch ever after. In fact, so severely were they handled by Sir Donald Mackay in one place, and old Marshal Leslie in the other, that the night of the outfall or sortie from Stralsund, was never forgotten by the army of the Empire; but was always remembered with mingled rage and dissatisfaction.
Among many bodies that were floated by the sea near our outworks, we found, some days after, the remains of poor Angus M'Alpine; which, though mutilated by the fish, and distorted by death, we could easily recognise, by his dress, his harness, and the crape scarf, which as usual was bound to his left arm. We buried him with all the honours of war, placing in the same grave Sergeant M'Gillvray of Drumnaglas, who died of a wound received by a musket-shot on the night of the sortie.
I have since been told, though I cannot vouch for the truth of it, that at the very time poor Angus fell (between the night and morning) the bell of his village kirk emitted a deep and hollow sound.
Captain M'Coll was not killed, being found alive by some German harridans who where stripping the dead; he was saved from their knives by the famous Colonel Gordon of Tzerchkzi's regiment, by whom he was made prisoner and sent to Wallenstein. The latter committed him to the castle of Dillingen on the Danube (where the Scottish Colonel Ramsay was starved to death), and there he remained in captivity for eight long years. Being released by Count Leslie, he returned home to find that his good lady, after waiting seven years and a day, had become weary or despaired in his absence; and after having him summoned by name, with all possible legal formality, by sound of a horn, at the nearest market-cross, and thrice over at the pier-end of Leith, had taken unto herself another spouse, who met poor M'Coll at the door of his own dwelling, and threatened to hang him as an impostor upon his own dule-tree.
Disgusted by such a reception, and shrinking from the shame of having to sue for his own wife before the Lords of Session, he returned again to Germany, and fell, as major of Sir John Hepburn's regiment, at the great battle of Nordlingen.
The provisions, procured at so much danger and with such loss, were a seasonable, but scanty relief; for nineteen waggon-loads of flour and butter went but a short way among the starving population of Stralsund; and I remember that the strong taste of the Griefswalde garlic made most of our men ill. The fields around that notable Hans Town abound with this plant, which usually flowers about Whitsuntide; thus all the flesh of their cattle, with the milk and butter, taste of it—at least we thought so.
Provoked by the alarm and loss he had suffered, and by the temporary supply of a day's food procured for Stralsund, Wallenstein ordered the trenches to be pushed on with greater vigour, and urged the blockade by sea, taking advantage of the absence of King Christian, who was then lingering about Wolgast (the capital of a duke of the house of Pomerania), in the hope of being joined by Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, and Major-general Slammersdorf, who were endeavouring to rouse the timid boors of the Danish isles; but it always happened unfortunately, that when the eloquence, ardour, or gold of the gallant duke mustered a few recruits, the terrible aspect of the old grumbler Slammersdorf, minus a leg, an arm, an eye, and all over cuts and patches, invariably scared and scattered them to their farms and fastnesses in the woods.
The cannonading continued daily without cessation; but so admirable were the means of defence, and so excellent were the precautions taken by Marshal Leslie, that the loss of life in Stralsund was trifling when compared to the slaughter, made by our cannon and musketry, among the Imperial pioneers and trench-guards; but still starvation stared us gauntly in the face; and some of the poorer class of citizens, after devouring dogs and cats, and every animal, even to their household storks, perished of sheer destitution.
We received not a farthing of pay at that time; and I remember that Major Fritz, by establishing a liason with a generous old countess, contrived to keep himself and the officers of his regiment, as he said, "in very good feather." I remember, also, the Baron Karl saying in jest—
"Der Teufel! Captain Rollo, if this starvation is pressed much further, we shall all be reduced to eat horses, like our Scandinavian ancestors!"
This actually became the case; twenty of Karl's pistoliers were dismounted by order of Sir Alexander, and their horses were shot, flayed, and exposed for sale in the market-place, where a wild assemblage of hungry women and hollow-eyed children beheld this hideous food displayed at an exorbitant price by the burgomaster; and where strong men contended with them, for the hoofs, the entrails, and offal.
By the kindness of Doctor Pennicuik, the head of our medical staff, I was enabled to procure many little things for Ernestine, without which I do not believe she could have survived on the coarse, scanty, and uncertain supplies of food received by the troops. Yet to convey her out of Stralsund was impossible; for the cannon and musketry of the enemy prevented all egress; and twice cartels with flags of truce had been fired on, though sent out with the intention of craving that the wives and children of the citizens, and various Imperial prisoners then in our possession, might be permitted to leave the gates.
Around Ernestine and myself, death and disaster had narrowed our circle of dear friends; but our tenderness for each other increased; and, when off duty, my time was constantly spent in bestowing consolation and attentions on my beautiful charge. One day, about this time, I was sitting with the Baron Karl and Major Fritz at the window of a house which overlooked the bastions of the Frankendör, which my regiment still occupied, and from whence we could see the Imperialists in their trenches beyond the lake. Karl and I were lunching on a piece of young horse, which had been delicately broiled by his servant; and, as the baron was quartermaster-general, he had contrived that we should have the additional luxuries of pepper and salt, with a hard biscuit each, and a can of muddy wine to wash down the steaks of the poor bay trooper.
"Another slice, baron, if you please," said I, after my second had vanished.
"Ah—you like it then! I question much if Fritz, or his old widow, have often a repast so tender; for this was the youngest horse in my troop—quite a foal, poor brute! However, I beg that we may call it excellent venison, only that it has not been kept long enough by our cook."
"Call it what you please, Karl," said Frits; "but I will not permit my countess to be laughed at. She is a generous old dame, and quite adores me! She lavishes on me the contents of her larder and wine-cellar; I lavish my tenderness on her in return. 'Tis the best way of subsisting, when the military chest and the market-place are alike empty."
"But is not this dish excellent?"
"Admirable! Your cook will make his fortune; and to dine with you will become quite a proverb. Instead of 'Lucullus dines with Lucullus,' people shall say, 'We are to dine with Karl'—in his repasts he is a perfect Sybarite.Mensa prima—horse-flesh with salt;Mensa Secunda—ditto, with pepper."
"But what are the Imperialists about?" said I; "something unusual is stirring by the side of the lake."
"Some Imperialists are launching a boat—and there are several men crowding into her."
"One tall fellow wears a red feather," said I.
"'Tis Rupert of Carlstein himself! For what can the old blockhead wish to sail on the lake, right under our batteries?"
"'Tis a fast day," said Karl, "and perhaps he is going to fish, supposing that our twenty-four pounders may have roused a few eels from the mud of the lake."
"Come, come, Herr Baron," said I, "the count is my particular friend, and I have to beg——"
"Pardon me, I forgot. One of course does not like to hear that man called a blockhead who may say to one some morning, 'My dear fellow, I have the most sincere respect for you—I love you as if you were my own son, the child of my dear defunct so and so. I will give with my daughter the chateau of Giezar, and my fief of Kœningratz, with 100,000 doubloons in hard and heavy cash.' Der Teufel! I would not like to hear him spoken of otherwise than in the highest strain of commendation; but come—another slice of the venison!"
