Philip Rollo; or, the Scottish Musketeers, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by James Grant

Book the Eleventh.

CHAPTER XXVI.
WALLENSTEIN.

Such was the story revealed to us by the little manuscript book of Kœningheim, who, wandering from his native land, had sought death among the armies of the Empire, but found honour, rank, wealth, and distinction heaped upon him; for, until now, in every field he had escaped unharmed, and seemed to bear a charmed life, for against his breast the bullet had failed, and the steel lost its point.

Ernestine and I kept the secret between ourselves, and to her care I consigned the little manuscript book, which we resolved to preserve as a relic or souvenir of a brave but unfortunate friend. He was buried with all the military honours of his rank.

King Christian ordered the royal standard to be half hoisted on the Anna Catharina, the yards to be topped up in various directions, and the rigging to be thrown into loops and bights; and, under a salute of cannon, the body was lowered into a boat, and slowly pulled ashore. It was the evening of a beautiful and sunny day, but I do not remember to have seen a scene more solemn. The brave and venerable King of Denmark stood bareheaded on the deck, and his single eye glistened with self-gratification at the last honours he was thus enabled to render the bravest of his enemies—one whose valour had mainly contributed to the defeat of the Danes at Lütter.

All the officers of the little fleet and army attended the interment, and three companies of our regiment (M'Alpine's, Kildon's, and my own) formed the firing party. The muffled drum rolled; the shrill fife and the solemn war-pipe poured their saddest wail; and after a prayer from the Rev. Gideon Geddes, our preacher, we lowered him into Danish ground, by the shore of the Baltic sea, whose tideless waves were chafing and rippling on the yellow sand, within a pike-length of his dark and solitary grave.

Close by, a choir of birds sang joyously among a group of green birches and copper beeches; the sun of one of the loveliest days of summer was setting at the far and flat horizon, and between the thickets it poured upon the open grave a flood of that warm light which was dying away on the blue waters of the sea. Three hundred bright musket-barrels flashed thrice in the sun, as they were raised with muzzles skyward for the parting volley.

Then the drums rolled, while the pioneers heaped the sandy earth above him, and all was over.

It was an open and somewhat desert spot; near were three earthen tumuli, where perhaps the warriors of some remote and unknown battle lay. These rose to the height of twenty feet above the wavelike ridges of the coast; and between them lay a small morass, with the roots and trunks of vast pines imbedded in the moss—the remnants of some mighty forest, that of old had shrouded the unhallowed rites to the spirit of Loda.

There was no stone to speak to other years—as our mountain songs have it—to tell his fame to other times; and thus the nameless grave of the poor Scottish wanderer was left in its solitude by the sandy shore of the Baltic sea.

There is ever something solemn, touching, and mysterious about a grave that is solitary; it seems loneliness made more lonely, especially if it is the last resting-place of a stranger—an unknown or a nameless person. Thus it is more than probable, that in time the honest Holsteiners may have framed some dark legend concerning the Scotsman's grave, for oral transmission to the children of their children. But now to resume my own narrative.

Finding that the redoubt or sconce erected on the coast was of considerable strength, and by its elevation a garrison would be able to defend it on the landward, and keep all the adjacent country in check, while from the seaward they could be supplied with every provision,—after some skirmishing with the Imperialists from Kiel, and having one smart encounter, wherein Ian, with two companies of our regiment, handled Wingarti's dragoons (who endeavoured to turn our flank) in such a manner, that to their dying hour they would never forget the Scottish invincibles—King Christian drew all off on board of his ships, except some of old Colonel Dübbelsteirn's Dutch companies, who were left to defend the place; and who—if ultimately taken—would be no great loss.

We then put to sea.

This measure was rendered imperative by certain tidings which, about this time, old Baron Fœyœ brought from the sequestered court of Anna Catharina, concerning the siege of the free, and hitherto peaceful, city of Stralsund.

Wallenstein the Duke of Friedland, as generalissimo of the Emperor by sea and land, had resolved to sweep the shores as well as the waters of the Baltic. By shipping from Dantzig and the Hanse towns, he had carried the war to the other side of that shallow ocean, and pursued the Danes into the heart of their own isles. In the prosecution of his daring and ambitious plans of conquest, he hoped to cut off all communication between the states of Lower Germany and the Scandinavian kings; and by the aid of Poland—which was already dependent on Vienna—he hoped to stretch the authority of Ferdinand II. from the Sound of Elsineur to the shores of the Adriatic.

Such was the avowed intention of this great general; but in his inner heart he nursed one greater and more daring scheme, which was nothing less than to acquire territory and found a power, that, together with the army, which by his bravery, tact, and lavish generosity adored him, he might be enabled to throw off the yoke of that empire he was pretending to extend, and thus found a regal dynasty of his own.

In pursuance of this gigantic view he resolved to seize Stralsund, a city of the Baltic—the sixth of the Hanseatic League. It had remained peaceful during this disastrous war, pursuing those habits of industry which had secured it so many privileges from the Dukes of Pomerania; but its noble harbour, and vicinity to the coasts of Sweden and Denmark, made its possession necessary to the conqueror. He sent Campmaster-general Arnheim to the burghers, requiring them to receive an Imperial garrison; but they wisely refused, and betook them to their muskets and morions, buff-coats and halberts. He then sent Colonel Goëtz, who merely requested permission to march the enormous and disorderly army of Austria through the city; but the burgomaster was too wary, and this also was refused. Then the gates were closed and cannon loaded; the city stood upon its defence, and Wallenstein besieged it with a fury, the greater because it lay so near his newly acquired dukedom of Mechlenburg, and barred his way to mightier conquests. He poured his brigades through Pomerania, made the Duke Bogislaus IV. a prisoner; and after receiving £25,000 from the Stralsunders, as a bribe to leave them, unmolested, coolly put the money into his treasury, and then attacked the city with the greatest determination, investing it on all sides; but left Arnheim and the Count of Carlstein to press the siege, while he went to scourge the citizens of Gustrow, the capital of Mechlenburg, a duchy which had just been bestowed upon him by Ferdinand.

Such were the tidings brought to the king by the Baron Fœyœ,as we lay under easy sail in the Fehmer-sund, about the end of summer, and he was thunderstruck by the intelligence; for if Stralsund fell, the free navigation of the Baltic would be for ever lost, alike to Sweden and to Denmark.

Without an hour's delay, he despatched the Baron Karl on an embassy to the great Gustavus Adolphus, begging that they might now forget their petty jealousies, and unite to save the Stralsunders. Karl made good speed with his mission, and the famous treaty of 1628, concluded soon after, was its result. The northern kings bound themselves to combine for the defence of the city, and to oppose every hostile power in the Baltic. Gustavus offered to send Sir Alexander Leslie of Balgonie with five thousand Scottish troops, while Christian was to furnish a squadron of ships; and this squadron that gallant prince resolved to lead in person.

Elsineur was to be the muster-place, and all the remains of our slender garrisons in Zealand, Laaland, and Falster, and every man who could handle a musket in the king's service, was ordered to repair there by an appointed day.

CHAPTER XXVII.
THE MAJOR OF MUSKETEERS.

The whole of our regiment looked forward with joy and ardour to entering on this new arena of operations, where we hoped to do deeds more worthy of us than the futile and desultory conflicts maintained by the brave, but almost fugitive King Christian, along the shores of the Lesser Belt; and though at times I caught the old spirit, from the fire, animation, and example of my comrades, the presence of Ernestine, and the doubt which overhung the fate of Gabrielle, were to me a source of great anxiety.

Christian having heard that the Count of Carlstein was with the Imperialists at the siege of Stralsund, was so gracious as to offer Ernestine the use of a small vessel with a white flag, that she might, accompanied by a slender retinue, rejoin him; but she modestly declined, and requested permission to remain until she could obtain some certain tidings of her sister; and the king pledged himself, that between this day and that of the rendezvous at Elsineur, nothing should be left undone to discover in what direction Count Merodé had marched.

Ernestine's proud heart was filled with gratitude, and on her knees she wept and kissed the rough brown hand of the warrior king, who immediately raised her up.

In the cabin of Sir Nikelas Valdemar she stood, amid a group of some twenty noble ladies of Holstein, all fugitives, and bound for Zealand; but in her satin hood of that bright yellow, which so finely became her beautiful black hair, and with her dark, yet timid and dovelike eyes, my Ernestine was the fairest among that group of fair ones.

By the isles of Fuhnen and Zealand we were to march for Elsineur, while the king was to go round with the fleet by sea, and take on board some of the little garrisons he had left in Faasinge, Œrœ, and the lesser isles. The ladies on board the Anna Catharina, being anxious to reach the cathedral city of Roschilde or Copenhagen, landed with us at Faaborg, from whence they proceeded at once towards their various destinations; some in caleches, others by waggon, the usual vehicle of the country, for transmission from place to place.

The Baron Karl had kindly placed his gilded caleche with its two sturdy switch-tailed Holsteiners at the service of Ernestine, so long as she might require them, and, having no other means of protection, she resolved with her female attendants to travel with our column towards Elsineur. The circumstance of her being with us, thrown in a manner so isolated, completely under my wardship (a beautiful young girl under the charge of a young fellow of three-and-twenty—and that young fellow an officer), certainly made me think, that, if we were married, a great deal of trouble in the mode of travelling, and expense in the matter of billets, might be saved; but her unprotected state, the distance from her father, and the mystery that overhung her sister's fate, compelled me to keep such occasional thoughts to myself.

Ernestine placed perfect confidence in every soldier of our regiment, and there were not less than a hundred tall gillies in my own company, each of whom considered it their bounden duty to risk life and limb, if necessary, in defence of the foreign lady who was the kinswoman of their captain, and consequently the kinswoman of every one who bore the name of Rollo or M'Farquhar.

On the morning we landed at Faaborg, a beautiful and unclouded sun arose from a brilliant sea, and its morning light tipped the foamy waves with purple; even in storms, the waves of that shallow sea are never so great as those of the outer ocean; but by their fury and rapidity they are much more dangerous, as they roll through the narrow straits, to deposit amber on the sands of Courland and on the Prussian shore.

At the small and unsheltered port of Faaborg, the Danish boats landed us on the ruinous quay; the little that had survived the time when the soldiers of Christian III. burned the town, was ill built and fast decaying. Being situated at the end of a shallow bay, and among marshes, Ian resolved that we should at once march inland, lest the effect of a swampy district on our mountaineers in the summer season, might cause some fatal distemper. As the king had directed him to halt for four days, that we might recover from the close confinement of the ships, he marched for Hesinge, a small town which we entered about mid-day, with our drums beating and pipes playing, to the great consternation and manifest annoyance of the townsmen and boors; who, although too cowardly to fight their own battles, gave ever a poor welcome to those who were good-natured enough to do that favour for them.

During this ten miles' march, I had frequently walked by the door of Ernestine's caleche; she was becoming intensely dejected; for to lose sight of the Baltic seemed like relinquishing all hope of recovering Gabrielle.

As the regiment drew up in close column under the colours in the main street of the little town, where all their bright arms flashed in the sun, as they were ordered on the ground, with the clatter of seven hundred butts of steel, a well-dressed cavalier, who wore a suit of peach-coloured velvet, laced with silver, large calf-skin boots, a broad hat bound with galloon, and garnished by a red feather, with a sword and pair of pistols in his girdle, rose up from a table under a beech that stood before the door of the Inn, which was named the Green-Tree.

While his horse which stood near took corn from a wooden bowl, he had been regaling himself with a pipe of tobacco and a can of pale Odenzee beer, when the rat-tat of our drums and the flashing of our arms, as we marched in, had excited his attention. He came slowly towards us. I saw him look once or twice into the caleche which followed the baggage wains, and then, as became a well-bred cavalier, he touched his beaver to its fair occupant. His figure now seemed familiar to me.

"Welcome to Hesinge, Captain Rollo," said he, grasping my hand, with a broad laugh.

"Major Fritz!" I exclaimed; "I thought you were at Vienna."

"Henckers! I was there, long enough, paying the penalty of admiring a pair of pretty ankles in white stockings."

"Oh—the mask?"

"No more of that—for I cannot, with patience, think of the outrageous ass I made of myself. However, I escaped; reached Rostock, disguised as a valet of General Arnheim, and wearing a suit of his livery, which I purchased at Vienna, took shipping at the Baltic, reached Nyeborg last week, and was on my way to join the king, when I now learn that his majesty is sailing round by the Great Belt for Helsingör. I am most anxious to serve again."

"Christian will gladly receive you."

"'Pon my soul, I would be most happy to take charge of your baggage guard."

"Thank you, major—but Willie Lumsden, my own lieutenant, has that duty assigned him."

"I think it would be a very interesting service, notwithstanding the dust, the noise, and the screeching of the wheels at one's ear. Ay, faith!" he continued, looking back, "'tis a dainty dame."

"Who—Herr Major?"

"She, with the dark hair and yellow hood in yonder caleche. Those arms are very like Klosterfiörd's. Surely Karl has not been such a blockhead as to marry the daughter of old Rantzau—Gunhilda, the holiday nun—the prudish little sister of St. Knud?"

"Our pistolier is still in the full enjoyment of single blessedness."

"Then whose ware may she be?"

I did not make any answer.

"Your colonel's lady," continued this incorrigible fellow; "for I do not perceive any other caleche. What! you grow red as a turkeycock! Zounds—it cannot be—is she thine? my dear fellow, I congratulate you. Happy dog! I should like to be in your shoes for six hours. Is she Carlstein's daughter? Faith! she turned the heads of half the Viennese."

I had some trouble in preserving my countenance and my temper, while Fritz ran on in this fashion. He quickly perceived this.

"Come," said he; "taste the beer of Odenzee. I drink to you, Herr Captain. You are a most fortunate dog; but upon my soul I would not like to have a wife half so pretty."

"Why so, Fritz?" said I, rather amused by his rattling manner.

"Because a girl like Lady Ernestine will never want for lovers. They will swarm about her, like flies round a honey-pot.'

"But I have the strongest faith in her."

