Between us and the enemy it was now a race for who should first reach Heilinghafen; but in rapidity of movement they were no match for the barekneed men of the Scottish mountains.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE NIGHT OF HORRORS AT HEILINGHAFEN.
Without firing another shot, we reached Heilinghafen, and found the town in a state of unparalleled uproar. Terrified by the noise of the cannon and musketry at Oldenburg, and still more by the rapid advance of the enemy, the mariners of the Danish and Scottish ships, with their masters and mates, would not leave their anchorage to haul inshore and embark the troops, who were all crowded on the beach and mole—officers and soldiers, horse and foot, women, baggage, and pioneers, pikemen and musketeers, without formation or discipline, and struck with a panic by the vicinity of the foe—a panic which our appearance, as we advanced in dense column towards the beach or pier, with arms sloped and matches lighted, increased.
I thought of Ernestine and Gabrielle; where were they amid all that frightful commotion?
The enemy were close at our heels; there was not a moment to be lost between deciding upon instant embarkation, or a surrender of the whole eight thousand men to Count Tilly. Duke Bernard and his bravest and most distinguished officers, even the Baron Karl and Rittmaster Hume, had lost all authority, for a terror of the victorious Imperialists bore all before it; and there, as if to tantalize us, was our fleet lying in the roadstead, with the loosened sails glimmering in the broad moonlight, which shed a blaze of splendour on the wide blue Baltic.
A mole, or broad pier of stone, which jutted out into the sea, was densely crowded by a column of cavalry, nearly a thousand German Reitres and Danish lancers, who were waiting the approach of two large vessels, the Scottish Crown of Leith, and a Dane, whose crews, more courageous than others, were fast warping inwards, and had approached within fifty yards of the shore. A shout of rage burst from our ranks, when we found ourselves compelled to halt before this hopelessly disorganized mass.
"Duke of Saxe-Weimar," said our colonel to the general, "after holding the pass of Oldenburg for the whole evening against ten thousand men, are my brave soldiers—the children of my tribe—to fall into the hands of the foe, because these Danish cowards will neither fight nor flee!"
"Taunt me not, Sir Donald Mackay," replied the brave Bernard, lifting the umbriere of his helmet by one hand, and reining in Raven, his fiery war-horse, by the other; "for they have sealed their own doom—not I. But they have covered with disgrace the name I have won me on two-and-twenty battle-fields."
"Seven hundred brave hearts yet remain to you," replied the stately chief, who was an old comrade of the duke, "and these will embark your excellency, or perish on the shore."