"See—they have unfurled a white flag of truce."
"Then I hope your Scots at the Frankendör, will receive it as Arnheim received those with which I twice approached Wallenstein—that is, with a smart volley of musketry."
We snatched up our swords, and hurried down to the Frankendör, which we reached just as the boat grounded, and three men, one of whom bore a white standard displayed from a halbert, approached the gate that faced the lake.
One was a gaudily attired drummer, who beat a long roll, during which the trio stood until a Highland drummer beat a reply; then they approached, and we could perceive that one of our visitors was a herald (clad in the magnificent tabard of the Imperial college), and in the other, by his rich dress and stately figure, I recognised at once the count, the father of Ernestine, and my father's brother, though he was then ignorant of our relationship. I burned with impatience to address him; but neither the place nor the time suited. Ian despatched Phadrig Mhor for orders to the quarters of the marshal commanding, who desired that neither the herald nor his companions were to be admitted, even blindfold, lest they might merely be a party come to spy our defences and destitute condition; and that he would question them in person.
After a few minutes' delay, the venerable Leslie approached the klinket of the Frankendör; it was opened, and he stepped out alone and unattended to receive the envoys of the Duke of Friedland. As he passed out, I said to him hurriedly—
"Marshal, I pray you to excuse me; one of the Imperialists at the gate is the great Count of Carlstein—his daughter is starving among us here in Stralsund,—ask him now, if for Heaven's sake and her own, he will take her with him to the German camp."
I said this in a voice made tremulous by emotion; but I foresaw that Ernestine would have to suffer yet greater misery, if she remained among us; and I had secretly resolved, that the mere selfish gratification of enjoying her society, should not be made paramount to her health and happiness.
"I shall mention your wishes to the count," said Leslie; and his words sounded like a parting knell to me, for I was assured that we should be separated at last.
"I have done but my duty," thought I; "it were no kindness to keep her here in Stralsund."
Our marshal—whose little and somewhat decrepit figure, clad in a plain buff coat laced with silver, and who wore a white scarf of silk over his right shoulder, sustaining a basket-hilted Scottish sword, appeared to great disadvantage beside the towering figure of the count—advanced three paces from the gate, and, raising his blue bonnet, announced himself with brief formality to the visitors, adding, "You have been received somewhat differently from those cartels I lately sent towards your trenches."
"We obey but the orders of Wallenstein," replied the count, with grave brevity.
"Well, herald—what do you require of us?—I am ready to listen and reply."
In modern times, this was one of the last instances of a city being summoned by a herald; but the revival of the obsolete custom, suited the vain, splendid, and chivalric ideas of Wallenstein. This herald, who wore a tabard that blazed with embroidery (for it was charged with the bars argent and gules of Hungary; the red lion of Bohemia; the fesse of Austria; the triple tower of Castile, and all the countless quarterings of the great German empire), after coughing once or twice, took off his conical hat, and, unrolling a paper, began thus in hoarse and guttural German.
"By orders of Albrecht, Count of Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland and Mechlenburg, General of the Empire and Oceanic seas, and in the name of the most high and mighty prince, Ferdinand——"
"Oho—so your Duke puts his name before the Emperor's!" said Sir Alexander Leslie; "come—Master Herald—that is not so bad!"
Carlstein bit his lips and smiled.
"By the grace of God, Emperor of the Romans," continued the herald, reading very fast; "King of Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Sclavonia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Servia, and Rescia; Archduke of Austria; Duke of Burgundy, Brabant, Stiria, Carinthia, Carniola, Luxembourg, Wittemburg, and Lord of Silesia——"
"Gude guide us!" muttered the Scottish marshal.
"Marquis of the Holy Roman Empire, Burgau, and Moravia; Count of Hapsburg, the Tyrol, Ferrette, and Kiburg; Landgrave of Alsace; Lord of Portnau and Salines; I, Rudolf of Mentz, Black Eagle king-of-arms, summon the burgomaster and citizens of Stralsund, with the general——"
"The burgomaster has no authority here," said Sir Alexander Leslie; "I alone command in Stralsund."
"With the general and Scottish troops of the King of Sweden, to surrender and open the gates of the said city, on the third day from this, by twelve o'clock at noon, under pain of a general assault, after which every man, woman, and child, soldier and civilian, without respect to age or rank, will be put indiscriminately and without mercy to the sword."
"I am but an unlettered soldier of fortune," replied Leslie, with a calm smile on his round and good-humoured face; "and being but an humble man, am altogether unable to send a fitting answer to the proprietor of this terrible muster-roll of hard names and barbarous titles. Do the Emperor and Duke think to frighten us with this ware? I am but the Laird, or the Graf of Balgonie (if it better suits your German lugs); yet by the orders I have received from Christian and Gustavus, the allied princes of the North, who committed this once happy and industrious city to my care, there were no provisions made anent treating with, or surrendering its people to the tender mercies of> the Imperial troops; therefore I am extremely sorry that I have only gunpowder and shot at the service of the Duke of Friedland. You may return and tell him so; with this additional message, that did I act ashewould have done, I would send you all back in salted joints, like a barrel of Fourrier's beef."
"Stout Balgonie, you say well!" said Carlstein in our own language; "by my honour, Wallenstein will find that Stralsund might as well have been slung in chains, as committed to the care of you and the brave Scots of Gustavus of Sweden."
"Count of Carlstein, you are, like myself, a cavalier of fortune, and know that we have seldom other inheritance than our fathers' swords, and know assuredly that our honour is the very breath of our nostrils. While one Scottish musketeer can stand by my side, and while one stone of Stralsund remains upon another, I will never surrender, and Wallenstein can only have the city when the last soldier and the last stone have fallen together! You have your answer, gentlemen—Herald, you may go; but, Count of Carlstein, I beg one word with you."
At these words I felt my heart beat thick and fast. For me, I thought the sun would soon set in Stralsund.
"We have among us here your eldest daughter, who is, of course, most anxious to rejoin you, though we have treated her with every kindness and care, even as if she had been my ain bairn; but we cannot foresee what new dangers a day may bring forth, and a beleaguered city is assuredly no place for women, as we know well——"
"God bless and thank you, Sir Alexander Leslie!" said the count, with a thick voice, as a change, overspread his face; "if my daughters are in your charge, they could not be in better hands, and 'tis well, for receive them I cannot! Wallenstein has sworn, that until the city is surrendered, no man, woman, or child, shall leave its gates, alive or dead."
"Ye honour me, count," replied the marshal, whose native accent always waxed stronger when he became friendly or familiar; "but believe me, there are some buirdly Scottish chields here with me in Stralsund, who will deem it their greatest happiness to hae an opportunity o' shedding their best bluid in their defence."
