CHAPTER XIV.
Deserted and empty stood the camp before Frederickshall, as Arwed and the two other officers rode into it. Baggage-men and other camp followers swarmed about the barracks, searching for whatever their late inhabitants might have left behind them worth the finding. The flag of Denmark waved from the Golden Lion, and some companies in the Danish hunting dress were leveling the Swedish embankments and closing up the trenches which it had cost so much time and trouble to open.
'What is that?' cried Arwed with surprise and displeasure. 'Has our army been beaten, that they have raised the siege whose successful termination was so near?'
'I had expected it,' answered lieutenant Bioernskioeld with a lowering countenance: 'but not so soon. The army has marched back to Sweden.'
'How have the times changed!' said Arwed sorrowfully. 'Ninety years ago, the dead Gustavus Adolphus inspired his army and urged it to continual contests and glorious victories,--and now it seems that old Swedish courage and the heroic spirit of her king have flown together, and that the laurels gained under his guidance are yielded in shameful flight.'
'I hope, captain,' said Baumgardt, scornfully, 'that you do not presume to deride the commands of the fieldmarshal. Presumptuous censure of a commander, is in the army called mutiny, and according to our articles of war the punishment therefor is death.'
'You are now on duty, colonel,' said Arwed, with difficulty suppressing his anger. 'I shall therefore hold myself prepared to answer your reproach on a more suitable occasion.'
Some Danish rifle balls from the trenches at this moment whistling about their heads, broke off the conversation. The horsemen silently hastened out of the precincts of the deserted camp, and trotted briskly towards the east, after the retreating army.