So great was the confusion of this conflict, maintained mid-leg in the water, that for a time I stood like a statue, with my sword raised above my head, incapable of deciding on which side the blow should descend.
The crash of musket-butts falling in full swing upon pike shafts and steel caps; the sharp rasp of sword-blades against each other, or upon tempered corslets, from which, by every thrust or blow, they struck the sparks in showers; the discharge of firelocks and pistols; the cries, groans, and oaths; the swaying to and fro, and the desperate struggles of those who, on their weapons being broken, grasped each other by the throat or beard, with hands ungloved, and strove on this side or on that to drag their adversary down beneath the bloodstained water, then reduced to a mass of dingy and gory mud; and all this combined when seen under the cold, ghastly glare of a northern moon, with the sea around us, the floating vapour on one hand, and on the other the confused background of Stralsund, and those trenches where old Leslie was waging a conflict as deadly, made up one of the most infernal medleys of horror that was ever beheld by the eye of a soldier.
Conspicuous in this melée, I perceived the high eagle's wings of Ian, as he dealt his cuts and thrusts, now under and now over the round shield which covered his breast; and by his side was gigantic Phadrig, swaying his ponderous pole-axe with all the coolness and deliberation of a mower.
Amid this brief but terrible conflict, by the irresistible decree of fate, or the strong instinct of deadly hatred, Red Angus M'Alpine encountered and recognised Colonel Hector M'Lean, and each greeted the other with an exclamation of ferocious joy.
"Hector of Lochdon!" said Angus, in a hoarse voice.
"Angus Roy!" cried the Imperialist, and they pressed upon each other with a fury too great to last. The former was fired by the memory of his son's death; the latter by the loss of his wife, and the undeserved sorrow, shame, and ruin, brought upon his hearth and home.
They were no longer men; they fought like wild animals; for all the long-treasured fury of a Highlander, who has wrongs to avenge and insults to wipe out by the sword, swelled up in their hearts, and Red Angus was no more the same man—the same merry comrade we had known and served with so long. Disdaining to parry the thrusts of M'Lean, he raised his heavy sword above his head with both hands, and clove him down through steel and bone to the edge of the gorget; at the same moment he received a shot in the breast, and with a wild cry threw his arms aloft, and fell lifeless, into the sandy water.
Enraged by his fall the regiment swept on, and who could resist them?—those children of the mist and the battle—those true sons of the sword, as Ossian called their sires in the times of old. Nor Goth, nor Spaniard—Imperial horseman, nor Walloon musketeer—for they were shred away like the red leaves when the autumn wind pours down the mountain side; and there, as at Lütter and Leipzig, the glorious valour of my Scottish comrades bore all before it.
So great was the confusion, that I do not think I struck one blow that night.
The brigade broke through like a mighty wedge, and, with the loss of three hundred men killed and wounded, reached Stralsund with all the waggons save one, after giving the foe such an alerte as Wallenstein had never experienced before, while his trenches on the other flank received such a scouring, that his trench guards kept surer watch ever after. In fact, so severely were they handled by Sir Donald Mackay in one place, and old Marshal Leslie in the other, that the night of the outfall or sortie from Stralsund, was never forgotten by the army of the Empire; but was always remembered with mingled rage and dissatisfaction.