"Bear my dearest blessing to my poor girls, and let us hope that happier times are in store for us all—adieu!" and, unwilling that his emotion should be visible before so many eyes, the count turned abruptly away, and, stepping into the boat, was rowed, with the herald, slowly back towards the Imperial lines.
"Girls?" I repeated, as Sir Alexander re-entered by the klinket; "then he knows not that one of his daughters is no more."
"I saw how the puir man's heart filled, and how his eyes dimmed at the thought of his bairns," replied the kind old marshal; "and I could not be a hard-hearted auld tyke, and bluntly tell how one had perished. Oh, no—ill news travel fast enough, gude kens!"
Such is the selfishness of love, that, notwithstanding the continued danger, privation, and discomfort; to which Ernestine was certain of being subjected, I now felt a glow of satisfaction in being assured that I could not yet be deprived of her society.
Some days after this, I was hastening from the Frankendör towards the residence of Ernestine, when, at a corner of the Bourse, where the merchants were wont to meet, but where the rank grass grew between the untrodden stones, I observed a provision shop, or victualler's, the last in the street, which as yet maintained the aspect of having any thing like business, which all its less fortunate neighbours had long since hopelessly abandoned.
Upon the front wall of the house, there were cut and gilded the date 1600, with one of those verses, then so common in Stralsund, recording, in barbarous Latin, that Jaromar prince of Rügen had fortified the city, after it had been burned by the Danes and Pomeranians. Half concealing this, a gaudy sign-board was nailed over it, bearing the name and occupation of the retailer, the aspect of whose stock made me remember (what I seldom forgot) the larder of Ernestine's establishment; and, being without money, I twisted a few golden links from the chain her father had given me in more prosperous times, and desiring a soldier to follow me, entered the shop, the entire goods of which consisted of three somewhat shrivelled hams, a side of suspicious-like bacon, and a few strings of freshly made, but still more suspicions sausages, the material of which, at such a time, when the marshal and burgomaster had been living for months on horse-flesh or little better, made me resolve to have nothing to do with them. But then every thing was scrupulously neat and clean; the Mernel floor and counters were scrubbed to the whiteness of snow; the tin and brass work shone like silver and gold. An elderly man, with wiry grey mustaches, and wearing a nightcap and long apron of spotless white cotton, was busy with a chopping-knife preparing more sausages, which he seasoned profusely with garlic, salt, and pepper.
He appeared considerably disconcerted on my entrance, and, despite the deference usually paid by his class and all cits to a long mustache and long sword, he doggedly continued his occupation; but his wife, a smart little woman, with lively black eyes, and a face that was wofully ravaged by the small-pox, tripped forward to ask me what I would have.
The question had scarcely left her lips, when she grew paler than her white coif, trembled, and cast down her eyes. Her voice and hertout ensemblewere familiar to me. I felt myself change colour in turn, and mingled emotions of pleasure, anger, and surprise ran through me.
"What a change is here!" said I; "is it possible that I find the Señora Prudentia—the sylph-like dancer, whose actions were so full of grace and beauty—the songstress who warbled like a fairy bird in summer—transformed into a little vender of sausages and ham!"
Perhaps there was something spiteful in this remark; but I had a lively recollection of the doubloons and the ring, bought from an honest jeweller of the Hebrew race in the Burgerplatz at Glückstadt.
"Herr Captain," she replied modestly and timidly, and with an air that well became her then, with her plain white linen coif, her large neckerchief, and short bunchy petticoats of scarlet cloth (for every way she had fairly become the little burgher's wife), "adversity has taught me a good lesson; I was vain, I was beautiful and wicked, and God has punished me. He sent a severe illness which robbed me of my beauty, and my vanity went with it. I should always have remembered that beauty fades like the summer, but, unlike the summer, returns no more. I shall never be beautiful again—never! (this was said with some bitterness.) I shall never sing more; for the same envious illness robbed me of my fine voice; but it matters not—I am at least content; yetay de mi Espana! I shall never see Spain more. My husband——"
"What—-you are then married at last!"
"My husband is an honest man, and I am become an industrious little housewife. We should make quite a fortune but for this unhappy siege; and shall we not yet, Herr Spürrledter?—look up, and speak for yourself."
"Spürrledter—how—is your spouse my old acquaintance, the corporal of Imperial horse?" said I with new astonishment, as that personage, on being thus compelled to show his face, doffed his white nightcap, and stood soldierly erect before me.
"I am sorry to see you here, corporal," said I; "for if Stralsund is taken, the Imperialists will hang you as surely as the sun is shining."
Had I been less of a soldier, I am certain that the recollection of the desperate love I had once made to Prudentia would have embarrassed me; but there was something as comical in the transformation of the wiry and ferocious old corporal of Reitres into a maker of sausages, as there was something melancholy in the change of the beautiful dancer into a plain-looking citizen's wife, with an enormous white coif, red skirt, and bunch of keys.
"And now, Herr Captain," said she with a business-like air, to cut short an unpleasant pause; "in what can we serve you?"
"By placing your best ham in the hands of this soldier," said I, hesitatingly.
She gave me a glance of mingled archness and sadness, and lifted down the ham, while I, who once would not have allowed her to pluck a flower unaided, stood stoically by.
"We have been so shamefully plundered, Mein Herr!" said old Spürrledter; "'tis only a day since Major Fritz, that tall cavalier with the short beard, and two yellow feathers in his hat, marched off with all our best and last Bologna sausages."
"And to-day," added Prudentia with something of her old air, "another insolent biped without feathers carried away our only fowl."
"For Heaven's sake, do not be alarmed, Fraü Spürrledter!" I replied hastily; "I am not foraging, as your corporal has no doubt done many a day. I require the provant; and must have it; but having no money, beg to leave these six links of pure gold, which are more than enough to pay for thrice my purchase. And now," I added, as the soldier marched off with it; "I trust, Fraü, you have not, as at Glückstadt, any acquaintances beyond the walls; for I am not now the fool I was in those days."
"Fool!—oh, how can you use a term so harsh? and I am not the pretty knave I was in those days either—oh no!" she added sadly and archly. "I beseech you not to think so, and not to discover to the marshal all I have done in other times—nor to say I am the sister of—of him you know. Ah! your eyes sparkle; and I believe with reason. If you can extend protection to my husband and myself, it will be a favour—yea, it will be a mercy, which we shall do our best to merit; for in a city surrounded by ferocious besiegers, and defended by desperate and starving soldiers of fortune, the situation of the poor citizens is not very enviable."
I felt somewhat moved by the severe and complete retribution that had fallen on this once proud and artful coquette, and I promised to yield all the protection in my power. She declined to receive the golden links; but I insisted upon her doing so, and remembering, with something of awkwardness, the different relation in which we now stood to each other, and all the flowery love-speeches and magniloquent nonsense I had said to her in other times, I was in some haste to be gone, and bade her adieu.