"Faith! oh, that is an excellent and most necessary quality for one who has ideas of matrimony."

"Come, Herr Fritz—now, do not be impertinent."

"I—impertinent—not for the world."

"Your faith was strong in a pretty mask of black velvet."

"Enough, enough, my boy. I shall say no more," said he, clinking his can against mine; "my faith was not strong; but I am not the first man who has been led out of his way by seeing a mincing step, a lifted skirt, and a pair of pretty ankles, encased in spotless white stockings. Der Teufel! no. By the by, do you mean to beat up the Imperialists in this neighbourhood?"

"Imperialists here—in Odenzee—on this side of the Belt?"

"They are in every region but the Infernal, I believe, which should be their proper quarter. Is it possible that you do not know that a regiment of German musketeers occupy the old castle on the Cape of Helnœsland, about six Danish miles from this?"

"No, and sure I am that M'Farquhar, our lieutenant-colonel, knows nothing of it either."

"'Tis nevertheless true, though. Count Merodé, with his regiment, have ensconced themselves there, and have been playing some pretty pranks among the wives and daughters of our boors for a week past."

"Merodé!" I exclaimed, in a breathless voice, alike thunderstruck, and overjoyed by this intelligence. "Tell me, if there are any ladies with him."

"How should I know, my comrade?" asked the major waggishly, as he filled the beer cans again. "Is one—is that pretty one in the caleche, not enough for you? But doubt not, that wherever the Merodeurs are, a large assortment of the weaker vessels are always to be found."

"Ah, Heavens! Ernestine, be joyful! Think of what I have just heard!" said I, rushing from the major to the door of the caleche, where Ian had dismounted and was conversing with her; "our dear Gabrielle is in yonder castle on the promontory—not two cannon-shots distant."

"What the devil is all this about?" said Fritz, with a perplexed air, as he switched his capacious boots; "'pon my soul, 'tis highly dramatic!"

The eyes of Ernestine were filled with tears.

"Dioul! are you sure of this?" said Ian, whose hand wandered about the hilt of his long claymore.

"I am sure that at least Merodé is there."

"Enough then," said Ian; "madam, if this Austrian robber does not surrender your sister to us in four-and-twenty hours—spotless and unharmed as when he seized her—by the soul of my father! by the bones that lie under Cairn na Cuihmne! and by the Holy Iron, I will give his head to the wolves, and his heart to the eagles!"

Honest Ian commenced in German, and gradually slid into his Gaëlic, consequently, Ernestine understood only the half of what he said; but enough, however, to be assured, that he meant to rescue her sister at all hazards.

"May God bless you, kind cousin!" said she placing her hands on his shoulders, while her dove-like eyes, that beamed with affectionate admiration, were fixed on his dark and handsome face. "If a brave heart and a strong hand can save her, Gabrielle is already saved: and she could not owe her freedom to one she loves better than her cousin, Ian Dhu!"

"Let Merodé look to himself," continued Ian; "for it is not every day that he and his ruffianly caterans, have seven hundred Highlandmen to reckon their accounts with."

Big Phadrig, who was standing near, with his enormous tuagh, or Lochaber axe, gave it a flourish, and ran to acquaint the regiment (which had now piled arms) of the pretty piece of work that was likely to be cut out for it; while Ian assembled M'Alpine, M'Coll, Kildon, Major Fritz, and several other officers, under the Green Tree, where—assisted by several cans of Odenzee beer—a solemn council of war was held upon the occasion.

Our suppositions were correct; for, as the sequel proved, poor Gabrielle was actually that moment Merodé's prisoner in the old castle of Helnœsland.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE CASTLE OF HELNŒSLAND.

After carelessly setting on fire the fortress of Fredricksort, Merodé had been ordered by Tilly to establish himself in the next suitable castle; and in search of this, after a desultory and—to the people—disastrous march along the shore of the Lesser Belt, he daringly crossed over to Fuhnen, an island so named in consequence of its beauty and fertility, and established himself in an old tower, on the sandy promontory of Helnœsland.

Grim and strong, but small, and blending with the rock on which it is built, the castle had formed part of the dowery of the fair Florentina, Princess of Denmark, who about 1380 was espoused by Sir Henry Sinclair of Roslin (in Lothian), whom the king her father created Duke of Oldenburg, and Lord of Zetland; and I believe that his coat-of-arms, with the cross engrailed, the ships within the tressure, and the motto of the Lairds of Roslin, Commit thy work to God, are yet to be seen above the porch of the old fortress, collared by the orders which he wore—the Thistle, the Golden Fleece, and St. Michael.

While all the incidents which have occupied the last few chapters were passing elsewhere, Gabrielle was a prisoner in Helnœsland, pining for her father, for her sister, and for freedom, exposed to the incessant persecution of Merodé, who, instead of proceeding to extremities, had grown wonderfully tractable, and actually went the length of offering his hand, as well as his amiable heart.

When not attended by the count, Prudentia was ever by her side, to sing his praises. In this affair the dancer acted, apparently, with great self-denial; but, in truth, she and Merodé had grown perfectly tired of each other; and she was only waiting an opportunity for quietly and conveniently marching off with all the gold and jewels she could lay her pretty hands upon.

"Perverse one," said Prudentia, on one occasion, kissing Gabrielle; "have I not said a thousand times, that this handsome and gallant noble will marry you with joy?"

"Why does he not marry you??" asked Gabrielle simply; "I am sure you are much prettier than I."

"I am only a poor girl of Spain (Ay de mi Espana!)—you are the daughter of a great noble."

"The count should remember that, and permit me to join my father——"

"Who is not himself free; rumour says he is marching to Stralsund; but truth adds, as I have said before, that he is imprisoned by the emperor at Vienna."

"My poor father!"

"The Count of Merodé is at present heir-presumptive to the Duke of Pomerania!"

"But the duke may marry."

"What! old Bogislaus IV?" asked Prudentia, with a merry burst of laughter.

"Yes—and have heirs."

"Very likely," replied Prudentia drily; "for heirs often come into noble families when they have no business to be there."

So great was her terror of Merodé, that Gabrielie scarcely ever dared to undress; she slept by snatches, closing her eyes like a child lulled by weariness and weeping; and often started, thinking that she heard the voice of her sister, addressing her in the accents of affection and tenderness, or distress and despair; or imagining that she felt the hateful touch of the crime-blackened Merodé, or saw the handsome face, the grave, dark, honest eye of Ian Dhu. Frequently she thought herself again in the little dogger, rolling over the foam-crested waves of the Lesser Belt, and that friends were beside her. Then she would spring from the couch of the beautiful but guilty Spanish girl, to look forth on the dawning day, and the young alder-trees, that waved their green branches beneath the old grey tower of Helnœsland.

At last, one morning Prudentia disappeared, and all the valuables of Merodé—his diamond order of Carinthia, his massive gold chain with his holy medals, his purse, &c.—vanished with her, and all the magnificent jewels he had placed at the disposal of Gabrielle, who was doubly shocked on discovering the character of the woman who had been her companion; and that she was Prudentia, the celebrated dancer, and the sister of the infamous Bandolo; for in the first burst of his anger, the count told every thing. The horror of Gabrielle increased. The remembered sweetness of the dancer's manner, seemed now all acting and professional study; her wit became levity, her charming candour, impudence.

Gabrielle felt more than ever the impossibility of trusting any of those around her, and her heart shrunk within itself. Dreading his own officers, none of whom were very scrupulous, Merodé kept her so secluded that now she saw no one, save an old German woman, the wife of a Fourrier de Campement, whose waggon for retailing beer and tobacco, or exchanging them for plunder, had followed the regiment from Vienna.

As one day will suffice for a specimen of the system pursued by the incorrigible Merodé, I will select that on which he last did Gabrielle the honour to place at her disposal his hand as well as his heart; for he was now beginning to reflect, that if she ever procured her freedom, without some such guarantee (for her silence) as matrimony, old Rupert-with-the-Red-plume, who certainly was, as he knew, then en route for Stralsund, at the head of a column of infantry, might take a terrible vengeance on the whole house of Merodé.

The room occupied by Gabrielle was low and gloomy; it had two windows arched and grated:—one faced the Lesser Belt, and the shore of Alsen, about ten miles distant; the other opened to the promontory on which the tower was situated, and overlooked its spacious garden. There, the parterres were bordered by deep edgings of old boxwood; the older hedges and alleys formed labyrinths, overtopped by the rustling leaves of the shady beeches. About their old stems, the purple bramble and the yellow honeysuckle grew in heavy and matted clusters, while long dark wreaths of spiral ivy clambered along their gnarled branches. Here and there, to terminate the vista of the long shady walks, were placed several ancient stones, covered with hideous emblems, and those mysterious Runes, the invention of which is ascribed to Odin, ruler of the elements and king of spells.

Gabrielle seldom gazed into the garden, for some of Merodé's officers were usually seated on the benches there, playing chess, smoking, drinking, or toying with some of the ladies who had occupied the waggons seen by Father Ignatius. Her sad eyes were constantly fixed on the blue waters of the Belt; there liberty and freedom seemed to be; the passing ships—the sky and ocean—with the seabirds floating like white specks amid the sparkling azure.

Though the season was summer, a large piece of turf (the only fuel in Fuhnen) burned in the fireplace of her chamber; for these old castles by the sea are ever damp and cold. This was supplied from time to time by fresh peats heaped on by the Fourrier's wife, with an enormous pair of iron tongs, from an oak bunker, built into a recess, which, like the fireplace, the doors, windows, and every other opening in the edifice, had a low-browed narrow arch, with deep zigzag mouldings, springing from little shafted pillars with escalloped capitals. Great squares of hideous and uncouth tapestry, wrought, as tradition says, by the Princess Florentine, covered the walls. The figures and the subject were enough to appal even a stouter heart than Gabrielle's.

They represented the last human sacrifice offered up in Britain. In the midst of a wood of gloomy pines stood a group of tall, ghostly, and long-bearded Druids, armed with their brass celts, and bearing goblets of mead. Amidst them, stood Einhar, Earl or Jarl of Caithness, who, in a battle near Avon-Horsa, in the days when Gregory the Great was King of Scotland, had taken prisoner Haldona, Prince of Norway, and offered him up to Odin. On an altar of stone the prince lay bound, and in his throat was the knife of the arch-druid,* for even in Gregory's days, some priests of Paganrie still lingered in the northern isles.

* A mound still marks where this occurred, A.D. 893.

These horrible, misshapen, and ghastly figures, were unpleasant objects for Gabrielle to contemplate; and she always turned from them to the engrailed cross, the heraldic ships, and motto of the Sinclairs, which the princess had hung upon the pines of the forest, committing an anachronism by no means uncommon in ancient tapestries.

Lost in thought, with her cheek resting on her right hand, Gabrielle had been gazing on the waters of the Belt, which mellowed with the shore in the sunny evening haze. Her pretty feet, cased in high-heeled shoes of scarlet velvet, richly embroidered with gold, rested on a satin footstool. Her right hand played with her fine hair, which hung in short loose ringlets, according to the fashion of the time.

A step, and the touch of a hand aroused her.

She turned to meet the impassioned eyes of Merodé, with his lanky black mustache, long ringleted hair, parted in the centre of his forehead, and his sinister face a little flushed by wine and recent merriment. She gave a slight shudder—a shrug of her shoulder, and said—

"Oh—is it you again?"

"And have you really an aversion for me, whom even my enemies admit to be the first in the breach, the foremost in the charge, and the last in retreat—though the Imperialists never do retreat. The heedlessness and imprudence of youth have plunged me into an abyss of misery and error; but my pride still bears me up, Gabrielle—yea, above even your scorn."

She did not reply.

"Ah!" said he in a low voice, "if I could only be her friend, it would not be a bad preface to the part of lover."

"Friend—oh, never!" replied Gabrielle, who had overheard these words: "Merodé can never be the friend of a virtuous woman."

Merodé seemed to be stung by her words; but he laughed, while her eyes filled with tears.

"Upon my soul, girl, you will weary me by this incessant resistance. You are just like Clelia or Cleopatra, who did not give their lovers so much as the smallest kiss, sometimes for six years."

"Dear Ernestine—if you knew all I suffer here!" said Gabrielle, bursting as usual into a passionate fit of weeping.

"Oh, do not talk of Ernestine!" said Merodé, rather coarsely, for the wine he had just imbibed was loosening his tongue, while it clouded his faculties. "I do not see why you should have such a horror of following my regiment in a gilded caleche drawn by six white horses, when she follows the bare legs of the Scottish musketeers in a caleche drawn by two brown Holsteiners."

"Wretch—silence!" said Gabrielle, crossing to the opposite window, and seating herself.

"Wretch—silence? here is a specimen of such good manners as we learn in Vienna!" said Merodé, following and leaning on the back of her chair. He continued to say a hundred fine things, with which the fluency of the time, his own ready invention, and impulsive nature supplied him. For more than an hour he continued to talk thus; and for that hour Gabrielle did nothing but weep and sob—sob and weep—without replying, till her eyes became inflamed, her face pale, her head ached, and her heart grew sick.

"Ah! tell me, my pretty Gabrielle, why am I so repugnant to you? 'Pon my honour, one would almost imagine I was a veritable ogre! Now, for the last time, I conjure you to tell me, if I have any hopes of living, or if I must blow out my brains? Speak—this silence—this grief—this apathy, overwhelm me with sorrow. Ah, what an unhappy rascal I am!"

Still there was no reply given.

Merodé had been so accustomed by presents, by flattery, and feigned affection, to overcome every obstacle thrown in his way by the many dark, brown, and fair beauties whom he had subdued, that he was piqued, perplexed, and even amused by the difficulty and resistance he encountered in Gabrielle. This gave her a new and dangerous charm; and, after his own fashion, he was now beginning to love her, at the very time when—had he been successful—that love would have been dying away; so he continued to string together assertions of his love and admiration, in the style of camp and barrack love-making, most familiar to him.

