CHAPTER XIX.

THE CASTLE OF KIEL.

Fresh air and light, a little food and wine, with one night's sound sleep, completely restored me.

Partially undressed, and with a rich velvet mantle thrown over me, I was lying upon a beautiful bed, which, as I afterwards learned, was the couch of that valiant Duke of Holstein, Adolph, archbishop of Bremen, who overran the Ditmarsch, and compelled the proud Hamburgers do him homage. The four columns sustaining the canopy were of exquisitely carved oak; the canopy itself, and the coverlet, were of blue silk, brocaded with gold flowers; the former was surmounted by plumes of feathers, and was lined with white silk, fringed with silver within and gold without. It was too luxurious, and seemed like a beautiful toy, made only to be admired, or for a fairy to sleep in. The apartment was neither wainscoted nor tapestried, but was hung with matting of shining straw; the ceiling was composed of oak, the beams of which intersected each other, forming panels wherein had been recently emblazoned all the armorial bearings of Christian IV.; the variously coloured lions of Denmark, Sleswig, Norway, and Gothland; the golden dragon of Schonen; the paschal lamb of Juteland; the blue cavalier of Ditmarsch; the nettle leaves of Holstein; the cygnet of Stormar; the cross of Oldenburg, &c. &c.; the leopard, the crossed spears, and the crowned savages, wreathed and armed with clubs. Three windows of stained glass faced the gulf of Kiel; one of these had been broken by the passage of a cannon-shot, and fragments of the iron bars and brass wire which formed the latticed grating were visible beyond.

The whole furniture was in confusion; in some places mirrors were broken; in others, were pictures that bore strong traces of having received a passing slash from a sword.

I had just made a survey of all this by one glance, and throwing aside the mantle was about to rise, when Count Kœningheim, who had been writing in a recess of one of the windows--for the castle walls were of enormous thickness--approached, and bade me good-morning.

I gave my hand to this soldier of fortune, who, only a night or two ago, had expressed his rage at me for loving a woman whom he vowed not to marry even if she was a queen, with the wealth of India for her dowery.

"Well, my comrade," said he, after a few words of compliment and inquiry had passed; "Zounds! was not yonder blow-up a rough interruption of our tilting-match?"

"Your magazine of powder, was it not?"

"Twenty tons were stored up in the Hall of Appeal. On the night of the bombardment I had a saucisson laid, and the hall undermined, to blow up the whole in case of being obliged to abandon Kiel. Your partial conflagration fired the saucisson, and has cost the emperor more powder than he will probably commit to my care again--for some time at least."

"And my comrades--did they all escape?"

"All, save one. Favoured by the confusion, they vanished from the streets, and, regaining their boats, got clear off; but that secret entrance will not serve their purpose a second time."

"And he who did not escape?" said I.

"Is now hanging from yonder tower," said the count, opening one of the pointed windows, and showing me a prospect of the town, the chief feature of which was the great square tower of the church, with its lofty and tapering hexagonal spire, from the summit of which there dangled something like a crow. I could perceive it to be a human figure, but diminished by distance, and wavering in the sea breeze; it swung to and fro, now against the spire, and now a few feet from it in the air.

"Count Kœningheim," said I, turning with anxiety and indignation from this startling spectacle, "and have you--who, like myself, am a Scottish soldier of fortune--dared to hang one of my comrades?"

"If yonder Danish purser, whilome a distiller and smuggler, was one of your comrades, then I have indeed dared to do so."

"The poor man was only serving his king and his country."

"He has cost the Emperor twenty tons of good gunpowder--an unanswerable argument," replied the count, as he folded up his despatch and endorsed it to Tilly, whose troops were down somewhere about the mouth of the Elbe. "And did you really imagine, Captain Rollo, that I would have hanged one of our kindly Scots, as I hung yonder purser? _Hawks dinna pyke oot hawks' een_; and I assure you, that although we fight under different banners, I love the blue bonnet far too well to hang its wearer as a Danish scarecrow. In the devilish mood I was in on the night of the bombardment, I would have thought no more of slaying you--if able--than of taking this glass of wine; but after the affair was over--after I thought you fairly crushed to death--and a day or two had elapsed, it seemed a shame and a scandal to me that a brave Scot, with the tartan on his breast and the kilt above his knee, should lie uncoffined like a dog under a fallen house. I set the pioneers of Camargo to dig out your remains, and had fully resolved to inter them with all the honours of war in the great church of the good city of Kiel. We had not the most remote hope of finding you alive in the vault, like Holger Danske in that dungeon under Cronborg castle, where, as the legend says, he has sat for a thousand years with his armed knights around him."

"And where is the Danish fleet?"

"At the mouth of the gulf, where Christian has landed, and ordered your regiment of Highlanders to erect a strong sconce on the shore. But enough of these things at present. You will breakfast with me, and then we will talk of military business afterwards."

"Business," thought I; "that must mean my transmission as a prisoner of war into Central Germany!" He led me through various apartments to one, the princely magnificence of which excited my admiration. Kœningheim laughed at me, saying--

"Erelong, there may be no other hangings on these walls than such as the spider spins."

During breakfast he asked me many questions concerning Ernestine--casually, concerning her health and amusements, but all with kindness, and without the slightest tinge of jealousy. Though his friendship was sincere, it was evident that he did not love her. There was a riddle in this? The count, her father--old Rupert-with-the-Red-plume--was at Vienna, and was soon expected by the army to resume the command of his division. The poor man consequently still believed that his daughters were in perfect safety with the old Queen of Denmark.

"Then," said I, "neither you nor he are aware that Gabrielle has been abducted by Merodé?"