As I issued into the Bourse, accompanied by the Highlander who bore my unsentimental purchase, which the hollow-cheeked passers beheld with eager and wolfish eyes, old Spürrledter hurried after me, and raising a hand to his white nightcap in the old style of his military salute—
"Herr Captain," said he, "I believe you know what a devil of a brother-in-law I have. Well: though an old soldier who has smelt powder at Prague and Fleura, I have a mortal terror of such a relation, and despite all your guards and gates he has been twice (the Lord alone knows how) in Stralsund here, and has robbed us each time of every thaler we possessed."
"What—within Stralsund?"
"Ay, here—in Stralsund."
"This rascal must be cunning as a lynx."
"Cunning as Lucifer, Herr Captain, and more wicked withal. I have the honour to point out to you, that this reputable relation of mine is hovering like a jackal about the Imperial camp, and, as I believe you have some dark scores to settle with him, he might be lured within reach of a party, and consigned to the care of the provost-marshal."
At these words, a glow of vengeance swelled up in my breast. I thanked the ex-corporal of Reitres, and promised to call again; but other events frustrated his kind intention of sending his troublesome brother-in-law in search of another world. With a light heart I hastened to the residence of Ernestine, yet remembering with something of shame—a shame that made my love for her the more pure and noble—my transient folly at Glückstadt.
After that day I never again saw Prudentia; for though I was three months longer in Stralsund, I avoided the shop at the corner of the Bourse; for I had no wish that Ian, or any of our officers or friends—especially Major Fritz—should discover in the plump little victualler, the Prudentia of my early days of soldiering—my "mysterious countess," as Karl called her in jest; moreover, the progress and incidents of that disastrous siege soon gave me other and graver things to think of.
None save those who have been circumstanced as we unfortunately were, in a city besieged and reduced almost to the last extremity, can fully appreciate the value of the prize I brought with me to lay at the feet of Ernestine; but a pound of fresh meat, or a slice of plain bread, were then worth thrice their weight in gold.
When I entered her little boudoir, which the Fraü of the last occupant had furnished with exquisite taste, and hung with curtains of the richest velvet, she was kneeling at prayer, and the softness of the Turkey carpet enabled me to approach her unheard. Then I paused for a time; but her eye detected me, and she arose with a charming smile.
"You were praying when I left you, and still you are praying! Dear Ernestine, how very bad you must be to have so much to repent of," said I, playfully.
"All my prayers are for my poor father and you, Philip—for your safety and for his," replied she, with somewhat of a pouting air; "believe me, that since I came to Stralsund I have almost forgotten how to pray for myself."
"Now, do not pout, dear Ernestine," said I, clasping her head upon my breast; "for it does not look pretty even in you, who possess the charm of that perfect innocence, without which a beautiful woman is like a rose without perfume."
"Now, where did you pick up this piece of poetry?"
"Not amid the shot and smoke, the slime and slaughter, of yonder batteries; but here with you, Ernestine; for it is you, and you alone, who shed a ray of light and poetry along the dark and dangerous way I am treading."
"And in the hope that Heaven will protect you on that way, to the end of your journey—let me say our journey, Philip—I pray so often."
"Heaven," said I caressing her, "will never be so cruel as to separate two hearts that love each other as ours do."
"Oh, Philip! I have heard Father Ignatius say, that excess of earthly love excludes the love of heaven, which thereby becomes incensed, and sends death as a terrible mentor to those who forget it."
I was about to make some jesting protest against this theory of our old friend, when a knock was given at the door, and the red visage and redder beard of Gillian M'Bane, one of our musketeers, appeared; and after many apologies he informed me, that a patrol of the guard at the Frankendör had taken a prisoner, who incessantly asked for me, and that Ian Dhu required my presence immediately.
Reluctantly I left Ernestine, and taking my sword with me (for I remembered the vicinity of Bandolo), piloted my way in the evening twilight to the Frankendör. From the description of "the prisoner," given to me by Gillian, viz.—a tall, lantern-jawed man, with high cheekbones, black hair, and bald head, keen eyes, and sallow visage, with a long ungainly figure enveloped in a black cassock buttoned up to his chin, I had little doubt that he would prove no other than Father Ignatius; and by part of a conversation which I overheard while descending the steep stair towards the bastion gate, I learned that my suspicions were right.
"You afford no sufficient explanation for prowling close to the walls," I heard the Baron Karl say, as he and Ian stood forward from among a group of our Highlanders, one of whom held up a lantern to the prisoner's face; "but say at once for what purpose you came here?"
"To preach the religion of God, even as Colomanus the Scot, who converted the pagans of Austria, and Argobastus the Scot, who baptized those of Strasburg, preached when they came here before me in other times."
"Bravo!" thought I; "itisFather Ignatius."
"Your religion," said Karl laughing; "and what are you?"
"A poor and unworthy brother of the order of Jesus," he replied, bowing his head at the name.
"Oho—a Jesuit!" continued Karl, in his impudent way; "so that is the trade you follow?"
"Mein Herr, I follow the commands of God—the Master of all. Sir," said he, suddenly turning to Ian, "I am a Scotsman, a countryman of your own, and indeed, sir, merit not this rough handling."
"A Scotsman!" reiterated Ian; "why the deuce did you not say so before? Enter then, and, Imperialist though ye be, here is the hand, and there the sword, that will stretch on the heather the first foreign churl that molests you."
"But your patrol had no right to seize me. In deep reverie, and pondering over many things, but chiefly on a sermon I was to preach to-morrow, I stumbled near your gates, but with no intention of espying your works, believe me. I repeat, sirs, ye have no right to seize me—I belong to God, and not to man. I belong neither to Wallenstein nor Tilly—to Christian nor Gustavus—I serve heaven and not earth——"
"Calm yourself, reverend sir," said I, approaching and taking him by the hand; "make way, gentlemen—'tis my friend, Father Ignatius, brother of my old preceptor, Dominie Daidle of Cromartie; one to whom I owe a reprieve from an unjust and shameful death."
A kind smile spread over his usually grim visage as I led him away, and he explained to me the circumstances of his capture, and how he had narrowly escaped being sent to enjoy the company of those glorious martyrs and old Scottish missionaries on whom his mind was constantly dwelling, and of whom his friend, Father Robert Strachan of Dundee, was preparing, as he told me, to give the world a history so ample, in hisGermania Christiana. A musket-shot had been sent through the crown of his shovel-hat, and as such chapeaux were somewhat scarce in Stralsund, he contemplated the orifice with a rueful aspect, as he smoothed down the well-worn nap with his threadbare cuff.
During this, perceiving a half-starved little girl shivering in the doorway of a deserted house, the good but eccentric man (in imitation, I suppose, of St. Martin, when he rent his military cloak in twain, and divided it with a poor devil whom he, met in the streets of Rome) tore off the long skirt of his cassock, spread it over the shoulders of the wanderer, and then stalked on beside me, looking altogether, with his long lean body in the short fragment of his garment and tight serge breeches, as remarkable and absurd as when he appeared before Ernestine in the drummer's doublet at Eckernfiörde.