"You are so enchanting, Gabrielle! you are just the height I admire, and you must remember how I adored you at Vienna. Though when taken in detail, perhaps, your face is not of that kind which sculptors—the blockheads!—term strictly handsome, when taken altogether, it is divine! Your eyes are lively, full of tenderness and fire; your lips are full of smiles—(certainly not just now, by the Henckers!) but red as a rosebud; and your ankles—'pon my soul, they are very fine!"

Here Gabrielle retreated to the other window, and turned her back, but he followed her; then she began to tremble with anger.

"I do not mean to insult you—I do not mean to be rude! I have the tongue of an ass," said Merodé, beginning to speak very thick. "What is all this about? Now, if I was not a young fellow of spirit—ah pardon me, poor little Tot!—or is it a romance we are acting? I never meant to marry, but hang me as high as Mordecai, if I will not marry you, Gabrielle, ay, marry you in sober earnest—rather than not have you."

"Insult upon insult!" she murmured.

"Come, come, Gabrielle," said he, approaching a step; "listen to what I say, for assuredly your friends have forgotten you."

"It almost seems so," she replied, drowned in tears; "but even it were so, God will not forget me."

"Neither He nor they can protect you, while under the colours of the valiant regiment de Merodé."

"For pity's sake, do not, on any account, be tempted to speak blasphemy," said she.

"Der Teufel! what a difference between girls of eighteen and girls of five-and-forty; the first are as timid as the latter are forward. If I had said to the Baroness Fritz a thousandth part of the fine things I have said to you, she would have melted away in my arms at once. But what the deuce is the matter now? What is it you see; why are your eyes fixed—your nostrils dilated—your cheek flushed? Ah, damnation! am I tipsy, or blind?"

The sad face of Gabrielle had suddenly changed. Her eyes sparkled with tears of astonishment and joy; her cheeks flushed with crimson, her lips trembled.

"Ian!" she exclaimed, stretching her hands towards the window. "Ian—my cousin—come to me—save me, and take me to Ernestine!"

The surprise of Merodé at all this speedily became rage. He followed the direction of her eye from the window, and, gazing along the sandy beach towards the north, at an angle of the rock on which the outer-wall of the tower was built, he saw the imposing figure of a Scottish Highlander standing erect, as he coolly took a survey of the whole place. He wore a green tartan kilt, with a bright cuirass and helmet; the entire pinions of an eagle surmounted the cone of the latter; a round shield was on his left arm, and a drawn claymore glittered in his right hand. On seeing this bold fellow within musket-shot of the walls, Merodé could scarcely believe his senses; but the stranger was Ian, as the sequel will show.

"Der Teufel!" said the count, almost choking with rage; "I will notch that rascal's head for him. I knew not that any of these Scots were on this side of the Belt. Hallo! to your arms there," he cried, rushing down-stairs to the court-yard; "to your muskets there, the quarter-guard! Kaspar—Schwindler do you see that fellow, by the water-side?"

They did see him, and fired several shots, the report of which palsied Gabrielle with fear; and she fell upon her knees, but forgot to pray, for her heart had forgotten to beat; and, like one who had been stunned by a thunderbolt, she listened, as shot after shot rang from the tower battlement over her head; and then she saw the snow-white smoke curling away on the wind.

Ian had vanished before the first shot was fired.

"He has escaped," said Merodé, returning breathless, with knitted brows and a bitter smile; "are you rejoiced to hear it?"

Gabrielle did not reply; her thankfulness was too great for utterance.

"Ay, the tall Scot brandished his sword in defiance, and even while we saw the bullets knocking the sand about him, and whitening the trunks of the trees, he plunged into yonder thicket and disappeared. I have sent out Sergeant Swashbuckler, with a party, and hope to have him hanged as a spy before nightfall.

"And so yonder tall fellow is your lover, eh? Oh you need not deny it; I saw your eye say so. Never did a woman's eye light up as yours was lit, save for a lover or a husband. Now little one, tell me, what see you in that great swinging Scot, that you cannot see in me? Still no answer. Are we becoming sulky, passionate, and quarrelsome? 'Pon my soul, women are greater enigmas than those of the Sphynx I used to hear about at Gottingen. So we have got a lover, have we? oh—very well! I shall not break my heart, believe me."

Merodé was angry, and his heart was full of bitterness and jealousy; but he concealed it admirably.

"Now that your friends are in this neighbourhood, I shall have work cut out for me; they must be received with such hospitality and honour as the arsenals of the Emperor enable us to afford to such visitors. Farewell just now, Gabrielle. I give you three days to think of it. (Three days! now, have I not the patience of Job?) If in that time you do not learn to love me, I shall hate you!" and he retired singing the fag end of an old song,

"Three days, fair maid, my love will last,
And in three days my love is past."

New hope sprang up in the bosom of Gabrielle.

Ian—and what a tide of suffocating thoughts his cherished image brought upon her mind—could not be alone, if in the vicinity of Helnœsland. He had heard of her detention there, and had come to free—perhaps to love, her.

What happiness might yet be in store for her!

Since she had been Merodé's prisoner, she had calculated the time, and found it many, many weeks, these made hundreds of hours, each of which had been counted, and watched wearily too.

She ceased to count them from that period, and began to reckon anew from the time when she had seen Ian.

He escaped the Merodeurs, and the fate their leader intended him to suffer; but many a long hour passed slowly on, and Gabrielle found herself still a prisoner in the old tower of Helnœsland.

CHAPTER XXIX.
THE SERPENT IN A NEW SKIN.

The result of our solemn council of war, held over certain cans of Odenzee beer, under the Green-Tree at Hesinge, was, first—that Gabrielle should be freed from Merodé, if she was still his prisoner; secondly, if not, that he should account for her body for body; thirdly, that her freedom should be obtained, if possible, by diplomacy, or threats, as we had strict orders to proceed to Elsineur, without detour or fighting under any consideration; fourthly, that no ransom should be paid (because we had none to pay), and fifthly, that if all means failed, we should risk the king's displeasure, storm Helnœsland, and knock all the Merodeurs on the head.

Attended by Phadrig, Ian departed to examine the castle before supper, and had just satisfied himself that it was a large square fortified tower, with grated windows, a battlement bristling with brass pateraroes, a barbican wall lined by six pound guns, well loopholed, and full of men, when several shots warned him to retire, and he and Phadrig, baffling the Merodeurs, reached our cantonments at Hesinge about nightfall. There, after guards were posted, and the soldiers billeted, the officers sat down to a jovial supper, at the large table under the Green-Tree.

Ernestine had the best apartment in the inn apportioned to her; I had command of the quarter-guard that night, with the task of posting, every two hours, twelve new sentinels round Hesinge; and (as the Merodeurs were in our vicinity) our soldiers had strict orders from Ian to sleep accoutred, in case of a surprise.

The night was moonless and cloudy, and my duty, as captain of the quarter-guard, kept me wakeful and anxious. The street was unlighted, unpaved, full of mud, and encumbered by rubbish and pools of water, where ducks, crows, and storks squattered by day; and where prowling dogs burrowed and snarled by night.

About the twelfth hour, when returning from visiting my sentinels, I paused for a moment in the middle of the street, to observe the dense bank of cloud that arched the sky from east to west, enclosing it on all sides save the north, where there lingered a warm yellow flush, that in so northern a region would never darken, but would brighten with the coming day. It shed a clear cold light on the gable-ends of the little street, on the sharp ridges of the roofs and chimney-tops, while their shadows, and all between me and them, were sunk in blackness and obscurity.

Ian occupied the house of the Herredsfoged, and, as the colours were deposited there, it had a special guard of twelve pikemen under Sergeant Phadrig Mhor. It stood without the village, and, to visit it, I had to pass through a narrow lane between two privet hedges, one of which enclosed the yard at the back of the inn, and where our baggage-waggons stood.

A faint light that burned in Ernestine's room arrested me.

The shutter was half closed, the light was subdued, and placed in the shade, so that I knew she had retired to rest; yet, with that sentiment so natural to a lover, I stood for a minute gazing at that light, the rays of which were probably falling on the fair and sleeping face of her I loved so well.

At that instant I became aware suddenly that other personages were similarly occupied. Between two of our baggage-wains, two men, like peasants, gazed intently at the solitary ray which shone into the inn-yard. They were evidently lurkers. My suspicions were roused, and, instead of challenging them, I resolved to watch, and loosened the loaded pair of good Doune pistols which hung at my girdle.

The lurkers conferred together in low whispers, and then approached the window. That corner of the inn-yard which it overlooked was involved in the deepest shadow; thus, by passing through an opening in the hedge, I stood within arm's length of them, and could perceive that they were somewhat tattered in aspect, wore conical white Danish hats with broad brims, and had enormously thick beards.

"They are thieves!" occurred to me immediately. My first thought was to seize them; my second, to fire on them; my third, to watch the issue.

After another brief conference, one left his companion to guard; and, ascending by the piled up chests of a baggage-wain, reached the little wooden balcony which projected at the back of the house, and softly approached the window of Ernestine, which, as the season was so warm, she had unguardedly left open an inch or two, and he glided into her chamber like an eel—for, as the lattice opened in two leaves from top to bottom, ingress was easily effected; but, before he entered, as the light of the night-lamp fell full on his face, I recognised Bandolo!

My heart beat like lightning! It flashed upon my mind that his comrade must be Bernhard the woodman!

To seize the latter by the ruff behind, to twist it until he was black in the face, and give him a smart blow with the steel claw of my Highland pistol, were the noiseless work of a moment. I laid him quietly on the ground at full length—with two springs reached the balcony from the roof of the baggage-wain, and with one pistol in my teeth, and the other in my right hand, crept softly in by the opened lattice.

Bandolo either believed that I was his comrade Bernhard close behind him, or artful, subtle, and ferocious as he was, he had found an object so dazzling to gaze on, that he could not resist contemplating it. By the bedside of Ernestine, he stood with an unsheathed poniard in his hand—a stiletto, round bladed and sharp as a needle.

Ah! what a moment was that! In each hand I had a loaded pistol, and I held them levelled full at his head from the other side of that pretty couch, the muslin curtains of which were half drawn aside, and yet concealed me in shadow.

I could comprehend that luxury and civilisation caused the moral depravity of such a man as Merodé, by creating wants which he could not supply, vices into which he plunged, and those false appetites which are the curse of the rich, the great, and luxurious; but here were a couple of incomprehensible rascals, doing mischief apparently for mere mischief's sake, unless we admit the love of revenge, by which Bandolo was assuredly inspired.

The night-lamp stood on a dressing-table near a round mirror, which threw a reflected light full upon the face of the beautiful sleeper.

The most divine and placid serenity were expressed in the face of Ernestine; on her smooth forehead and dark eyebrows—on her sweet mouth and long eyelashes. She scarcely seemed to respire as she smiled amid her dreams. Partly loose, her black and silky hair had escaped from a most charming little nightcap, having three frills of fine lace, and fell in a confused mass upon a neck that was white as a new-fallen snowflake. Her hands, unadorned by either rings or bracelets, and looking a hundred times more beautiful in form and colour without them, were gently crossed upon her breast, like those of the statues in old cathedral aisles. When sleeping thus, she had all the infantile grace of Gabrielle, all her Juno-like dignity was in abeyance; for the prettiest woman in the world can never look dignified in her nightcap. Her beauty, and the chaste purity of her slumber, might have robbed a destroying angel of his wrath; but the hollow, ghastly, and ferocious smile of the yellow-visaged Spaniard, showed that he contemplated some terrible villany.

Twice he placed his weapon between his teeth, and drew out a handkerchief as if to thrust into her mouth, and twice he resumed the stiletto.

"It is too much," thought I, "that his unhallowed eyes should see Ernestine as never lover saw her."

Three seconds had scarcely elapsed; my fingers were trembling on the triggers, and the matches of my pistols were smoking as I breathed upon them.

All at once Bandolo's eyes were lighted by a savage gleam; he placed one of his rough hands on those of Ernestine, and with the other raised his poniard for a blow, that, with this line, might have ended my story—for I never could have survived her.

My pistols were not four feet from his head—I fired one, and must own that when the smoke cleared away, I was petrified to find that, instead of being brained, Bandolo stood glaring at me with eyes that were white with fury, while his face was blackened and his hair scorched off by the explosion. In striking Bernhard, the bullet must have dropped from my pistol, for it was found in the yard next day; but then I thought not of that, and imagined that the fellow must assuredly be greforn—bullet-proof, or charmed. I fired the other, but the bullet only shattered the mirror; then by one bound, Bandolo cleared the apartment, reached the top of the baggage-wain, slid down, and escaped. I sprang after him: thus, Ernestine, on being startled from sleep by the discharge of two pistols within a yard of her pretty nose, was only roused in time to see two men spring like evil spirits from the window of her bedchamber.

She uttered a succession of those shrill cries which women have at command on all occasions. The host and hostess, the jungfers, the ostlers, the quarter-guard, and several of our officers who occupied the adjacent rooms, were all on the alert in a minute. M'Coll, holding on his kilt with one hand, and grasping a poker in the other; M'Alpine, with nothing on but his shirt and steel cap, and old Kildon, also in his shirt, with his target and claymore, with others variously accoutred, crowded to the scene of consternation and alarm; neither of which were allayed nor accounted for until I returned from a hopeless pursuit after the scout. By that time the whole inhabitants of the inn were in a terrible state of commotion; but Master Bernhard, who had been found senseless in the yard, was fortunately secured by the care of Sergeant M'Gillvray, who had ordered the quarter-guard to tie him with ropes, and retain him as a prisoner in the kitchen below.

CHAPTER XXX.
BERNHARD'S OFFER.

When I reflected by what a narrow chance Ernestine had escaped a terrible assassination; when I thought of what my emotions, and the emotions of all, would have been, had we found her in the morning——but the idea was horror! I turned the buckle of my belt behind me, and after assuring Ernestine that she was neither killed nor wounded, but only frightened, took my sword in my hand, and ordered M'Gillvray to bring the prisoner to the Green-Tree, before the door of the inn, where, as morning was now advanced, the waitresses were preparing breakfast for the officers.

