CHAPTER XL.

WE SAIL FOR THE ISLES OF DENMARK.

By this stroke of misfortune, forty stand of Danish colours, even those of Karl's pistoliers (_gules_ with the nettle-leaf of Holstein), became the trophies of Count Tilly; and the fertile provinces of Holstein, with north and south Juteland, were lost by King Christian, whose operations from that day until the great siege of Stralsund, were but a series of flights. The wreck of his own army retired across the Little Belt, while another column of infantry, which had escaped to the northern promontory of Juteland, and passed the Lïïmfiord into Yendsyssel, were there forced to lay down their arms; and, for a time, the Austrian eagle spread his wings from the banks of the Elbe to the shores of the Skager Rack.

The ship on board of which we--with the general--had so fortunately escaped, was the _Anna Catharina_, so named after the queen of Denmark, and built by Sinclair, a Scottish ship-builder, who was then master of the Danish dockyards. She was a large ship with two flush decks, a forecastle, and poop adorned with three gigantic lanterns; she had thirty ports for demi-culverins, and elsewhere carried twenty falconets; with these, Ian and some of our cavaliers sent an occasional shot at the shore as the yards were squared, and before a western breeze we bore away from Holstein for the Danish Isles, with our prow turned towards the Little Belt.

Cleaning their arms, stanching wounds, cooking, laughing, and making light of the past danger, our soldiers crowded the fore-decks; but in the great cabin, full of deep and bitter thoughts, Bernard of Saxe-Weimar sat writing to the king a sad detail of the loss of his troops and territories.

Around him, on couches, on lockers, on gun-carriages, and on the floor, were a number of Highland officers, many of them severely wounded, resting after the toils of the late contests at Oldenburg and Heilinghafen; and on their bronzed faces, their dark tartans, and battered armour, the light of an iron lamp fell fitfully, as it flickered and swung from a beam of the deck above. Near the duke sat the master, a short, thickset man, red-bearded and sunburned, wearing a flat fur cap, and enormous pair of crimson breeches. He had a keg of schnaps under his arm, and from it he was liberally filling the quaighs of those around him.

"Thy name?" said the duke abruptly, laying down his pen.

"Nickelas Valdemar, your excellency," replied the skipper, humbly removing his fur cap, being somewhat startled by the abruptness of the duke's manner.

"Kneel down, sir," said Bernard, unsheathing his sword.

"I beseech your excellency to spare me--to pardon me, if--if----" faltered the poor man, tottering down on his knees, and eyeing the bright blade askance with startled eyes; "if--if," he paused again.

"If what, sir--dost think I am going to kill thee?"

"If I was too long of hauling inshore; but I assure your excellency that the wind was right ahead----"

"Nay, my good man, better late than never. Of all my coward fleet, thou and yonder gallant Scot didst alone warp shoreward, and saved me with the help of this brave regiment; for that good deed I dub thee knight--arise, Sir Nickelas Valdemar!"

"Knight Valdemar!" reiterated the honest skipper, drawing up his punchy figure to the full extent of its short height, and taking a complacent view of himself from his red beard to his brass shoe-buckles. "Knight Valdemar!--oh, your excellency! what news this will be for my poor old mother, who sells tallow and pitch at Helsingör. I shall now carry my pennant through the Sound at the mainmast-head, like the king himself or any other knight of the Dannebrog--and who shall say me nay? not the admiral of Zeeland himself. Knight Valdemar!--oh, your excellency----"

"Your ship is named----"

"The _Anna Catharina_, your excellency."

"Oh--did you receive on board the prisoners I sent you yesterday morning?"

"Four in number--yes, your excellency."

"The Count of Carlstein would pay his respects to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar," said Ian, entering unhelmeted, and leading in the brave Imperialist, who had now somewhat recovered from the effect of his dangerous immersion.

"The Count of Carlstein, now colonel-general of the Imperial horse! I knew not that a soldier so renowned in arms was our prisoner," replied the duke, rising; and then they saluted each other with the utmost politeness.

"We meet under different circumstances now than when last we met, Saxe-Weimar," said the count, with a smile.

"Yes, at Lütter, just below the castle wall. I was at the head of my German cavalry, and you----"

"At the head of Cronenborg's invincibles."

"We had a tough two hours of it with pistol and spada," said the duke, laughing; "but remember that now, saved as you have been from drowning, Count of Carlstein, you are not to be considered as our prisoner. Go--I free you; retain that sword which you have ever drawn with honour against us, and unransomed rejoin your victorious soldiers on the first opportunity; for us, they are too fatally victorious. To-day I have lost my dukedom, and to-morrow Denmark may lose her crown."

"A thousand thanks, gallant Bernard! This is so like the modern mirror of chivalry we consider you; like that gallant warrior who defended himself amid the flight and carnage at Lütter with the strength and valour of Achilles. But I will not hold my freedom so cheap, and from this hour you must consider my castle and town of Geizar in Bohemia your own. It may repay you; but how can I repay the debt of eternal gratitude I owe unto this gallant Scottish gentleman--my countryman--my friend;" said the count, taking the hands of Ian in his own; "for in a moment of unparalleled peril, at the risk of his own life, he saved mine from amid that mass of drowning Danes and plunging chargers. Ha--I have here another friend!" he added, in our own Scottish tongue, as he turned to me; for, dubious of how he might greet me, I stood a little back from the group, and leaned upon a handsome sword M'Alpine had given me. "By my soul, young sir! you nearly ruined me with Count Tilly, by that escapade at Luneburg. What the deuce were you doing under the auld carle's bed? He vowed by all the saints of Rome that I had a design to assassinate him."

"I entered the chamber of Tilly by mistake," said I; "and my blundering follower, in his fear and confusion, crept under the bod."

"And now, sirs," said the count, as he suddenly changed countenance; "may I ask if you know aught of two ladies who, with their servants, were yesterday taken prisoners by a patrol of Klosterfiord's pistoliers?"

"They were delivered to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar," replied Sir Donald Mackay.

"Duke, duke! these ladies are my daughters," said the count--with a faltering accent.

"They have been treated as such," replied the duke, "and I rejoice, count, in being able by one graceful act of kindness to draw a veil over the horrors of to-night."

The duke suddenly drew back a double door, revealing another cabin beyond, where we saw two ladies seated together, half embraced, and near a table lighted by a lamp.

"Ernestine--Gabrielle!" cried the count. He sprang forward, and, with a mingled cry of surprise and joy, his daughters threw their arms around him.

The keen blue eyes of the gallant Bernard glistened, and with much good feeling he softly closed the door upon this tender scene.