I took him first to the residence of Ernestine, who had a sincere friendship for him, notwithstanding all his uncouth eccentricity; but, having much to relate, I will only rehearse briefly the news he gave us from the Imperial camp.
The losses endured by the troops of Wallenstein, he stated, were frightful; their trenches were now mere graves, where hecatombs of slain lay buried; but hordes of barbarian soldiers were pouring to his banner from Croatia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Upper Austria, so that severe and disastrous work was yet before us.
Bandolo had been lurking about the Imperial camp, coming abroad only in the night when, like a wolf or jackal, he prowled about those places where he could plunder the unburied dead; and, though fired at repeatedly, he had always escaped. A week ago, the regiment of Merodé had joined, and having marched through Hesinge, had there learned the whole story of Gabrielle's terrible fate. Colonel Johan de Vart (or Wert), a reckless soldier, on whom Carlstein had bestowed many favours, then challenged Merodé to single combat with rapier and pistols, on horseback, before the tent of Wallenstein. After a furious combat, the colonel ran the count fairly through the heart; and thus perished the primary cause of poor Gabrielle's death, but the actual perpetrator yet remained to be taken. By beat of drum Carlstein had offered three thousand ducats to any man who would bring Bandolo before him, dead or alive; Wallenstein had offered as much more from his own purse; Major-general Arnheim had added a thousand, and Camargo five hundred, thus a vast sum was now set on the head of the assassin, whom Count Tilly could no longer protect even if he was disposed to do so. The cupidity of a hundred thousand men had been excited by the proffered reward, and Bandolo had been hunted from one hiding-place to another. For three days he had lurked among some rocks and woods near Hohendorf, where the count in person, with three squadrons of his Reitres, had tracked him like a wolf; and with these three squadrons he had once maintained a running fight for six hours. He was almost naked; in his superhuman exertions to elude pursuit, by rushing from rock to tree, and from tree to rock, his clothing had been torn to shreds, and little more remained than the belt and pouch of ammunition which supplied his murderous carbine. He did terrible execution among the count's Reitres! Concealing himself at one time behind a rock, at another behind a bush, or among the furze and long grass, he hovered within gunshot, and picked off the leading troopers, until terrified by the havoc committed by his single arm, and by the miraculous manner in which he escaped their shots, as if he was bullet-proof; and, moreover, finding the perfect impractibility of pursuing in their heavy accoutrements a half nude and wholly desperate man, who was strong as a lion, active as a lynx, and determined to die rather than be taken alive, Carlstein's Reitres had been compelled, but reluctantly, to relinquish the chase, and thus Bandolo had escaped.
"Escaped!" I exclaimed, and started to my feet; "ah! if I, with only six of our fleet Highland mountaineers, had been there, a different story had been told."
"Well, he escaped, and none save myself know to where; for he sent me a message by a poor Franciscan yesterday, that he was concealed in a cavern of the isle of Rugen, which is now almost desolate; for Wallenstein's Croats have poured over it like a fiery scourge, driving all the inhabitants into the sea."
"You are sure he is there, sir?"
"Sure as that I now address you," continued the Jesuit, from whom I concealed the fierce exultation that, arose within my breast; "but he will soon be discovered, and may Heaven, through the intercession of one more worthy than me, grant him that contrition and forgiveness for the horrors of his past life, which I—by falling into the hands of your very unceremonious patrol—am unable to afford him."
"And would you really have gone to him?" I asked with unfeigned astonishment.
"Bandolo has an immortal soul, as well as yourself, Captain Rollo; and had he slain my own father (and, Heaven knoweth, I loved little Gabrielle like a daughter of my own), it would have been but my duty to visit him when summoned on such an errand."
"What errand?" said I, drawing the buckle of my belt with impatience.
"He believed himself to be dying; and, if free and unfettered, on what plea could I withhold the last sacrament from a repentant sinner—one inarticulo mortis, as he most probably is."
"And he is lurking"——
"In a cavern of the rocky isle of Rügen—poor wretch!"
I turned away, lest the simple-hearted priest should read the dark thoughts that flitted through my mind; for he thought that in Rügen, Bandolo was as safe from those in Stralsund, as if he had been among the Norwegian Alps. All that long and terrible debt of vengeance, which time and atrocity had scored up between us, seemed now on the point of being paid off. In the keen exultation of the time, I had only one fear—that Bandolo might die ere I could reach him. Some may deem this sentiment revengeful and unchristian; but let me remind them that Stralsund was not then the school wherein to learn the Christian virtues.
Concealing my future intentions under a mild exterior, after we left Ernestine, and when we walked through the streets towards the house of our preacher, where I intended to billet Father Ignatius, I acquired every necessary information about the isle of Rügen. There were no Imperialists there now; the few inhabitants who had not been shot or driven into the sea, lurked in their half-ruined villages; and the cavern occupied by Bandolo lay among some rocks that overhung the Black Lake, near Stubbenkamer. Poor Father Ignatius, in the perfect simplicity of his heart, gave me all the information I required.
Already, in imagination, I saw Bandolo in his cavern! I could reach it blindfolded! These little details occupied me until we reached the billet of our regimental minister, the Reverend Mr. Gideon Geddes, to whom the burgomaster had carefully assigned one of the most comfortable, and (so far as cannon-balls were concerned) least exposed houses in Stralsund.
To him I introduced Father Ignatius, whom he welcomed with a sour smile, and after measuring him from top to toe with his eye, as if he was examining an adversary, invited him to partake of the supper which his servant was just then spreading on the table. I now bade their reverences adieu, and went in search of Phadrig Mhor.
I should have remembered that good and true, though homely adage, "concerning two of a trade," who seldom agree; and that our preacher's billet, though the largest house in Stralsund, was still not large enough to contain two such spirits as Father Ignatius, a follower of Loyola, and the Reverend Gideon Geddes, who had studied divinity at the ancient university of Glasgow. A tremendous explosion of polemics was the result!
The Reverend Gideon, a hard-featured, short-nosed and wiry-haired little man, with eyes like a Skye terrier, stiffly starched bands, and a sable cloak of the newest Geneva cut, was unguarded enough, in the very middle of supper, to make some caustic remarks concerning the absurdity of Lent and saints' festivals.
Father Ignatius defended both from Scripture.
The Reverend Gideon retorted by averring that the devil might quote Scripture; but that the church of Rome could never stand before the Bible, and that the triple-headed beast, which arose from the gates of hell, would soon be hurled behind them.
Irritated by this, Father Ignatius swelled up in his skirtless cassock, and told our chaplain that he was a blasphemous wretch, a preacher of heresy, a broken reed, and so forth—one who railed at a church which would yet overshadow the earth.