The personal appearance of Master Bernhard was in no way improved by the tap I had given him on the head; for a quantity of blood that flowed from the wound had clotted his shock-head of hair, and streaked the hard lines of his coarse and repulsive visage, like the war paint of an Indian.

"Well, schelm," said I; "what have you to urge, that I should not hang you on the branch overhead as an ornament to our goodman's sign?"

"That we should never take away what we cannot give back," growled Bernhard.

"We are old acquaintances now," said I; "you remember the hut at Korslack, and the night with the Merodeurs? Have you always acted upon the principle of never taking away that which you cannot restore?"

"Herr Captain, I have tried to do so," he replied; looking anxiously at me, and anon at one of the ostlers, who was quietly knotting a running noose over one of the branches of the tree under which I was seated. "If I take a man's purse I can return it—but his life—oh, Herr Captain!"

"Have you never taken a man's life, Master Bernhard?"

"Have you or your soldiers never taken one, Herr Captain?"

"You are an impudent rascal!" said I, losing patience.

"Perhaps I am," said he; "yet I may be of more service to you than you imagine."

"You are the man who assisted Bandolo to decoy the daughters of the Count of Carlstein from Nyekiöbing, and betrayed one to the Count of Merodé."

"Betray is a harsh word, Herr Schottlander. I am but a poor fellow who, for a rixdollar, will serve any one. I was Merodé's valet at Vienna; he accused me of liking his laced doublets better than his livery, so we parted in dudgeon; but the real secret was, that he discovered his mistress bestowing on me, for nothing, all those blandishments which cost him a thousand doubloons in the year. She was sent to the galleys; I turned woodman, and picked up a ducat or a florin now and then in various ways. Bandolo was acting the gentleman, and required a valet to carry his mails. I sailed with him to many places, where he was picking up information for the Count Tilly, who always pays for it like a prince. Bandolo brought two ladies with him from Falster; 'twas no business of mine—he has often ladies with him. I attended one—he the other, and so we parted company in the dark near Eckernfiörd; with the youngest, I fell among the Merodeurs, who cheated me of a thousand ducats, which I was to bring Bandolo from the count. I have usually been the scoutmaster's ass, or scapegoat, but I will be so no longer, and will gladly become valet or groom to any Schottish officer who will pay me."

"Thank you, Master Bernhard," said I, ironically; "well, ostler, is that rope ready?"

"I am making all the haste I can, Herr Captain."

"Do not hurry yourself, my good man, I beseech you," said Bernhard, giving a snake-like glance at the ostler.

"And this lady," said I.

"What lady, Herr?"

"Zounds! the lady with whom you fell among the Merodeurs."

"She is now in Helnœsland."

"In the castle?"

"With Count Merodé."

"Confound that dogged front of thine!" said I, grinding my teeth with anger, on thinking of all the mischief this villain had aided and abetted. "You hear, gentlemen," I added, "he says that Lady Gabrielle is in Helnœsland with Merodé."

"If he can be believed—the point is certain," said Ian.

"I see no reason to doubt him, Ian—now when he is on the point of death."

"Death—oh, do not, for the love of Heaven, say that, Herr Captain!" implored Bernhard in an agitated voice. "It is a sad word for a poor fellow to hear."

"A sadder still for a rich one," said Ian.

Held in the strong grasp of two athletic soldiers, he was totally incapable of resistance; and the muskets of the quarter-guard kept him completely in awe. The noose was ready; agony bedewed his pallid face with perspiration. His knees trembled, and he gave me a glance so imploring that my heart failed me. Amidst the confusion of a brawl I might have seen a dozen such fellows shot, and felt no compunction; but to hang up this cowardly and crime-steeped rascal, with his terror verging on despair, was quite another thing; and I began heartily to wish that his life or death had been in the hands of the Herredsfoged of the district, or any other than mine.

"Stay," said Ian; "one feature in this fellow's character is evident. He will do any thing for money."

"If I could serve you, Herr, or you, with my life," implored Bernhard.

"Well—you know yonder castle of Helnœsland?" said Ian.

"As well, Herr Colonel, as if it belonged to me."

"And the Merodeurs?"

"Most of them—they were my comrades at Vienna."

"In prison, I suppose. Well, if your life is spared, will you undertake to guide me with two hundred musketeers, on a dark night, to that sallyport which faces the north?"

"I will, Herr; but the Merodeurs are a thousand strong! and two hundred musketeers—ouf! they will be but a mouthful in Helnœsland."

"That is not your business—Dioul!"

"I will make a bargain with the Herr Rollo," said Bernhard, gathering courage at this glimpse of life and hope. "Merodé was to pay Bandolo a thousand ducats for the young grafine, Gabrielle of Carlstein, of which I was to receive my share. Merodé deceived us, and, not having the ducats at the time, kept the lady, and troubled himself no more about the matter. I am but a poor fellow; look at my doublet; it has as many holes as there are days in the year. Well, Herr—for four hundred ducats I will bring the young lady to you safe and sound, without the uproar of two hundred musketeers falling into Helnœsland in the night, and not knowing which way to turn. In terror at the noise and din of such a piece of work, the young lady will be sure to conceal herself; and your men might all be shot or taken by the Merodeurs, and nothing achieved after all."

"Besides," said Ian, in a low voice; "I have the king's strict orders to march for Elsineur, without filing a shot."

"Can we trust a man who is beyond the pale of the law?" said I.

"I did not make the law, mein Herr," said Bernhard; "if so, I should not have been outlawed—or called a robber, or so forth; four hundred ducats will be quite a fortune to a poor fellow like me. I will bring you the young lady, and then the money can be paid me down on this table, under that beech-tree. Is it a bargain, Herr Captain, and gentlemen Schottlanders?"

"On my honour it is," said Ian; and Bernhard gave him a glance of thankfulness and joy.

"Four hundred ducats!" said I; "where the devil are we to raise such a sum? The regiment has been without pay for two months past."

"Assemble the officers by beat of drum," said Ian.

The drum was beaten, and in five minutes they were all assembled under the Green-Tree, thirty Highlanders, all stately men as ever drew a sword; and to them Ian, the lieutenant-colonel, related our dilemma.

Every man of them opened the mouth of his sporran.

"Hold your steel-bonnet, kinsman," said Ian to the sergeant, Mhor.

Phadrig held his helmet inverted, and every officer threw in what he could spare; some who had not even a brass bodle, cut the silver or gold buttons from their coats, or twisted off some links from those gold chains which our Scottish officers usually wore during the Thirty Years' war, I broke off ten from mine; Major Fritz gave twenty florins; and Bernhard's eyes glistened with joy, as the coin of every kind and value—silver, brass, and copper, buttons, chains, and rings—rattled into the helmet, where a sum amounting to more than eight hundred ducats was collected.

"This is a pretty sum to give such a rascal!" said M'Alpine, who had just twisted the gold tassels from his sporran.

"It is rewarding treachery and crime," said another: "think of how many brave fellows peril their lives in the field for a stiver per hour."

"By the head of Alpine! I would rather fight Merodé than pay it," said M'Alpine.

"But the king's orders," said our lieutenant-colonel.

"Ah, true! I had forgotten."

"Fellow," said I to Bernhard; "if you deceive me, tremble! for you have just one more in this world to outwit."

"Who, mein Herr—Bandolo?"

"The devil!"

"What a character you give yourself, cousin Philip," said Ian, and all our officers laughed as they sat down to breakfast; "but to business. Get this fellow despatched on his errand; and, until he returns to redeem his word, Phadrig, thou shalt keep the contributions. Away with him and them, too! Let us to breakfast, for I am like a famished wolf."

It was arranged that about nightfall sixty soldiers should march to a lonely place about five miles from Helnœsland, for the purpose of meeting Gabrielle, and escorting her with her guide to Hesinge. The latter was immediately despatched with a note, written by Ernestine, acquainting her with our vicinity (but of that she was already partly aware), and the necessity of trusting implicitly to the bearer; who, though he had deceived them once, would not do so again.

"For mercy's sake, gentlemen!" said Bernhard before departing; "keep our compact a secret, lest Count Tilly's scout, Bandolo, who seems to be every where at once, may discover and frustrate the whole. He hears every thing, I believe, like Grön Jette, or the wild huntsman."

Bernhard placed the letter in one of the many pockets of his tattered doublet, and set out on his mission. It was not without many conflicting thoughts and arguments that we agreed to intrust Gabrielle to this man, who was doubtless the perpetrator of many frightful crimes; but necessity owns no law, and none but a well-known vagabond could have found easy ingress, or egress, by the gates and guards of the illustrious Count of Merodé.

Now, as these volumes are not a romance, and there is not the least necessity for keeping my readers behind a curtain, I may as well relate, that, as the great father of all mischief would have it, Bandolo, on escaping from the inn-yard, had taken shelter in the very branches of that magnificent beech, under which the compact with Bernhard had been so fully discussed and arranged. It was a vast and thickly foliaged tree; and from the table that encircled its stem, he had easily reached a place of concealment and security.

There he had sat, perched right over our heads, during the examination of Bernhard; there he had narrowly escaped discovery, when the ostler was knotting the noose over one of the lower branches; and he had heard all our arrangements and conversation, while sitting with his heels dangling over the sumptuous breakfast to which thirty of our officers sat down, encircling the board and the broad beech-tree, like Knights of the Round Table; and there he had seen Bernhard receive the letter, and depart for Helnœsland, on that mission which he resolved to frustrate, and turn, perhaps, to his own account.

But there he was compelled to sit during the slow passing hours of a long and sunny summer day, for the little street of Hesinge was thronged by our soldiers; and there were constantly some of our officers drinking Moselle, Neckar, or Odenzee beer, playing at ombre or chess, under the tree, and the night fell before the bravo or scout, for he was both, was enabled to quit his hiding-place; and, after avoiding our sentinels, set out, with stiffened limbs and a heart that burned with rage and spite, for Helnœsland.

Moreover, he took with him a pair of steel Donne pistols belonging to Phadrig Mhor, who somewhat witlessly had left them on the table.

This must have been about ten at night.

One hour before that, sixty of our musketeers under my command, with several officers as volunteers, marched in the same direction, and by the most retired roads, towards the head of a bay, the name of which I have forgotten; but it is formed by the promontory of Helnœs, on which stands the old castle, then occupied by the Merodeurs—that regiment of terrible memory!

CHAPTER XXXI.
HOW BERNHARD DELIVERED THE LETTER.

Gabrielle had now counted that eight-and-thirty hours had elapsed since she had seen the figure of Ian appear for a moment at that angle of rock, which was the first point whereon she hurried to gaze in the morning, and the last one at night. So far as she knew, no effort had yet been made to free her. Could his appearance, then, have been reality? Was it not one of those flitting shadows, those Doüblegangers, those dire forebodings of coming evil, of which she had heard so often in the wild stories of Germany? Or was it merely a conjuration of her own excited fancy, which clung to the image of Ian as one might cling to the memory of the dead; for though Ian, by many a kindness and by a thousand pretty attentions had (unconsciously) left nothing undone to make this young and simple girl love him, she had no hope of ever being loved in return; for, true as the needle to the pole, his heart ever turned to that provoking Highland love, which he had left behind him in the land of the rock and eagle.

Of late, Ian's image had recurred less frequently to the mind of Gabrielle, for in her excessive tribulation she wept for her father and sister, and thought of them alone; but now the sudden vision of that well-remembered form, so stately and so graceful, with the glittering accoutrements, the waving tartan, and the eagle's double pinions towering on his polished helmet, brought back all that secret hope to her heart, and those dear thoughts, as yet unuttered save to Ernestine. Again the old fascination stole over her senses, like a chaste and mellowed light along a waveless sea; for tumult, storms, and wrath, lay slumbering in its placid depths.

Evening had come again. Gabrielle was alone, and seated in one of the little arched windows of her room. All was silent in that old castle by the sea; not a breath of wind stirred the leaves of the green oaks or copper beeches; not a murmur floated along the waters of the narrow Belt.

The remembrance of the kind and loveable manner, the dark and somewhat severely handsome face of Ian Dhu, excited in her breast a new and unmitigated repugnance for her tormentor, Merodé; though the count was also a handsome man, and (save when an occasional gleam of misanthropy or hatred flashed in his eyes) had usually a merry and reckless aspect.

Gabrielle was enduring another evening of her mechanical existence, watching the daylight fade along the sea, and as the sun sank behind the gravel hills, the low, flat, naked shores of Juteland—the Jylland of the Danes—the foamy crests of the dancing billows sparkled in gold, and the long sandy shore was steeped in the same saffron light.

Merodé's offer of marriage, after every other means of persuasion had failed, she considered a fresh insult; and about an hour before, he had left her, with a remembrance that the three days he had given her to think of it were rapidly drawing to a close.

"I assure you, my dear Gabrielle," he had said, in his usual easy and assured way; "your marriage with me will suit your father's ideas exactly. In fact he will be quite delighted to find that he is still likely to have a son-in-law a count; for by this time he will probably have learned all I told you yesterday, of poor Kœningheim's death. Now, if he had not been in such a devil of a hurry to die, old Rupert-with-the-Red-Plume would have had both his daughters countesses; but let us not despair, for of counts there are more than plenty between this and the ramparts of Belgrade."

A voice below her window startled her; she looked down, and saw a tatterdemalion, with a shock head of dark hair, that mingled with an enormous and untrimmed beard, holding in his hands a conical white hat and knotted stick, and with a long knife in his girdle. He was seated on a fragment of that rock on which the castle was built; and one side of which jutted into the tideless sea, while the outworks seemed to be based on drifted sand. The stranger waved his battered hat. Gabrielle shuddered and withdrew with a sudden emotion of anger; for she remembered the pretended valet of Bandolo, and their voyage in the dogger of Dantzig.

The visiter muttered an oath, and shrunk close to the wall, lest a Merodeur, who leaned on his musket on the bartisan of the tower overhead, should observe him. After a time Gabrielle resumed her seat at the window, but immediately rose again, for the man was still there. He made many signs which she did not understand; sometimes touching his hat; at other times placing one finger beside his nose and winking slily; then kissing his hand and laying it on his heart.