"Merodé--abducted!" stammered Kœningheim, as his sun-burnt cheek grew pale, and then flushed with anger; "do you tell me that Merodé has dared----"

As briefly as possible I related the dangers into which the sisters had fallen; the affair of Bandolo, and the retention of Gabrielle at Fredricksort.

The count thrust his breakfast from him.

"Fire and sword!" he exclaimed; "to know now that they have been in the Wohlder, within a few toises of my outposts, and I knew not of it! Oh! Captain Rollo, I love those girls as if they were my own sisters--for they are good, amiable, winning, and indeed most loveable; yet withal, and notwithstanding Carlstein's kind intentions, believe me I have no more idea of marriage than of flying in the air. Oh no! I shall never marry! I do not think that the world possesses a daughter of Eve who could tempt me to forsake the camp for her bower, or the head of my regiment for the poor pastime of dangling at her skirt. Fortunately, it is not far from this to Fredricksort, and Gabrielle shall be freed even if we must take the place by storm. Ten devils! to think she has been so long with such a man as Merodé!"

"Perhaps he is not so bad as rumour makes him. He may respect the high rank and perfect purity of Gabrielle."

"Respect--he, Merodé!" reiterated Kœningheim, with an angry laugh; "we might as well expect heaven and hell to change places, as to find one virtuous emotion in the heart of that ignoble soldier. The fool! he thinks that poor Carlstein is in hopeless disgrace, when at this very hour he may be travelling from Vienna with greater honours than any of us, save Wallenstein, have yet attained. Rest assured that I will free Gabrielle, and protect her until she is restored to her father or her sister. If Merodé will not yield her," continued Kœningheim, beginning to buckle on his cuirass and sword; "by Heaven! I will pistol him at the head of his regiment. I am not a man who stands on trifles, neither is Carlstein--old Rupert-with-the-Red-plume--as we Imperialists call him."

"You lads of the black eagle make small account of human life; and value blood no more than water."

"Blood!" he muttered, while continuing to arm himself; "the shedding of it under harness is but a matter of necessity, Yet, alas! Captain Rollo, by a fatal mischance, and in a moment of ungoverned passion, my disastrous hand has shed the blood of one whose fate hath cast a horror over my path in life. Wherever I have gone--in the camp and in the city, in the field and on the ocean, on the Scottish hills and on the German plains--that cloud has overhung me! With my own existence only, the cloud and the horror will pass away; but the memory of the deed I have done will never die in the peaceful spot which was blighted and cursed by its committal. I destroyed a life, to preserve and to defend which, I would have given my own a thousand times over, could such have been; but let me not recur to these old memories, for they madden and unman me!"

A dark shade had overspread the handsome face of Kœningheim--his eyes were saddened, and a spasm contracted his features; but, without remarking the bitterness of his emotion, I continued to assist him in accoutring, and also armed myself; for I had begun to entertain faint hopes of not being kept as a prisoner after all.

"Come, come, Kœningheim," said I; "you are not the only man who has slain a dear friend in a sudden quarrel."

"_Friend!_" he repeated, in a voice that made me start.

"No; when wine is in the head, and when the sword is in the hand, such things will happen," I continued, supposing that he referred to an unfortunate duel.

"Oh no!" said he mournfully; "such deeds as mine are done but seldom--yet, let me not think of it! Peace--solitude--at such times madden me. Action! action! that is the only relief. Come with me, then; let us ride for Fredricksort, and save Gabrielle from Merodé--the lamb from the wolf--the dove from the vulture."

We descended to the gate of Kiel, for the hope of liberty and of freeing Gabrielle restored me to fresh energy; and though Kœningheim expressed his doubts of my ability for exertion, I waived every objection, and, accompanied by four dragoons of the regiment de Wingarti, who wore black iron helmets and corslets, white buff coats with wide skirts edged by red cloth, jackboots, swords, musketoons and pistols, we set forth; and though scarcely able to keep on my saddle, by weakness resulting from recent mishaps at Eckernfiörd and Kiel, I was never behind Kœningheim by the length of my horse's head.

To be brief, after a hard ride round the shore of the gulf, and seeing every where the poor peasantry flying at our approach to moor, morass, and woodland, we reached the great fortress of Fredricksort, only to find it a pile of dismantled and blackened ruins; for in some of their wild excesses, Merodé's officers (on the very night we were bombarding Kiel) had set their quarters on fire. They were thus compelled to remove to a neighbouring village, from whence--by orders received direct from Wallenstein--they had marched no one knew whither; but by certain smoky indications at the horizon, we supposed their route lay towards Flensborg. Merodé had several ladies with him in caleches, and a number of other women, and a vast quantity of plunder, in waggons and on horses; thus his regiment marched off like a triumphal procession, singing in chorus, with all their drums beating and colours flying, and with crowds of camp followers mingling and shouting among their riotous and disorderly ranks.

Such was the account we received from the tall Jesuit, Father Ignatius, who had visited Fredricksort on the same good errand that had brought us from Kiel, and whom we met fortunately, in a narrow green lane (near the ruined castle), where the good man had dismounted from his mule, and taken off its bridle, that the animal might crop the herbage that grew by the wayside.

Accompanied by the Jesuit, we returned towards Kiel with the unpleasant conviction that our journey had been perfectly futile; and having a fresh source of anxiety in the doubt, whether Merodé had taken Gabrielle away with his ladies who occupied the carriages, or whether the poor girl had perished among the flames of the burning fortress.

"There were no less than six waggons crowded by soldiers' wives, all as drunk as liquor could make them," said Father Ignatius.

"'Tis fortunate for those ladies that the old Roman law, by which a husband could slay his wife if her breath indicated wine, no longer exists," said I.

"But those ammunition wives smelt only of schnaps and brandy," said the priest, turning up his eyes.

Book the Tenth