"Nay, nay," said our preacher, with a grin; "for lo you now! There riseth a tide which, from the shores of the Baltic, will flow to the Adriatic, and in its passage that tide shall sweep away Rome and its corruption. The force of opinion, and the valour of Gustavus and his host, will bear all before them. All the world knoweth that the crimes of the Cæsars, of Nero, Tiberius, and Heliogabalus, were as purity and innocence when compared to those of Pope Stephen and many of his successors, down to him who was the father of the Duke of Valentinois and Lucrezia Borgia."
"Wretch!" replied the Jesuit, "I only pray that Heaven may spare you to repent this blasphemy, or permit you by your invincible ignorance to escape the flames of the great abyss."
"Jesuit—I need no man's prayers," replied the sturdy Presbyterian, snapping his fingers; "my ain are enough, and may be mair than enough for my purpose—but a Jesuit's—feich!"
"Sir," said the priest proudly, "the order of Jesus are the best soldiers of the church of Rome!"
"Likely enough," retorted Gideon; "for it's a kirk that's been unco fond of war of late."
Then arming himself with the famous folio Bible of Andro Hart of Edinburgh, and Calvin'sCommentaries, he returned to the charge against Lent and images, and assailed poor Father Ignatius with such vigour and vituperation, and with such a noisy storm of hard Hebrew names, that he had great difficulty in keeping his ground; for our preacher was one of those clever fellows who take care to keep all the argument to themselves. At this crisis, when the battle was at the fiercest, a file of the quarter-guard were sent by Major Fritz, who separated the angry disputants, and conveyed the Jesuit to his own billet, at the house of the widow.
Without asking permission (for I knew that at such a time it would not be acceded to me), I selected Phadrig Mhor, and six of our musketeers who were western islemen, and consequently accustomed to boating; and having procured a long, light, and sharp boat (one of the many that lay moored and now unclaimed beside the deserted mole), we pulled softly out into the Sound, and, favoured by the obscurity of the night, passed undiscovered between the gallies and gun-barges of Wallenstein.
My men were all M'Donalds, and were stout and active as mountain deer; they were all armed with sword and pistol, dirk and musket, and had left their plaids and all their heavier trappings behind them.
We pulled straight across, towards the rocky isle of Rügen, which is indented by innumerable bays and inlets, so that we had no fear of finding a place wherein to conceal our boat. This island, which is one of the largest in the Baltic, and was famous of old for the bravery and valour of its inhabitants, the Rugii, who worshipped the barbarous idol Hertha, rose in dusky and broken outline ahead, as the twinkling lights of Stralsund sank in the midnight mist astern.
My sturdy Celts soon shot their light boat across the narrow Sound; we ran it into a small creek, which lay a few hundred yards to the left of the landing-place near Oldevehr, and there concealed it among the thick underwood that overhung the rocks.
Ascending the narrow and now untrodden pathway that led directly to Bergen, the little capital which lies nearly in the centre of the isle, we struck off immediately, by a road which Father Ignatius had described to me, as leading to the lurking-place of Bandolo, and which, though a small and obscure track, my followers, to whom I imparted my purpose and all the bearings of the place, found with the instinct of true Highland foresters.
This island, where in after years our regiment achieved one of its most brilliant victories, measures about thirty miles each way; but so deeply are its rocky shores embayed by the sea, that no part can be further than three miles from the shore. Ruden, a little islet now lying in der Rugische Bodden, and anciently a part of it, was rent from the mainland by a tempest in the fourteenth century, when the sea burst through the isthmus, and formed a deep channel, through which the largest vessels can sail. The centre of the isle was so fruitful, that it was called the Granary of Stralsund, but now it was all desolate; the cattle and horses had been shot or carried off; the fields lay untilled; the farm-houses were burned or otherwise destroyed; and all the inhabitants had fled to Pomerania, save a few miserable beings who lurked in the half-ruined town of Bergen, or Gingst, a village of linen-weavers, or Arcona, where o a stupendous rock there stands an ancient castle of the Vandals, containing the temple of their four-headed god, Sivantevite, in whose service were kept three hundred horses of spotless white; and whose worship was abolished by Waldemar of Denmark, when he conquered the island in 1168.
Aided by the rising moon, and guided by the landmarks, having frequently studied, during leisure hours at Stralsund, an old map of Pomerania and its islands, drawn by the geographer Ortelius, I led my party directly to that part of Rugen in which Father Ignatius had given me reason to believe Bandolo was lurking, like one of those wild wolves whose baying broke at times upon the solemn stillness of the midnight sky.
Unseen and in silence, we passed various little hamlets, such as Casnevitz on the right, Landau on the left, and Bergen, which lay fifteen miles distant from Stralsund, and was then diminished to about a hundred houses. By one of the country people (who speak a species of Sclavonian) we were directed to turn round the angle of a bay which lay on our left; the waves of the sea were dashing on our right, and we threaded our way along a narrow granite ridge, which leads to the wooded peninsula of Jasmünde, the northern extremity of which was that remarkable chalky cliff, six hundred feet high above the sea—the Stubbenkamer, the highest peak of which is named the Kœningstuhl, or King's-chair. We had now reached the north-east point of the isle, and were more than four-and-twenty miles from Stralsund. The hour was about two in the morning; and thus, thanks to our sturdy limbs and thews, we had got over a devious and difficult route in an incredibly short space of time.
Before us lay a wooded valley covered by dense timber, and darkened by the richest foliage. This was the forest of Jasmünde, which supplied all Rügen with fuel. Beyond it rose the headland called the cape of Stubbenkamer, against whose base of rock the Baltic rolled its waves; and between us and the moon, like a deep basin girdled in by the wooded hills, lay theBlack Lake, overlooked by the cavern which, as the Jesuit had assured me, was occupied by Bandolo, and lay directlyoppositethe path by which we approached its bank.
"Softly now, Phadrig," said I; "we are right upon the trail of the wolf; keep under the foliage, for although the lake is a quarter of a mile broad, he may detect us by the light of that beautiful moon."
"Some one has passed this way but a short time ago," said Phadrig, who was on his knees, examining like a Highland huntsman, the pathway which was covered with grass.
"Ah!—and in what direction?" I asked.
"Towards the water; for in that way the pressure lies, and the leaves and twigs on each side are tossed in that direction."
"You have sharp eyes, Phadrig! can you detect any thing more?"
"Only, that the footmarks are those of a man by their weight and size."
"Good—we are on the scent, then!"
"A barefooted man," added one of our soldiers; "see, Sergeant Mhor M'Farquhar, the blades of grass are neither broken nor cut by brogue nor boot, but just pressed flat."
"Eachin M'Donuil is right, sir," said Phadrig, erecting his tall figure; "and moreover," he added, sinking his voice, "at every second footmark there is the angular indent of a musket-butt. I will therefore say that the man has been armed, barefooted, and weary, and leaned on his gun as he walked towards the loch side; but there we lose the track."
"He has either swum over, or gone round by the water-side," said I, "for the cave lies opposite."