These were all Master Bernhard's modes of evincing a desire to communicate something that was secret and important, while at the same time he vowed fidelity and truth—and no doubt the memory of the helmet full of trinkets, &c., awaiting him at Hesinge, made the rascal (for the time) true as steel to his mission.

Believing that he was mocking her, Gabrielle again withdrew with a sad and swelling heart; for now such a trivial circumstance as the supposed insolence of this man fretted her.

On her pretty face disappearing a second time, Bernhard uttered a tremendous oath, gave his conical hat a violent punch on the crown, and began to whistle on two of his fingers, uttering low and peculiar notes, indicative of various things best known to himself, who had acquired this accomplishment in the common prison and Rasp-haus; but fears of the sentinel recurred to him, and he was compelled to revert to patience and rending his beard, which made his face closely resemble a black furze bush, with a cat looking out of it.

After a time Gabrielle returned to the window. The sun had now set; its golden beams still lingered on the wavelets of the Belt; but the man was yet beneath her window, seated on the shelf of rock, where the yellow sea was rippling; and again he greeted her with his whole vocabulary of nods, winks, and signs.

"This is strange pertinacity," thought Gabrielle; "the man is intoxicated!"

At last, after searching in a deep pocket of his tattered doublet, he fished up a little note, and displayed it with a glance of triumph, holding the while his conical hat between it and the castle, lest the sentinel should see. It was evident that he cared less about being seen himself, than having his letter intercepted.

"A letter—from whom can it be?" thought Gabrielle, while her heart beat with increased velocity; "and in his care, too! 'tis some fresh insult—an officer of Merodé has discovered that I am here, and takes this mode of sending me a billet, expressing a love, perhaps, as good as his commander's."

Full of anger again at this idea, she again retired; and then Bernhard bequeathed himself again to the devil—tore his hat with his teeth, and stamped with rage. Curiosity made Gabrielle peep again, and then Bernhard held up the letter with a sulky and indignant air, and made a motion indicative of his intention to tear it in pieces, if it was not accepted. Suddenly connecting the billet with the recent appearance of Ian, she threw open her window, and Bernhard with a joyful grin held up the letter.

"From Hesinge, lady," said he in a husky whisper; "from your sister."

"From Ernestine! ah, forgive me, forgive me for my reluctance and delay!" replied Gabrielle, while her heart swelled almost to bursting with sudden emotion; "ah, Heaven! how am I to obtain it—the window is so high?"

"If you had a cord—quick, or that schelm of a Merodeur on the tower top may send a bullet this way to pay the postage."

Gabrielle gave a hurried glance about her. There was not in all her apartment a piece of cord. Ernestine's letter was not twenty feet from her; she was in despair, and trembling with eagerness.

"O joy!" she exclaimed, as a sudden thought seized her; "this will do!" and seizing her scissors, in a moment she ripped off six or seven yards of silver braid from the skirt of her fardingale—a blue satin brocade, one of many that Merodé (who had at his disposal selections of all the best wardrobes in Juteland) had given her, and which, for lack of others, she had been compelled to wear.

To this cord, which he thought was much too valuable for such a purpose, Bernhard tied the note; Gabrielle towed it in like a little fish, and, kissing her sister's handwriting, fell on her knees to thank Heaven for sending her this; a mist came over her eyes—they were full of hot salt tears; and though she trembled with eagerness to read, for some moments she found herself incapable of doing so.

It was the familiar handwriting of her sister; but hurriedly and tremulously written. Advice and directions were intermingled with ardent expressions of regard; for though they were the daughters of different mothers, the love between these two girls was as strong as esteem, affection, and the tie of blood could make it. There was a difference in their love, too; for Gabrielle looked up to her tall and dark-eyed sister with something of a daughter's reliance and respect; and Ernestine, from the habit of giving advice, and taking charge of her blue-eyed and merry little sister (for she never could alter her first impression, that Gabrielle was yet a child), had that regard for her which we always have for those whom we protect.

Interrupted at every word or two by reiterated expressions of sisterly regard, the letter urged that she should immediately escape, if possible, from Helnœsland, as the Highlanders could only remain at Hesinge for another day, after which they must march for Helsingör; and that she must trust implicitly to the bearer—("What a man to confide in!" thought Gabrielle, glancing at Bernhard's tremendous beard)—the bearer, when could conduct her to a place near Helnœs, where friends would be waiting to receive her.

"Escape—but how am I to escape?" thought Gabrielle, as her eyes filled with tears, and she pressed her hands upon her burning temples; "all the doors of the passages and ambulatories between this and the court are kept closed and locked by Merodé or his creatures; and the wall—it is so high! and I have only a day to decide; ah, dear Ernestine, I have no hope—none—none!"

Again and again she read the letter, in the hope that it might contain some hint; but there was no such item there.

"Are you coming, then—not just now; but when the darkness sets in?" said Bernhard, who was still sitting below the window, and to whom she turned for some advice.

"How can I descend? I will do any thing—any thing to escape from this."

"Could you slide down a stout cord if I brought one?"

"I believe that I could."

"Are you not certain, young lady?"

"Oh yes! I am quite certain."

"Well, by ten o'clock I will be back again, for I do not like sitting in view of that fellow on the tower head. I am in expectation of receiving a shot every moment. Listen—collect all the valuables you have, for I will expect a little fee from you for my trouble; I am only a poor fellow who has lost his employment by the war. When you have them all ready, secure your door inside."

"Alas! 'tis generally bolted on the outside."

"Well, pile whatever you can move against it—a bed, an almerie, chairs, tables, every thing that will obstruct entrance, and give us an opportunity of getting clear off; at least, so far as yonder sandhills beyond the thicket, for there your friends will be waiting you, even before this perhaps. Have all prepared, lady; in two hours I will be back with a stout cord from one of the boats moored at the point yonder."

Gabrielle had not words to thank him, but kissed both her hands, and then, stealthily as a cat, he crept away. He had measured the wall by a glance of his eye. In many an escape and robbery he had scaled and descended a higher and more dangerous; thus he felt assured that Gabrielle must be able to do so, too.

She turned to a sundial that was carved on the corner of one of the windows, and found that it wanted exactly two hours of the time at which this man was to return for her; and she was all impatience. Could Gabrielle have conceived, or been informed, of half the atrocities this outlaw had committed, she would rather, perhaps, have remained with Merodé than trusted herself to his guidance; but she had a pure soul and a charitable heart, and viewed the emotions and impulses of other minds through the innocent medium of her own. Thus, though she knew Bernhard to be the person who brought her to Merodé, she now implicitly believed that he had lost his way at Eckernfiörd, and been deceived, as well as herself. She even imagined that her repugnance to his aspect was not so great as at first; the villanous leer of his yellow eyes, seemed to be only a comical twinkle; and his exuberance of beard and matted mass of hair, like his rags and worn shoes, might only be the result of poverty; and had she not heard Father Ignatius preach, that it was wrong to despise the poor, for they were peculiarly the children of Heaven? It seemed wicked to suspect the poor man who had come so far to free and serve her; and, as if to make reparation, she selected the most beautiful of her own rings (setting aside all the more valuable and magnificent jewels with which Merodé had encumbered her room) as a gift for her liberator.

Half an hour had elapsed, and now the sun's rays seemed to tremble above the western horizon and the level shores of Juteland.

"In two hours and a half I shall be with Ernestine! Two hours and a half—ah, my Heaven! can it be possible? At last! at last! Oh, how I shall kiss her, and weep upon her breast! My dear, good, kind Ernestine! My sister and my mother, too!"

Thus did Gabrielle mutter from time to time, as she watched the rays slowly revolve round the sundial, and saw the shadow of the gnomon gradually fade away; as the evening bells began to toll, the sun sank behind Sleben, and his rays shot upwards, diverging with tenfold brilliance as the coast between, became a darker and more defined outline. The setting of the sun was the first approach to night. She beheld it with joy, and, by the pure transparent atmosphere of the northern evening, continued to watch the growing shadows, and that landscape on which she hoped she was now gazing for the last time.

Placid as a mirror of polished steel the water lay in the fiörd; the scenery was calm and tranquil. Meadows of emerald green bespangled with wild-flowers, or young corn-fields bending under the breath of the soft summer wind, covered the long and narrow promontory of Helnœs. Rising from the turf fires and cottage chimneys, the silvery smoke curled far into the amber-coloured sky of evening; on one side, lay a scene of peace and contentment, beautiful and rich as browsing cattle, the fragrance of orchards and flowers, corn and honey, could make it; on the other, lay the long blue waters of the Belt, winding between Sleswig and Fuhnen-the-Fine.

All this was visible from her window in that grim old castle, which was founded on a mass of rock, that, darkly and grey, jutted from among the golden-coloured sand into the chafing sea. Silvering every wavelet that rippled the calm surface of the narrow ocean, the soft moon rose slowly above those level shores that hem in the waves, from whence sailed those savage but adventurous conquerors, who gave their name to all the land between the British channel and the Scottish frontier.

Now, Gabrielle remembered the advice of Bernhard concerning the barricading of her door; she rose hastily to execute it; and saw at a glance, that, by placing a table between it and an angle of the wall, she could effectually bar all entrance; for the door (which opened inwards) was of oak, hinged with iron, and though old, was of great strength, being received into the stone work all round; thus, if so secured, nothing less forcible than a cannon-shot, or a battering-ram, could affect it.

"Ah! how foolish I have been in never perceiving this before! How many nights might I have slept in comparative peace, nor trusted to the lingering honour and casual pity of Merodé."

Thus thought Gabrielle.

But half an hour, she calculated, was wanting of the time when Bernhard would return; and she was preparing to secure her door in the manner described, when the sound of steps in the passage arrested her; the door was hastily opened, and her agitated heart almost ceased to beat when she beheld the Count Merodé!

CHAPTER XXXII.
CAN SHE ESCAPE NOW?

Ulrick entered, and, by the manner in which he closed the door and crossed the room, Gabrielle could perceive with terror (though there was no other light than those afforded by the set sun and rising moon), that he was quite intoxicated. Bad as he was, he had hitherto treated her—all things considered—with remarkable respect; and, never until this important night, had fatally dared to conceive the idea of a visit at such an hour.

Gabrielle had always thought, that, as love could not exist without a returned affection, the flame in Merodé's heart would soon expire; but the pretty casuist did not know that it was not the love of a pure heart which animated the count. Had it been so, she had long since been free.

The count wore a magnificent suit of dark blue velvet, adorned by sparkling diamond buttons and seed pearls. On his head was a montero cap with a tall feather, the quill of which was studded with diamonds. His shoulder-belt and boots were of spotless white leather, and his broad collar was of the richest lace; but cap and feather, belt and doublet, were all awry, the latter being half buttoned in the wrong holes, while his plume hung down his back.

The count was reeling; and, in the twilight, Gabrielle could perceive that his face was flushed, his eyes bloodshot, and inflamed by passion and excitement. He closed the door of the room, and, to her inexpressible alarm—locked it! He then, with a maudlin expression of admiration on his face, and with outspread arms, approached her, but she eluded him, and he sank into a chair; his cap fell off, and after several ineffectual attempts to recover it, he said, with many pauses—

"My darling must not be alarmed if I come thus to visit her at an hour so untimeous; 'tis for a moment—only for a moment—'pon my soul it is—bah! you are not angry with me, are you?"

"Will your excellency never weary of persecuting me?"

"Little rogue, you are angry!"

"Oh no! my lord, I am not," replied Gabrielle, trembling with fear and perplexity.

"How could you be angry? 'twould be very cruel; 'tis only a bridegroom's privilege, for we are to be married to-morrow by Camargo's chaplain. Der Teufel! yes—I will show you a magnificent dress which our quartermaster picked up somewhere; it is worth ten thousand ducats if it is worth a stiver! and you are to be married in that, my pretty one. It will almost stand with seed pearls and embroidery—yes, 'tis devilish fine, I assure you; and in it my little bride will look magnificent. Ah! come and give me a kiss! Do not be angry, 'tis the wine—strong wine. The dress, it belonged to the Countess of Fehmarn, old King Kit's one-eyed wife—I mean the left-hand of old King Christian. 'Tis a glorious fashion that of his, marrying one wife for love and another for money. If the emperor would only marry my sister Josephine in that way, I should be sure of my marshal's baton—but what do I care for money? We don't want it—we Merodeurs—no! we pay all our scores with a roll on the drum, or by hanging up the burgomaster. I wonder if the devil will be satisfied with a check on the same bank; but he beats a little on the drum himself, for we all know the devil's tattoo."

"Oh, what a sensual wretch is this when compared to Ian Dhu, that soul of honour!" thought Gabrielle, as Merodé rocked himself on a chair during his long and rambling speech, which was interrupted by many a hiccup.

Every moment she expected the arrival of Bernhard, and now she was locked into her chamber with her intoxicated tormentor—locked in hopelessly for the night.

"Gabrielle, Gabrielle," said the count; "dost love me any better than at first?"

"My lord," began Gabrielle (willing to humour him a little), "first love——"

"A fig for first love!" cried he, snapping his fingers, and making ineffectual efforts to rise. "'Tis all stuff, and makes a bold fellow timid and retiring—and then the girl, with her mystery, modesty, and touch-me-not face! Bah! 'tis enough to give one a fit of the spleen. Second love is founded upon judgment, and is strengthened and matured by it—yes—I am a philosopher—d—me! But if such is the case with a second or third love, what must be the strength and maturity, the fervour and ferocity of a twentieth love, like mine, for thee? Oh, Gabrielle—Gabrielle, come hither, you little devil, and kiss me!"

At that moment the shrill low whistle of Bernhard sounded beneath the window, and made Gabrielle start.

"So you will not come to me—eh? Ah—true love is always modest and retiring—it likes mystery, too! How good to think that I have had you under lock and key for so many weeks, and not one of my merry rascals—even Count John of Brisgaü or Jehan de Vart—have found you out! Come to me, I tell you, or I shall lose patience; one kiss, little one—only one."

Gabrielle remained aloof, and wept with mingled emotions of shame and mortification, then Merodé began to swear, and say some things that made the poor girl turn alternately cherry red and deadly pale. Again she heard Bernhard whistling, and her anxiety was almost insupportable.

