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.