By stooping down, we could perceive under the dark brow of a wooded cliff, and close to the water, a darker spot, which we had no doubt was the identical and primitive habitation we were in search of.
"Let us separate," said Phadrig; "I will go round by the left, with Eachin M'Donuil and his brother; if you, Captain Rollo, will take the right, with their two comrades."
"Very good, Phadrig, and we will steal softly towards the cavern, which must be our meeting-place. Look once more to your muskets and powder—be wary, as if you were tracking a wild bull by the shores of Lochindall or the Mull of O'e at home in Isla—and every man of you shall have a piece of gold to string at his bonnet-lug for this night's work, and more."
We separated, and, diving into the coppice, crept stealthily round the lake, pausing frequently to listen to any passing sound; but all was still as the grave. Over the bare scalp of the Stubbenkamer, the cold white moonlight streamed into the silent and wooded hollow, silvering the leaves, and the still, waveless surface of the lake. Not a branch stirred, for the wind was breathless, and the fleecy clouds were floating unmoved in the wide blue sky.
As we crept round with panther-like steps, and with that noiseless motion which the foresters of the Highland woods naturally acquired, like the Indians of America, by their habits of war and hunting, my mind was fully occupied by the anticipation of capturing Bandolo, and meting out upon his head the punishment which his life of atrocity so well merited, and which I believed no human hand could make sufficiently severe, there recurred to me a story (concerning this very lake in the wood of Jasmünde) which I remembered to have read in Cluverius; and which, if I had related it to my followers, might have put them all to flight; for although they were fellows who would have faced Satan himself by daylight, the same personage in the dark was quite another matter.
Cluverius asserts that this Black Lake is of wondrous depth; that it is bottomless; and, though teeming with fish, is the abode of demons, who will not permit either boats to swim on its surface, or nets to sink into its waters, which, like the wood around them, were sacred to the goddess Hertha, and her brother Nikelas, on whose altars the early Christians were yearly sacrificed. Cluverius relates, that in his own time some of the Rugii brought a boat to the lake, one evening, and returned next day with the intention of fishing; but, lo! to their astonishment, it had disappeared. After a long search, the boat was discovered, thrown on the top of one of the most gigantic beech-trees, and dangling far beyond their reach. As they shrunk back, they muttered one to another—
"'Tis the devils of the Stubbenkamer who have done this!"
"It was not the devils," cried a terrible voice from the bosom of the lake; "but only my brother Nikelas and I."
"We can only suppose," adds Cluverius, "that the unclean spirits, being wroth at the abolition of their worship, still love to play their tricks where idolatry was practised of old."
After considerable labour in piercing the thick barriers of tangled briers, furze, and roots of old and decayed trees, that encircled the lake, but shrouded from Bandolo's eye by the foliage with which our dark green tartans blended, crawling on our hands and knees, and dragging our muskets after us, we softly approached the low brow of rock that overhung the water, and in the face of which there yawned a cavern, having a mouth like some low rustic arch, against the piers of which the water chafed in tiny riplets; but the recesses of which probably pierced the profundity of the Stubbenkamer.
A sound like the croak of a crow announced to us, that our comrades were within pistol-shot on the opposite side; a McDonald replied by another sound like the whirr of a partridge, these being the signals agreed upon. Suddenly a wild and haggard figure came forth from the chasm. It was Bandolo—the assassin of Gabrielle!
My breath came thick and fast, and I heard the click of locks as my men cocked their muskets. We were within twenty feet of him, yet he saw us not. He leaned with his hands crossed and his chin resting on the muzzle of a long Spanish musket, which I thus supposed to be unloaded. He was pale and ghastly; for wounds, want, fatigue, and danger, had wrought their worst upon him. His coal-black hair hung in matted elf-locks around his neck, and over his eyes and ears; a thick beard bristled on his chin; his hollow and glistening eye gazed with a wild and unsettled expression, alternately on the sailing moon, and the deep still waters of the placid lake. He was almost nude, having nothing upon him but the tattered remains of a shirt and a pair of breeches. His brown and muscular arms and legs, from knee downwards, were bare; his breast was also bare, save where crossed by the belt of a cartridge pouch, and the fluttering rags of what had been a shirt. He was the very personification of a hunted wild beast—of a devil cast out from the society of devils—or of what he was, a wretch against whom all men had lifted up their hands, and whose hands were uplifted against all men.
One of my soldiers blew his match, and the red glow caught Bandolo's haggard eye. He uttered a growl, snatched his musket, and, rushing on one side, was confronted by the towering figure of Phadrig Mhor, with his Lochaber axe upraised, and the barrels of two muskets levelled right at his head.
Gnashing his teeth with rage and astonishment, he uttered a bitter curse, and turned to the other side, between the lake and rocks, but was there met by the brass orb of my target, my uplifted claymore, and two musket-barrels also levelled straight at his head. Uttering a howl of wrath and fury, he made a motion as if to leap into the lake, and then, changing his intention, rushed into the cavern; and now we were somewhat puzzled, for we knew not the depth or the windings of the place, from the recesses of which he might easily shoot us all down by his deadly aim if we entered; for the reflection of the moon from the lake would enable him to fire with terrible precision while we could not give him back a shot in return.
There was a pause. Eachin M'Donuil stooped down and fired into the cavern at random; at the same moment a ball from Bandolo grazed his head, and the double report reverberated among the woods and in the far recesses of the granite rocks in which the fissure yawned.
"Dia! this will never do," said the islesman, as he drew back to reload; "it is always darkest under a lamp. We may be within arm's length of this fellow, and yet not see him."
"Let us all rush in," said I; "he cannot knock us all on the head. Come, my boys! with a good cause and a day's pay one may face the devil!"
But they were too wary; and, brave as they were, drew back, saying—
"And ifyouare shot, Captain Rollo, who will tell the marshal why we left Stralsund?"
I was somewhat at a loss how to proceed, for to besiege Bandolo in the cavern and starve him out, would be a tedious and dangerous process; as we would have to starve ourselves in the first place, and run the risk of being killed or captured if any of the Imperialists paid the isle a visit from the Duke of Friedland's camp; but Phadrig and our four M'Donalds were well versed in all the tactics of mountain warfare, and prepared at once to smoke him out. While two kept guard with their muskets cocked, the others hewed down a quantity of decayed wood, and hurled over bundles of withered grass and the last year's leaves. In the midst of these I threw a flaming match, ignited by snapping a musket; the leaves, grass, and branches, shot up into a flame, and upon that flame we threw a vast number of branches freshly hewn from pine-trees. Phadrig continued to cleave down the resinous boughs and green saplings, and these, which were to smoulder, were mingled with drier branches to burn, thus the fire and smoke rapidly increased together. As they rose, they were caught by the arch of the fissure, into which they were rolled by a west wind that blew across the Black Lake.