"Der Teufel! yes—to-morrow is the happy day—and Camargo's chaplain—(Camargo's, is it not? oh, yes!)—will do the affair for us; those whom Heaven and Camargo's chaplain have put together—let no rascal put asunder. Right—Henckers! my girl, why do you spin round in that fashion?—and who is that who whistles there?—

"Three days—three days, my love will last,
And—in—three days—my—love is past."

After this, a few indescribable snorts and flourishes were the only signs of life he made; his head had sunk forward on his breast, and fearfully Gabrielle approached him. He was in a profound and unmistakeable drunken sleep. Gabrielle's heart beat like lightning; she sprang to the window, and below, in the twilight, discerned the dark figure of Bernhard.

"You have appeared at last," he growled in a low voice; "I thought you were never coming."

"Pardon me—I have been watched."

"Watched—by whom?" asked Bernhard in a low whisper.

"Merodé."

"Gott in Himmel! do you say so? and he——"

"Is now asleep, as fast as wine can make him."

"Quick, then! Lower your cord, and draw up the rope, for we have not a moment to lose. If the rounds pass, they will fire, and I would not run the risk of being shot for all the women between the Elbe and the Oder."

Gabrielle lowered the silver cord, by which she had received Ernestine's letter, and thereby towed in the end of a stout rope.

"Oh, to what shall I fasten this?" she asked.

"How should I know?" growled Bernhard; "to any thing—but be quick—any thing that will cross the narrow window and sustain your weight."

The long iron tongs by which the turf was placed on the hearth now met the eye of Gabrielle; she tied the rope with her pretty and trembling hands to the centre of them, and placed them across the aperture of the narrow window, thus forming a double bar, strong enough to sustain the weight of a cuirassier armed cap-à-pee—horse and all.

"Hist!" said Bernhard, as he steadied the end of the rope; "be sure, that you have knotted it well, and fixed it crosswise, for I have no wish that you should slip and break my neck, to say nothing of your own bones. Now then, descend, if you please."

"But I must cover my poor hands, or the rope will fret them."

"Bravo! get a pair of gloves, a handkerchief, or any thing," said Bernhard, who—vagabond as he was—began to be quite charmed by the courage and foresight of this noble girl; and he felt a satisfaction in serving her. Never before had such an honest glow spread through his savage heart.

Gabrielle placed a soft handkerchief over each of her tender hands, and by the assistance of a chair, passed over the window-sole; then the night wind blew her light dress and her fair hair about, for, in her haste, hood and mantle were alike forgotten. Merodé still slept like a dormouse, and it was evident that he would continue to do so until morning; but the foreboding thought flashed upon the mind of the fugitive, that she might only be flying from one danger to fall into another.

"My God!" sighed Gabrielle; "thou wilt be kind, and protect a poor girl who cannot protect herself. Oh yes—I will confide in Thee!"

Inspired by this thought she took courage and slid in a moment to the ground, alighting with a shock which Bernhard lessened, by partly receiving her in his arms. Had she known all—or even a few of the crimes his hands had committed—she would have shrunk from their touch as from death.

She could scarcely whisper her thanks, and indeed Bernhard, who heard the tramp of the approaching rounds on the tower above, did not give her time; for, seizing her hand, he led her softly and hurriedly round an angle of the outworks, from whence, concealed by palisadoes and shrubbery, they were to creep towards the road that led by the margin of the bay towards Hesinge ......

Next morning Merodé was awakened by the quartermaster's wife, knocking at the door of Gabrielle's room. He started from his drunken slumber, and opened the door with an air of perplexity. Frail Rumple appeared with the famous pearl dress upon her arm, and with a bridal veil and chaplet in her hands; but on seeing the bewildered count, she curtsied with a waggish smile, and said that Colonel Camargo's chaplain had arrived.

"Der Teufel!" cried Merodé, as he rushed to the open window, and saw the chair, the crossed tongs, and the cord yet dangling by the wall. "Call Sergeant Swaschbückler! by the Henckers! my bird has flown!"

On one hand, favoured by the moon, which lit their devious path, and on the other, shrouded by high palisadoes painted green, and stunted trees that grew upon the peninsula, Gabrielle and her guide had rapidly and stealthily pursued their way towards a ridge, where grew a clump of trees. It was visible in dark outline between them and the last flush of dusky yellow that lingered at the horizon. The clump was about three or four miles distant; and near it, Bernhard informed Gabrielle that a party of Scottish Highlanders were halted.

As the distance increased between her and the grim tower on Helnœsland, and when she began to be more reassured, Gabrielle, who tied a handkerchief over her flowing and beautiful hair, turned from time to time, and examined the face of her guide. It was hideous! its aspect was terrible; for ignorance and crime had done every thing to destroy the intellectual, and develop the animal propensities of Bernhard, whose surname I never learned. Gabrielle observed that his stealthy eyes wore a constant expression of alarm; he seemed to be in perpetual dread of meeting some one.

Fear on her part, with anxiety and avarice on his, enabled them to walk so well, that in three quarters of an hour they were close to the thicket of trees, when a man approached them from under their very shadow. This was the first person they had met since leaving Helnœs.

Gabrielle shrunk close to the side of Bernhard, who grasped the haft of his knife; while an exclamation of rage and fear escaped his lips, on finding himself confronted by—Bandolo!

It was indeed that man, whom (of all others in the world) he dreaded most to meet at such a moment. In each hand he had a cocked pistol—the Highland tacks which he had stolen from Phadrig Mhor.

Bernhard had only his knife, and, as he unsheathed it, Bandolo swore on seeing its blue and sinister gleam. Then he uttered one of those exulting laughs, to which his ferocious character imparted a sound not unlike the growl of a panther.

"Ha! ha! ha! Well, fool—you knew not, that while you made that precious bargain at the inn-door of Hesinge, I was seated among the branches of the Green-Tree above. Maldicion de Dios! but this is a meeting, as unexpected to me as it seems unwelcome to you, Camarada Bernhard!"

The Spaniard and the German glared at each other like two wild-cats, and Gabrielle felt as if she was about to die with terror, between them.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE CRAPE SCARF OF M'ALPINE.

While relating the adventures of Gabrielle, as I afterwards learned them, I must not lose sight of my own.

With sixty Highland soldiers, accompanied by Angus Roy M'Alpine, Kildon, and one or two other officers, I had formed a little bivouac at a small clump of trees, about three or four miles from the castle of Helnœs; there we waited anxiously the result of Bernhard's mission, and made many resolutions, if it failed, to bring on the whole regiment, and, though we had only twelve hours to spare, set the king's commands at naught, and—if Ian consented—take the Merodeurs by storm.

We lay in concealment near the thicket, and our advanced sentinels sat among the long grass beyond it, rolled up in their green plaids, and were quite invisible; for we made use of every precaution that Scottish warfare and Highland hunting made familiar to us, to approach Helnœs as near as possible without being seen.

Our Weywacht, as the Germans would call it, was made on a spot of the greenest turf; there we piled our loaded muskets; opened our havresacks, and every man who had been able to procure a bottle containing spirit of any kind, from Neckar down to plain Odenzee beer, produced it, and the quaighs of wood and horn were passed round from man to man without distinction, in the good old northern fashion; for the patriarchal system, and the acknowledged relationship of the lowest in station to the highest in rank, is one of the finest features in social Highland life. Every Gordon is the kinsman of Lord Huntly, and every Campbell is a cousin to Breadalbane and Macallum Mhor, as the humblest gilly is the kinsman of his chief.

Different from many a bivouac I have seen—where (like the camps of the Egyptians of Scotland, or the gitanos of Spain) it seemed to be little better than systematic vagabondizing in the cold and rain, with no covering but a blanket, nestling together for warmth—on this summer evening our halt near that fiörd, which is formed by the long narrow promontory of Helnœs, resembled a pleasure party.

We saw the sun set in the amber west, and the moon rise in all her silver glory; the soft night wind rustled the leaves above our heads, and bore on its breath that peculiar fragrance which night exhales from the teeming land and darkened sea. Afar off, several beacons of turf and wood were burning on distant promontories, to mark the shoals and sands; and, amid the summer haze, they gleamed on the trembling waters of the Belt like flickering ignes fatui.

In the lower parts of the level landscape, large pools of water glittered here and there in the rushy hollows; a shower of rain had fallen about mid-day, and now a bright silver haze floated over the enamelled meadows. Near our bivouac a stream gurgled on its way almost noiselessly to the sea, unlike our mountain burns at home, which, after a shower, rush in fury sheeted with foam, and bearing at times rocks, trees, and stones, to the German ocean or the Caledonian sea.

As the time wore slowly on, and I did nothing in the way of conversation to lighten its tedium, but sat at the foot of a tree lost in thought, old Kildon, as he filled the quaighs of all around him, proposed that we should have a song or a story after the good old fashion at home; and he forthwith set the example by singing, in very good style, that old and dirge-like song which Ossian has addressed to The Owl, and which elicited a burst of applause from our soldiers.

"Aire Muire! let us have a story now," said he, "or we shall all mope here like the owls of the song; come, Phadrig Mhor—a story; or do you, Rollo, tell us something. You did not study at the King's College for naught—and, faith! that same study must have cost the old Laird of the Craig a good many silver bonnet-pieces."

"He is in the region of clouds," said M'Alpine, "and has nothing to tell or propose."

"Except your health, Angus," said I; "and that you will please to tell us why you wear that crape scarf on your arm."

Red Angus started, and a fierce gleam shot athwart his fiery eyes and darkening face.

A murmur of dissent among those near us, warned me that I had broached an unfortunate subject, which some of them knew.

"Pardon my thoughtlessness, Angus," said I, grasping his hand; "if I have probed an old wound, or awakened a bitter memory, by my soul it was done unwittingly."

"You have probed an old and a deep wound, Philip, and referred to a badge which I never can behold without bitterness and regret. Had you come from among the clans in the west, instead of from those of the north, you had known the story. Kildon, M'Coll, Sir Donald the chief, all knew it, and might a hundred times have told it; but they respected the sorrow and shame of their comrade—said I shame? Nay, there is in it none to me; then why should I refrain from relating what I have so little reason to conceal."

Captain M'Alpine filled twice his quaigh with wine, and twice he drained it, with the air of a man who requires false courage to tell his story, and after twirling his long mustaches, began thus in his native and forcible Gaëlic:—

"Though I am descended from that portion of the Siol nan Alpin which inhabit the frontier of the Highlands, forming one of the greatest barriers against the aggressive spirit of the Lowlander, an ancestor of mine, who had fought under Angus of the Isles, at the great sea battle of the Battle Bay, in Mull, obtained the isle of Gometra as a free gift from the Lord of the Ebudæ. There my people dwelt for several generations, and, without going back to the days of Fergus the son of Ere, that is enough to give one consequence in the west.

"The isle was poor and barren, for it lies between the tremendous mountains of Mull and the basaltic cliffs of Staffa, and is separated from the dark blue terraces of Ulva by a narrow strip of ocean. My father's people never took the field under less than a hundred claymores and forty bowmen; they were poor, but honest, brave, and industrious, clothing and feeding themselves by the fruits of their labour—by the loom and the forge, the breeding of sheep, cattle, and horses, and the manufacture of kelp.

"We held our lands of a M'Lean—Hector of Lochdon," added Angus, grinding his teeth; "he dwelt in a castle which had towers and gates; brass cannon and iron bombardes; we occupied a little mansion by the Sound of Ulva. By our tenure, we were required to have always a war-galley in the Sound, but M'Lean had never less than twelve; five hundred brass targets hung in his hall, and a thousand claymores; yet we cocked our bonnets as high as he did; and, unless when under his banner, would never yield an inch to him, at kirk or market—at hunting or hosting.

"To our family was entrusted the education of the successive heirs of Lochdon. We taught them the use of arms, the sword, the oar, the harp, and the bow; with every accomplishment becoming a duinewassal. All these, four successive generations had acquired at our little dwelling on the Sound of Ulva. I was twenty when my father died——"

"With an arrow in his throat," said M'Coll.

"Ay—shot in a quarrel with the McDonalds; but he bequeathed to me, as a sacred trust, the chieftain's motherless son, M'Garadh, then in his sixth year, a noble and beautiful boy.

"To enable me to fulfil my charge with honour, and in obedience to my father's special wish, as well as my own, I married the daughter of a kinsman, a brave and honourable gentleman of the isles, whose name I need not sully anew, by linking it with mine in this bitter revival of the past.

"Una, for she bore that fine old Highland name, was beautiful, and every harper between Isla and the Lewis sung of her beauty, and composed songs in her honour. These songs cost her father (for the old man doted on her) not less than a hundred brooches, silver quaighs, and carved dirk-handles; for no cunning harper of the Hebrides strung his harp to Una's praise in vain.

"Una was graceful and tall among the maids of the Isles; the proportion of her form, was so perfect, that her height could only be distinguished when she stood among others. Her hair was dark and luxuriant; parted over her forehead, and bound by a fillet of gold, it fell in silky waves upon her shoulders. Her eyes were dark and dangerously beautiful; they were like two stars; her cheek had a transparent olive tint, for her mother had a tinge of the Douglas' blood in her. Her eyes were as if a pencil had traced them, and her nose had that aquiline arch which is ever indicative of pride. When calm and thoughtful, she might have passed for the Malvina of Ossian, or the Goddess of the Parthenon; when smiling, for the Goddess of Love herself. I was proud of my beautiful bride, and I loved her for her gentleness, for the memory of the battles her forefathers had won, and for the lustre which their name, with all her charms and virtues, would cast around my island home.

"Una, alas! had no heart. Her bosom was high and spotless as the new-fallen snow; but it swelled only at the emotions of vanity.

"M'Lean visited us often; and when his great gilded birlinn, with his banner waving, the pipers playing in the prow, the oarsmen chanting as they bent to the wave, the axes of his Leine Chrios sparkling in the sun, swept down the Sound of Ulva, she more than once stung me to the soul by drawing a cold comparison between his state and mine.

