CHAPTER VI.

THE CAPTURE OF BURG.

I did my duty well, but mechanically; for my mind was always wandering, and occupied by vague surmises, foreign from what passed around me.

Amid severe storms of frost and snow we came to anchor off Rodbye, and were joined by Kildon's company; thus the whole regiment now was under the command of Ian. With us were one battalion of the Lord Spynie's regiment of Scottish Lowlanders; the Baron Klosterfiörd's new troop of pistoliers (for Karl had escaped from the Imperialists); the Comte de Montgomerie's regiment of French Protestants, and a few slender companies of Danish pikes and musketeers, making barely in all three thousand men. With these the brave King Christian, regardless that he was but as a mouse attacking a lion, resolved to beat up the quarters of the invader at Fehmarn and elsewhere; and if he could not conquer, at least to harass and slay as many of the Imperialists as possible.

Storms of snow detained us a week; at last there was a fine day, when the air was clear, and the hoar-frost hung on the boughs of the leafless trees, and when the black ravens were seen floating above the snow in the sunbeams. This clear weather accompanied us into Fehmer-sund, a channel of deep water, about one mile broad, which separates the isle of Fehmarn from the coast of Holstein.

Looking upon this little place--the jointure of his wife-of-the-left-hand--as a key to the German empire, Christian had resolved on driving out the Imperialists; and at noon came to anchor off Burg, its capital, where we prepared to disembark under a fire of cannon and musketry from a regiment of Walloon infantry, who garrisoned the place.

Though early, in April, the day was bitterly cold; for the season was one of intense severity. The sky and the narrow Sound were both of the purest blue; but the whole island and the opposite coast lay buried under a thick mantle of snow. Here and there along the shore, we could perceive the deep tracks cut to denote the highways leading into the interior; the whole atmosphere glittered, and the breath of the soldiers froze on the cheek-plates of their helmets, or ascended in steamy vapour from the boats, which, with thirty musketeers of our regiment in each, made straight for the shore with drums beating and pipes playing.

I gazed earnestly at the low and level beach of Fehmarn, in the dim hope that Ernestine might have been conveyed there. My whole thoughts were of her, and I am sure Gabrielle was almost forgotten. Love, like grief, makes one very selfish at times. My recollections of that day are dreamy and indistinct. I was desperate, careless of life, and in that frame of mind which would have enabled me to confront a battalion of pikes as readily as I would have encountered a single man. I cared not a fig for what happened, and at the command of Ian Dhu, now our lieutenant-colonel, I gladly sprang into the first boat which, from the _Anna Catharina_, shot off for the shore.

Two men of my company (a M'Farquhar and a Mackay) fell overboard; but the cannon-balls from a flying battery on the shore, were ploughing the water about us, and we had not time to pick up the poor fellows. They called loudly for that succour which, in the hurry of that desperate moment, we were totally unable to yield; and, loaded by their iron trappings, accoutrements, and knapsacks, they sank like stones. What are the lives of two men, when those of thousands, perhaps, are hovering on the brink of eternity?

We landed under cover of a fire from our ships, which battered down the snow-clad houses of Burg to dislodge the Walloons. My company of M'Farquhars had the honour of first touching the ground. The kilted clansmen leaped into the half-frozen water--formed in line, and blew their matches as they advanced. Amid a storm of shot and forest of pikes, we fell on the Walloons with clubbed muskets, and after receiving and returning one volley drove them back.

"Who commands here in Fehmarn?" I asked of one poor fellow, a Walloon ensign, who had been shot through the side, and lay writhing on the ground.

He made no reply, but spat blood at me in his agony and animosity.

"Speak!" said I, holding my sword at his throat; "is it the Count of Carlstein?"

"No--it is Colonel Walter Butler."

"Then Ernestine is not here," thought I, hurrying after my men, who, on being reinforced by Spynie's Scots and Montgomerie's French, soon drove the Walloons pell-mell into the town, compelling them to leave their cannon behind. They had securely barricaded and loopholed Burg; and, as we knew their commander to be an Irishman, we prepared to encounter a resolute, and for us perhaps a disastrous defence. Landing his entire force, the king invested the place on all sides; and, perceiving that our ships cut off all succour by sea, Colonel Butler sent a drummer to crave a parley, which ended in his entire force marching out with the honours of war, their drums beating and colours flying, amid the yells and execrations of the boors, on whom they had committed innumerable ravages and outrages. From the beach, our boats in a few hours conveyed the whole safely over to the coast of Holstein.

Thus, with a slight loss, King Christian regained the whole island, and after collecting tribute from its capital, and the villages of Petersdorf and Puttgarten, and after tarrying there a few days to refresh, we prepared to reimbark, encouraged by the good success of our new campaign to make another essay upon the mainland of Holstein.

The house of the burgomaster was converted into a temporary hospital, and among the wounded who had been conveyed there, I recognised my former acquaintance, the Walloon ensign, and gave him a flask of corn brandy, apologising at the same time for the fright I had given him. He was now in better humour, and, being somewhat disposed for conversation, I asked him if he knew "the Count Tilly's confidant and scoutmaster, Bandolo, the Spanish bravo?"

"I have seen him a thousand times," he replied; "but you know not, cavalier, how we soldiers despise this cowardly truckler, who handles, but only in secret, the knife and the pistol. The day before you attacked us, he sailed into the Fehmer-sund with tidings of your coming, for which he received a hundred good dollars from Colonel Butler; hence our barricades at Burg, and our batteries on the beach."

"His vessel?" said I, turning breathlessly towards the Sound.

"A small dogger, with two sails, had on board only himself and three other men, I believe; but the fellow is bold as Ogier le Dane, or the devil himself."

"Were there any ladies with him!"

"Ladies with Bandolo!" repeated the Walloon, laughing, and then making a grimace as his wound twitched him; "why, cavalier, though the fellow is rich as Crœsus, the most degraded camp-follower would shudder at his touch. Rumour says that he is steeped to the lips in blood--the blood of assassinated men."

"And where is he now?" I asked, making a terrible effort to appear calm.

"I know not. As your ships entered the Sound on the east, he sailed out by the west, and is gone, I believe, towards Eckernfiörd, where a body of Tilly's troops are cantoned."

"Heaven be thanked!" thought I, leaving the poor officer on his bed of blood-stained straw; "it is on Eckernfiörd that we are next to bend our cannon."

As Fehmarn is a fertile island, we procured an ample store of the butter, cheese, and fresh provisions which the frugal inhabitants had been able to conceal from the Imperial marauders; and in lieu of their hose--now somewhat tattered--our Highlanders obtained some hundred pairs of soft stockings, which had been knitted by the wives and daughters of the boors.

We then re-embarked about the middle of April, minus our preacher or chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Zerubabbel Bang, who had the misfortune to fall in a duel. He and a lieutenant of Karl's pistoliers, having quarrelled about the burgomaster's daughter, a pretty little _jungfrau_ with blue eyes and blooming complexion, came to high words, and from thence to hard blows with backsword and dagger, and our poor minister (an old fellow student of mine at the King's College in the Brave City) was fairly run through the body and slain.

Being a commissioned officer, and having the rank of major, we buried him under the dismantled batteries with military honours. The right wing of the regiment fired three volleys above the grave, and our drums beat the _Point of War_, while the shovels of the pioneers closed his last abode for ever.