The wooded amphitheatre, of which its placid waters seemed to form the arena, glowed in light; the leaves of the distant trees reddened in the gleam, and a long line of wavering fire streamed from the narrow rocks across the bosom of the lake, whose woods and waters were all unchanged, as when the priests of Hertha raised their flaming altars by its wild sequestered shore.
The M'Donalds continued this work in grim silence, which they interrupted only by a low and fierce remark in Gaëlic; for these four men were the sole survivors of the clan Donald of Eigg, nearly the whole of whom were smoked to death in a great cavern by M'Lean of that Ilk.*
* Their bones may still be seen, strewing the floor of this cavern in Eigg, one of the Western isles.
I now applied my sword to the work, and hewed away with right good-will, heaping branches of every kind upon the flame below us; the rocks soon became blackened, and the flame, as it licked their granite faces, scorched off the grass and flowers. The smoke rapidly became a dark volume, stifling even to ourselves, and now day began to dawn on the bare scalp of the Kœningstuhl.
For nearly an hour the fire had burned, and Phadrig was beginning to express fears that Bandolo was no longer in the cavern, but had escaped by some secret outlet; when, lo! I heard a wild and despairing cry, followed by the discharge of two muskets, and, escaping both, Bandolo darted out of his lurking-place, scattering the blazing brands with his bare feet; and with his eyes starting from their sockets, his face pale as fear, fury, and wrath could make it, his long black hair streaming on the wind, his long musket brandished aloft, butt uppermost, burst out through the smoke and flame, and with a thousand red sparks adhering to his hair and tattered garments, fled like a dun deer up the side of the wooded hill.
Unwearied by our long march from Oldevehr, and being refreshed by the halt at the cavern mouth, and the cool morning air, we sprang away in pursuit, dashing up the ascent like true mountaineers, or like the Luath and Bran of other times. Bandolo frequently paused and staggered round to fire a shot at whoever chanced to be foremost in pursuit; but whenever he halted, we either threw ourselves flat among the long rank grass, or darted behind the nearest tree, for the mossy trunks of the firs and ashes grew thickly on the sides of the Kœningstuhl.
As we followed him in a half circle, keeping about a hundred yards apart, and thus forming a radius of six hundred yards, he soon found the impossibility of outflanking us on either side; and had to abandon what was evidently his wish, to descend again towards that wooded hollow from whence we had driven him. He was now compelled to continue his flight towards the Kœningstuhl, whose bare chalky scalp we could perceive above us, gilded by the rising sun, as we left the woods behind, and pursued this frantic and desperate man to the very summit of the mountain, which, being hewn into two halves by some mighty convulsion of nature, has formed an abrupt precipice above the chafing waves, and is named the Stubbenkamer—or most northern promontory of Rugen. Before him lay the wide expanse of the Baltic ocean, gleaming in purple and yellow, as the sun arose from its shining waters, then dotted by many a distant sail, bearing away towards the far-off gulfs of Finland and Bothnia. At his feet yawned an abyss, where the waves foamed on the reefs of chalky rock, and behind were six strong and active men, all armed to the teeth, and bent on his destruction.
Poor wretch! on every side was death, and in his heart—despair!
There were neither remedy, succour, hope, nor escape—and now, like a famished or hunted wolf, he turned and faced us at the verge of the precipice. Wild, ferocious, strong, and athletic, blackened and scorched by the fire through which he had passed—he stood, like a naked Hercules, with his muscular figure towering in full relief against the brightness of that orient morning sky which spread behind him.
As we approached him all our muskets were empty, and my men were deliberately reloading. His we knew to be loaded, and he was examining the lock and priming as we drew near. He was a deadly shot, and out of six of usonewas certain to fall. I had no doubt that his last bullet was meant for me; so I covered my breast with my light Highland target as we advanced, resolving, at all risks, to rush upon him sword in hand whenever I came near enough. Instead of levelling his musket against us, he placed the butt upon the ground and the muzzle under his chin—
"Ha—ha!" said he in a husky voice; "did you think of taking Bandolo alive? My hour is come—all is confused and terrible! see—there are other men among you—and women too—dim shadows, with glaring eyes and bosoms gashed by pistol shots and dagger wounds! (he passed his hand over his eyes.) Ha, ha, ha! 'tis all a dream—I rave. Look upon my sufferings—these wasted arms, these tattered rags—these hollow cheeks, these wounds and bruises—these scorched and blackened scars! Gloat upon them even as I would have gloated upon your confusion, shame, and agony in an hour like this; but Bandolo eludes you thus in death, as in life he has eluded thousands!"
He touched the trigger with his foot—shot himself through the head, and fell whizzing through the air into the abyss below.
At the moment he did this, we were almost within arm's-length of him; and never, until my own hour comes, shall I forget the terrible expression of his ghastly face, and the convulsed heaving of his vast chest and shoulders. We peered over the giddy verge, where, five hundred feet below, the white-edged waves were chafing on the chalky beach; but we could see no trace of the wretched suicide.
And yet, strange though it may appear, he did not then die.
Three days afterwards, Sir Nickelas Valdemar, when cruising off the Stübbenkamer, perceived the body of a man lying upon the beach, and sent a boat's crew ashore; and Bandolo (though the sailors knew him not) was found by them with life still lingering in his shattered frame. But what was his condition?
The ball, which entered his chin, had passed out through his nose, by the angle at which he held his head; thus no vital part was injured. The sea refused to drown him, and had flung him back upon the shelving shore, and there, with his shattered head and broken limbs, he lay naked and slowly dying, for the powers of life were wonderfully tenacious within him. The seagulls and cormorants had sat upon his breast, and torn the flesh from his face, and the hair from his temples, yet he could not resist them. Swarms of insects had buzzed about his wounds, and inserted their suckers, till the spray of the ocean washed them off, and left its bitter salt to render sharper yet the gnat and hornet's sting.
We are left to imagine the despairing cries he may have uttered to God for pity, and to man for help—cries heard only by the wild and the flitting seabirds; we are left to imagine the burning thirst that must have scorched his vitals, and the complication of agony endured by him from so many wounds and sores; and, greater yet than all, the scorpion's sting of wakened conscience, that, like boiling lead, and falling drop by drop upon his breast, must have tortured his dying hours—for they were many.
Why pursue further this revolting description of the wrath and retribution exercised by fate upon his miserable frame? Blind, for the gulls had torn his eyes from their sockets; maimed, for his limbs had been shattered by falling into the shallow water; tortured to madness by thirst, by the reptiles and salt that festered together in his wounds—he was found by the sailors of Sir Nickelas, who could only survey him with horror and astonishment, as he lay dying and despairing with his battered frame partly merged in the rippling water.
One, less feeling than his companions, stirred Bandolo with an oar, and he immediately expired. Then a shot was attached to his heels, and, dragged off the shelf of rock by a boat-hook, the body was immediately buried in the sea.
It was not for some months after this, that I learned this terrible sequel to the story of his fate, and to our adventure on the Stubbenkamer.