"Una was not content. I redoubled my efforts to procure luxuries for her, and exacted a heavy kain from my poor tenants, that I might barter with the English traders for silks and velvets, and with the Norwegians for fine furs and broadcloths; the finest gloves from Perth, the finest laces from Glasgow, the fairest pearls from Cluny, the most sparkling stones from Cairngorm—our Scottish jaspers, topazes, and amethysts—were procured for her. I parted with my father's Spanish gun (which he received from Dunvegan, when he destroyed the Florida, the great Spanish treasure-ship)—I parted with my Florida, the great Spanish treasure-ship)—I parted with my best coat of harness—my polished lurich, with all its rings of steel—to procure for her ornaments and passements, such trumpery and trash as had not been seen in the Isles since the days of Alexander the Great Steward.

"We had visited our chief; the splendour and luxuries of his mansion dwelt long in her mind, and my exertions were unavailing.

"Yet I redoubled my efforts and exchanged my wild ponies and short-legged cattle for the luxuries brought to the Clyde by the merchants of Bordeaux and the Flemings of the Dam. M'Lean came often to visit us—and always when I chanced to be absent, hunting in Mull, or in my birlinn on the Sound, looking after my fishermen.

"I saw little to suspect; but I dreaded much, and thought more. Una was often pensive, cold, and irritable. Then a pain gnawed my heart, and a whisper that seemed to come from hell ascended to my ear. I was jealous—jealous of this bright being, whom I loved with my whole heart: for, I could perceive that, though she sometimes smiled on me, her smile was ever brightest when the birlinn of M'Lean was seen upon the Sound, sweeping down between the isles, with banner flaunting, and oars, shields, and axes flashing in the sun.

"'Una!' said I, one day, making a terrible effort to suppress my rising passion; 'you look after M'Lean as if you had never seen him before.'

"'Ah!' said she with a smile, 'I know that a Highland matron should only have eyes for her husband—for the man she loves. Surely, dear Angus, you are not jealous of me?'

"'No, Una—true love has no jealousy.' (I knew that I spoke false.)

"'It has—it must—just to infuse a little life into it!'

"Then she playfully kissed my cheek, saying—

"'Now, Angus, I would never suspect you, though I have heard that dark men are more constant than fair.'

"'And fair women more constant than dark.'

"'Oh, fie! to say so, dear Angus Roy, after my pretty compliment.'

"My heart leaped within me; methought I was a wretch to suspect her; and, taking my gun, I climbed the western cliffs of the isle in quest of a great golden eagle, which had then built an eyry there, and the yellow pinions of which I resolved to bring Una, though at the risk of my neck.

"It was Di Donich, or St. Duncan's day, as we call the Sabbath in the west, from some great missionary of the olden time; and I remember it well, as if every hour of it had passed but yesterday. I was long away; when, descending towards my house on the beach, I heard the sound of pipes and the song of the rowers. A turn of the rocks brought me in view of the azure Sound, then tinged red with the flush of a western sun; the bannered barge of M'Lean was speeding across as fast as the broad flashing blades of twenty oars could carry it. M'Lean was at the stern, and a lady sat beside him. Anxiety and fear must have sharpened my vision; for, even at the vast distance between us, I could recognise the dark hair of Una, bound by its fillet of gold, and, among the green tartans of the M'Leans, her scarlet plaid, with its bridal brooch, that shone like a star. That brooch I had placed upon her shoulder at the altar. It was indeed my wife; she had left me! I was alone upon the rock—and the fury of a demon swelled up within me.

"I levelled my gun at Una, but my heart failed me; then I pointed it at M'Lean, but withdrew it from my shoulder; for the distance was too great. I sat down on the hillside and wept like a deserted child. Long I lingered there; the daylight faded from the ocean, and its tints of gold and blue deepened into black; the moon rose, and waned again; the shadows of night melted into the light of day—but, alas! I was still sitting there. The sun came out of the waters, and his rays shed a roseate tint on Ulva's brows of rock, and the loftier peaks of Mull; while that beautiful island, with its deep inlets, its rock-built castles, and grey old Scandinavian burghs, raised by the long-haired warriors of Ivar and Acho, were before me; but I saw only one spot in all that line of coast. It was the tall grim tower of M'Lean.

"Upon the solitary shore, with no eye upon me but the blessed one of God, with my knees on the sand, and the dirk on my lips—the Holy Iron—I swore by the black stones of Iona, by the grey rock of M'Gregor, by the four blessed Gospels, and by my own soul, a terrible vow, to revenge myself upon M'Lean, and to make his hand the means of punishing Una. I remembered the proverb—that deeds are men, and words are women; but I was resolved that my deeds should make me little less than a fiend.

"My people met me with shame, with anger, and with silent sorrow; there were some who showed the wounds they had received from the Leine Chrios of M'Lean, for they had manfully resisted the departure of my wife, and blows had been given and arrows shot before that abduction—to which she consented with a willingness she was at no pains to conceal—had been effected. A savage thought seized me.

"'By the soul of Mary! I have still a hostage!' said I; "'where is M'Garadh—the cub of yonder wolf?'

"'The M'Leans were too wary to trust the child among us after the deed of yesterday, and he is away with his father in the birlinn.'

"I gnashed my teeth with rage, for I knew that M'Lean loved the boy—the hope of his house—even as his own life, and more. But why protract this story? among you, there are many who know it but too well. It has an echo yet in Mull; for there my vengeance gave a name to a mountain which, as yet, had been unnamed since Time began.

"I was too true a son of Alpin to take unwary measures. I bided my time for revenge, and the time came, though slowly; for the passing fishermen of Aros, the traffickers of Tobermory, and the pilgrims who came to drink of St. Mary's well (from which that clachan took its name), told me how Una had lost all sense of shame and honour; and, to the eternal disgrace of her father's name and mine, was living with M'Lean, even as Fair Helen lived with Paris. Her aged father sent a duine-wassal, proposing to lend me four hundred swordsmen, three brass cannon, and ninety archers, if I wished to assail M'Lean under his roof-tree; but I declined, for the men of Mull were too many for us, and I brooded over a deeper revenge.

"M'Lean proclaimed a great hunting-match, and it took place on St. Duncan's day—exactly one year after Una had left me. All the men of Mull were there; M'Coll of that Ilk, the M'Donalds of Aros, the M'Leans of Duairt and those of Lochbuy. As a poor fisherman from Lochlinnhe, disguised in bonnet, kilt, and plaid of undyed wool, with a long beard, and a face so pale and wan, that not even Una would have known me, I mingled with the hunters. For three days the sport continued, and one great stag—the prince of the island—after escaping many a spear, bullet, and arrow—after flinging the strongest of the grey dogs aloft on its branching antlers—and after swimming Loch Uisc and Loch Ba; was slain by my foe at the foot of a great hill which overlooks a narrow valley, above which it rises on pillars of basalt, two hundred feet in height. He laid the horns at the feet of Una, who, regardless of the darkened brows, averted faces, and muttered reprehensions of the Highland chieftains, was queen of the chase, and presided at the feast on the greensward, where a thousand men sat down to banquet on the fruits of their prowess, while the war-pipe and harp, the uisquebaugh, the ale of the Lowland bodachs, and the wine of the Frenchman and Spaniard, made the merriment ring between the mountain peaks.

"I alone was sad. A snake was in my breast. Una sat beside M'Lean, and with painful acuteness my eye saw every movement of both. When their hands touched, or their eyes met, my heart seemed to burn, and my pulses beat like lightning. I knew that there was a glare in my eye, and a terrible expression in my face, that would discover me, and reveal the wild thoughts of murder and assassination that were rising in my heart; and yet my Una was so beautiful, her smile was so full of fascination, and her deportment so full of unstudied grace, that, though I might loathe, I could not wonder at M'Lean for loving her, and robbing me of a being so adorable. But Hector of Lochdon, with all his barbarous magnificence, could never love as I—her husband—loved her.

"His son, the little boy M'Garadh, recognised me through all my disguise, my agony of visage, and outward change; and, creeping to my side, he clambered into my arms. As if he had been my own, I loved this child; but now I felt something strange fluttering about my heart, and with a pang that hovered between the throb of pleasure and the thrill of rage, I clasped the boy to my breast; and then, holding him aloft in one hand and my naked dirk in the other, I sprang with a wild shout from, the sward where the hunters were carousing, and rushed up the side of the mountain.

"''Tis M'Alpine!' cried a hundred voices; ''tis Red Angus of Gometra!' I soon reached a shelf of overhanging rock, some ninety feet above the hunting-party, and there I paused.

"'M'Lean—Hector of Lochdon!' I cried with a wild voice, and the aspect of a madman, for I felt there was madness in my brain, and the emotions of a devil in my heart; 'from the summit of this rock I will dash your son to its foot, if you slay not the infamous woman who sits beside you!'

"'Shoot—shoot!' he exclaimed; 'to your bows and hand-guns! Aid me, M'Coll—Aros—Duairt, and Lochbuy!' But these chiefs looked darkly on, and made no response.

"'Dost thou pause, villain?' I cried again; 'then hear me.—I swear by the four blessed gospels of God, by the Holy Iron, and by the grave of Alpin, that I will dash this screaming child brainless at your feet, if you do not—this instant—and with your own hand, slay the wretch who sits beside you!' I swung the fair-haired child above my head, and his cries came faintly downward to his father's ear. Then could I feast my eyes upon that father's agony; as trembling in every limb, with sword unsheathed, he gazed alternately upward at me and downward at his pallid and voiceless paramour, who bowed her beautiful head like a lily to the blast, and had bared her white bosom to the impending steel; for well she knew that M'Lean loved his boy, the hope of his house, better than her—the tool of guilty pleasure, the plaything of an hour.

"'Red Angus!' cried M'Lean, in a choking voice; 'I will restore your wife, and with her yield a thousand head of cattle, a hundred targets of brass, and as many Spanish guns; I will yield you the best farm I possess, with the salmon-fishings of Lochdon, to thee and thine for ever, freely and irredeemably, but spare my boy!'

"'Wretch!' I replied; and once more swung the unhappy child aloft; 'if thou and all thy posterity yielded to me their possessions on earth and their share of paradise, I would not spare thy whelp, nor will I now if thou sparest her who sits beside thee! Once!'

"'Shoot—shoot!' he cried to his Leine Chrios.

"Thirty archers bent their bows and drew their arrows to the ear, but relinquished them; thirty long-barrelled guns were levelled at me, but were lowered again, for the gillies feared to shoot the boy.

"'Dost them hear me?—twice!' I cried, swinging the child again, for I was mad, but had no intention of throwing the boy, alone at least. I intended to spring down with him, that we might perish together.

"Trembling with terror for the safety of his child, and urged by the fierce persuasions of his Leine Chrios, who considered the life of the heir of more value than the lives of a hundred adulterous women, M'Lean ran his sword into the heart of Una! She bent over the blade and died at his feet.

"From the edge of that frightful precipice I saw the white bosom of my wife, and the blood (red as the checks of her tartan plaid) that dyed her yellow kirtle. Then the light left my eyes, the strength of my hands relaxed, and the boy fell from them into the valley below. From that abyss I heard a terrible cry ascend to the summit of the basaltic columns; there was a confused discharge of fire-arms; bullets and arrows whistled about me; I reeled like a drunken man, a swoon came over me, and I remember no more.

"The poor child had been killed. In my madness and helplessness I destroyed him; and, to this hour, the men of Mull call that rocky hill which had no name before, Ben Garadh.*

* The Hill of Garadh. This is still a tradition of the Isle of Mull.

"Why prolong a tale so painful? Grey dawn was stealing along the narrow Sound and tumbling sea; and morning was reddening the summits of the hills when I awoke, or recovered, to find myself in silence, with honest M'Coll of that Ilk (who now commands our pikes), standing by me, while his men were in the valley below. All the other huntsmen had departed, and taken with them the bodies of the dead. He had protected me at the risk of his life; for our fathers had fought side by side in the same galley, at the battle of the Bloody Bay.

"'You must fly, Angus,' said he; 'for all the Isles cannot afford you long a hiding-place, and the Lowlanders will not receive you.'

"I knew the truth of this, and had no wish to remain, where every thing was hateful to me. I was outlawed by the Lord Justice-General of Scotland; I was proclaimed a fugitive by the High Court of Justiciary, and my lands were given to the Campbells (of course), for every thing in the west that is in want of an owner belongs to them. I hid me long in M'Kinnon's cave, and other recesses of the isle, until an opportunity occurred of leaving the place, and joining old Sir Andrew Gray, whose Scottish bands were sailing for Bohemia. The memory of that Di Donich will never die but with myself; and in token of the sorrow, the bitterness, and remorse I have endured, for the barbarity of my revenge, and the unwitting death of the poor child I loved, I have worn this scarf of crape, and on many a field and in many a breach, since the battle of the White Mountain, where the walls of Prague rang to the slogan of the Scottish musketeers, down to the battle of Semigallia, when, under the gallant Gustavus, we cut the Poles to pieces, I have worn this mark of mourning. Now, gentlemen and brother soldiers," continued Angus, heaving a deep sigh as he filled his quaigh from Kildon's brandy bottle, "you have heard my story; pray tell me if ever—ha! what is that?"

A pistol-shot, followed by the low faint cry of a woman, came towards us on the night wind. Every man looked in his comrade's face, and listened.

The cry, with the impression made upon me by M'Alpine's horrid story, brought a deadly chill over my heart; but I unsheathed my claymore, exclaiming—

"To your arms, and follow me!"

The whole party snatched up their muskets, and rushed through the thicket, in the direction from whence the cry seemed to come.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE PISTOL-SHOT.

A few pages back, we left Bandolo the scout, and Bernhard his fellow-ruffian, confronting each other with knife and pistol, not sixty yards from where we were quietly seated on the grass, listening intently to the story of Angus Roy M'Alpine. Bernhard's heart was swollen with rage, but fear of Bandolo repressed it; for he knew all that personage was capable of; and, moreover, that he would require at least one-half of the expected reward for the only good act the woodman had ever performed—yea, since he left his cradle in infancy.

"For this girl you are to get about the value of eight hundred ducats?"

"Yes," growled Bernhard. Bandolo laughed, and replied—

"I dare say Merodé would give another thousand to have her back again; but that is a slender chance. We shall then have four hundred ducats each—is it not so, camarado?"

"No—it is not so," said Bernhard, hoarsely; "you have no right to dictate to me in this matter. I never marred your little plots or speculations; leave mine to the event of fortune. Now stand aside, or by——"

"Ha—ha—ha!" laughed Bandolo, standing right in the centre of the narrow path, while Gabrielle clung to a tree, for terror had quite unnerved her.

"Schelm!" growled Bernhard, "do you know that a party of Christians, Scottish musketeers, are within pistol-shot?"

"Yes; and that, by firing one of these, I could at the same moment summon them, and blow out your brains, which I shall assuredly do if you utter a cry or sound."

Inflamed by sudden fury, Bernhard made a spring at Bandolo, knife in hand; but he was hurled back like a boy by the more powerful ruffian; and one touch of the cold pistol barrel against his face, was sufficient to curb the emotion that sprang from avarice.

"Then you will not divide with me?"

"No—I will rather see you in the lowest pit of——."

"Time enough, Bernhard, my camarado; we may see each other there yet. But why do I chaffer here, and what are four hundred despicable ducats to the sum I lost in that cottage near Eckernfiörd?"

At this recollection a gleam seemed to shoot athwart the savage eyes of Bandolo; his livid face became convulsed by the emotions of an enraged and ferocious heart; and he spoke in broken sentences.

"Hear me, camarado, I have to punish thee for robbing me of a thousand ducats——"

"I swear that Merodé never gave them to me!"

"Silence! I have to punish Ernestine, the count's daughter, for robbing me of my hard won gold and treasury bills, and for leaving me like a fool, drugged, senseless, and snorting, for two days in Fraü Krümple's hut; I have to punish Carlstein, for riding over me like a dog in the streets of Vienna, without a word of pity, because he knew me to be Bandolo. (Ha! did not that name bring one thought of terror to his haughty heart?) I have to punish the Scottish Captain Rollo, for wounding, discovering, and disarming me—for insulting me, and crossing my purposes, and marring my profits on a hundred occasions; last of all, I am not to be outwitted by a mere animal like thee; and thus I rob thee of thy ducats, and avenge myself like Bandolo the Spaniard—like the man I have always been!"

He levelled a pistol at Gabrielle, but it flashed in the pan; and that flash showed her a face that froze her very blood; for the pallid and distorted visage of the Spaniard, with his inflated nostrils, and sharp jackal-like teeth, made him resemble a fiend—a vampire—any thing but a man. Yet she sprang forward, and said in a piercing voice, while clasping her trembling hands, and bending upon him a timid and imploring smile—a smile that would have fascinated the most ascetic saint, and softened even the heart of a Nero—

"Ah, Spaniard, you cannot have the heart to kill me! I never did you wrong."

Bandolo laughed like a hyena, and cocked his second pistol; then she uttered a wild cry, and hung upon his arm, saying—

"Spare me—spare me! Do not kill me—I am too young to die—I must see my sister—do not kill me—none shall know—none shall hear! Spare me, and you will be rewarded—my father—my sister——"

The bright flash of the pistol was followed by a dull, but terrible sound: the barbarian had shot her dead, and she fell quivering at his feet.

Unfortunate Gabrielle!

"Now go to Hesinge—to the Schottlanders—-and get your eight hundred ducats, or so much as this carrion is worth!" said Bandolo, as he sprang through the thicket, and vanished.

Fear, the first impulse of the guilty and the vile, impelled Bernhard also to fly, and it was not until the next day at noon that he presented himself among us at Hesinge, and explained circumstantially the particulars of a deed of barbarity so wanton, that I believe it has few parallels in the annals of crime.

Rushing from our bivouac, with sword drawn and musket cocked, we scattered through the wood, seeking for the source of the cry and the shot we had heard. Soldiers' eyes are accustomed to scan and recognise objects even in the gloomiest night; thus Angus Roy first found Gabrielle, and like the sound of a trumpet his Highland hollo drew us all to the spot.

I shall never forget my emotion on beholding the poor girl's body, stretched at full length on the grass, and quite dead, but still warm, though the blood was flowing profusely from a terrible wound under the right ear; for through there the ball had passed, departing by the back part of the head. She must have died on the instant.

The blood soon ceased to ooze; her jaw fell, and her once merry blue eye became glazed and dim. Ernestine was now my sole thought. I anticipated all she would suffer; and my sympathies for the once happy and childlike being who was gone, were mingled with pity for the survivor. I knew that she would, indeed, be lonely now!

It was a dreary place where Gabrielle lay, and, bedabbled in blood, her bright golden hair was spread among the rank, luxuriant grass.

With something akin to terror, I contemplated our return to Hesinge, and for a time felt completely bewildered. Our sternest clansmen all shared my emotions, though of course in a less degree; and while Phadrig Mhor and two others remained by my side, Angus M'Alpine with the rest, scoured the whole vicinity, without meeting a single person whom they could in any way implicate in the terrible catastrophe of the night.

"Be patient, sir," said Phadrig Mhor, seeing how deeply I was moved; "be patient—for this is the dispensation of God."

"From his blessed hand there never came a blow so cruel!" I replied bitterly. "O for the power of magic to discover, to reach, to punish, the author of this dire calamity!"

"Let us make the poor corpse look as comely as possible," said Phadrig, "lest we needlessly shock the poor lady at Hesinge."

"Comely!" said I.

"By washing the gore from her beautiful hair—oichone! and her neck, poor innocent!" A big tear trembled on the sturdy sergeant's eye-lashes. "She often spoke very kindly to me, sir," he added.

"I thank you, Phadrig, for the gentle and delicate thought," said I; "get me some water."

The honest fellow ran to an adjacent runnel, and brought me some water in his bonnet. I knelt down, and tore my white silk scarf (we all wore Scottish scarfs), and bathed the face, neck, and hair of Gabrielle. I closed her eyes, and arranged her luxuriant tresses about her head, so as to conceal that terrible wound from whence her pure spirit had gone to happier regions. I dropped more than one hot tear upon her pallid face, as I kissed her cold lips with all the affection of a brother, and spread my tartan plaid over her.

It would have been a fine subject for a picture—that poor girl's body lying lifeless on the ground, and the grim group of kilted soldiers standing gravely and sadly around it, leaning on their muskets; and some there were, whose eyes, though dimmed by honest emotion, had looked on many a battle-field—stout fellows who would march to the cannon's mouth; but were now recalling those prayers for the dead, which their Highland mothers had taught them in other times, when James of Jerusalem and Father Ignatius had preached to the Catholic clans.

When all our party had returned, a bier was formed by stretching my plaid between two sergeants' halberts, and thus the remains of Gabrielle were borne by Phadrig Mhor and Gillian M'Bane towards our cantonments.

All who, like myself, have marched between Helnœsland and Hesinge, must have remarked a little roadside tavern near the head of the bay.

There we first carried the body, and after procuring a more suitable bier, set out on our mournful journey for Hesinge.

How can I describe the grief of Ernestine!

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER XXXV.
THE MIDNIGHT FUNERAL.

Ernestine had been watching our approach from a window. It was some time before she recovered from the stupefaction into which the appearance of the body of Gabrielle, and the relation of our terrible narrative (which then wanted the unity that after inquiries have enabled me to give it), had plunged her. As yet one of the principal actors had not come forward; thus, the cause of Gabrielle's death was involved in a mystery, alike perplexing and impenetrable.

"All is over now," said Ernestine; "all is over now! My father—my father—let me reach my father's side, and then die too!"

Grief affected her by alternate fits of bitterness and calmness. At one time she was somewhat composed in her woe; at others, she flung herself upon her knees beside the bed on which the body lay (the same bed whereon her sister's slayer so nearly assassinated herself), and fondly kissed her again and again, playing with the masses of golden-coloured hair, that streamed over the pillow, with the pretty but pallid fingers that still yielded to her touch—arranging, and re-arranging her dress, uttering the while many a piteous endearing epithet, with many of those pious and beautiful exclamations of hope and woe, which the prayers of her Catholic preceptor had taught her.

"It is my own Gabrielle come back to me, after all! God has sent her to me, that once more I might take a sister's fond farewell of her. But God has been very cruel to me! Oh! what do I say? No, no—he has taken you to himself—you are now among the angels in heaven, sister; you were too good for this bad world! You are happy, and I must not grudge you to Him, who will one day require me too."

"She will know how kind you are to her," said Phadrig Mhor, who, being a Catholic, had earnestly begged leave to say his prayers at the foot of the bed, where he knelt down, and behind his bonnet was making very wry faces to conceal his sorrow, for grief easily affects the hearts of the brave and honest; "she will indeed, lady, for the dead know all that passes here."

There is something sacred in grief. We all withdrew, and at her own request left Ernestine along with the body for a time.

With a delicacy of sentiment that charmed me, she would not allow either the hostess of the inn, or any other woman, to assist her in arranging the remains of the poor child (for in many things Gabrielle was but a child) for the grave. She knew whose hands Gabrielle would have preferred to perform this sad and solemn, this last duty of affection; and thus unaided, she lifted and laid her in the coffin, tying her consecrated medals round her neck, laying a chaplet of white roses on her brow, and a crucifix upon her breast; she concluded, by repeatedly reading aloud, with a broken voice, those prayers which the church, in whose tenets she had been reared, directed shall be said for the dead.

These little offices, the pleasing dictates of mingled affection and religion, soothed and occupied her mind; and I could not help thinking how much the ideas inculcated by the ancient faith (whether derived from paganrie or not), were calculated to rob the grim tyrant of his terrors, rather, than like our Scottish customs, to invest him with others more appalling.

I beheld her with admiration, and her faith and fervour stirred a thousand deep and pious thoughts within me. The memory of those two days at Hesinge is full of pain; for we spent one day more, Ian delaying his march, in consequence of this melancholy catastrophe, over which I mean to hurry as briefly as possible.

It appeared at times impossible to realise the conviction, that our poor Gabrielle had passed away, or now existed only in memory!

During nearly an entire day I sat with Ernestine beside the body, which was to be buried at midnight in the old village church close by. As the dusk of evening stole on, strange alternations of light and shadow fell on the beautiful face of the dead girl, giving it at times a most lifelike expression. Then it would seem as if the features moved, and, but for her awful placidity, I could have imagined that, in her old spirit of waggery, the pretty Gabrielle was mocking us all. Though my brother-soldiers mourned for the untimely end of the poor young girl, I thought they should all love her as much as I did; for sorrow is sometimes unreasonable; and the easy indifference with which they continued their military duties, made me indignant at them all. But they felt like soldiers. Their first impulse was to have Merodé punished, and after considerable disputation among the officers as to who should have the honour of effecting this, unknown to me lots were cast in Ian's helmet under the Green-Tree, and it fell to the stout old Laird of Kildon to challenge Merodé to advance one hundred paces from the gate of Helnœsland, and, after exchanging four pistol-shots on foot or horseback, to decide the contest by the sword; but the necessity for immediately marching by daybreak, prevented this desirable rencontre from taking place. Had it been, sure am I that the white-haired Mackenzie had cut the German count into pieces.

The whole regiment attended the funeral, which the rank of Gabrielle required should take place at midnight.

It was a strange and striking scene! The coffin of that young being, once so happy and so full of life, with a chaplet of white lilies on its lid, borne on the shoulders of four tall Highland soldiers, preceded by the village girls in white, and old Torquil Gorm, with his pipes, pouring to the still midnight a slow and subdued lament; our bronzed and scarred officers in their picturesque arms and garb following close behind, with the veiled form of Ernestine in the midst;—all this was seen, be it remembered, by the lurid and uncertain light of twenty torches carried by Highland soldiers.

The night air was soft and mild; no moon was visible, but occasional red stars shot across the sky, and the pale northern lights were gleaming at the far and flat horizon. The leaves of the old yew-trees, the grass of the graves, and the flowers that bordered the churchyard path, were gleaming in dew; and the grotesque architecture of the massive and ancient porch, the low-browed arches of every window and aisle were bathed in red and wavering light, or rounded into deep and gloomy shadow, as the funeral train swept slowly down the centre of the church, preceded by a minister of the Lutheran faith, a venerable Dane, clad in a white surplice and embroidered stole, with a large brass-bound Bible in his hand. He was an aged and silver-haired man, whose thin wan haffets glittered in the light of the uplifted torches. There was no sound but the sputtering of the latter, and the sobs of Ernestine, who leant upon my arm.

The coffin, which was placed upon a bier above the grave, emitted a hollow sound as it was deposited. Then I felt Ernestine tremble. That faint but terrible sound vibrated among the chords of her desolate heart.

I remember still the words of the burial-service, the solemn and beautiful prayer for the innocent dead; but the memory of that midnight funeral floats before me wavering and indistinctly, like a half-forgotten but impressive dream. The yawning grave and the descending coffin; the sputtering torches and the green tartans; the glittering cuirasses and sunburnt faces of my comrades; the grey and grotesque columns of the old Danish church; the veiled figure that knelt in a paroxysm of prayer and grief beside the closing tomb, from which she would be far away tomorrow; the kind and solemn face of the old village pastor, as he covered it with his sleeve, bowed his aged head, and closed his book; the jarring sound of hasty shovels; the depositation of a large stone; the quiet and slow departure of the many; the lingering of the few, who seemed loth to leave the sobbing and sorrowing sister. The torches by that time were extinguished, and all was over.

All seemed to be a fantasy—a thing that could not be; and the idea that haunted me was, that Gabrielle should meet us at our return. But, alas! there was nothing in the little chamber to indicate her former presence but the outline of her coffin, which still was impressed upon the bed; and, on seeing that, poor Ernestine fainted.

As her elder kinsman, Ian had held the principal cord of the coffin; thus it was by the hand she loved best that the head of poor Gabrielle was lowered into her early grave.