"A dogger with two sails! Bandolo!—dost thou say so?" I exclaimed in a broken voice. My heart shrunk up at the words of Ian—a mountain seemed to fall upon me. "Ernestine in his power!" I staggered, and supported myself upon my claymore; the light seemed to leave my eyes.
Ernestine, in whom was centred all my hopes of the future—entwined with life itself—my happiness, my glory, and fortune, for she was all to me—and Gabrielle, too!—what might be her fate?
I knew that Bandolo had long fostered the most extravagant ambition—to become the purchaser of a county and coronet in some of those beggared states of Germany where such things were saleable; and Tilly's favour and the Imperial gold had made the bravo and scoutmaster rich as a Lombard Jew. I remembered the conversation between the wretch and his patron at Luneburg; and, if their father was really dying, trembled for the fate of the sisters.
I was stunned, benumbed, and had no sense save that a dreadful calamity—I knew not altogether what—had suddenly dissolved every tie between the world and me. Some time elapsed before Ian could understand me—that Ernestine and her sister had but too surely been decoyed away by a stratagem of the accomplished desperado.
All that passed on this evening appeared to me as a dream. Phadrig Mhor accoutred me; the parade, and inspection of locks and ammunition, the rattle of our drums as we marched under the old castle arch, and filed down to the landing-place; the tears of the kind old queen, who, in her goodness of heart, wept as the brave Highland band embarked on that desperate expedition, from which few—perhaps none—might ever return; all seemed parts of the same misty dream. Then came our reception onboard, the warm congratulations of our comrades, stout old Culcraigie, and Red M'Alpine, still wearing his scarf of crape; then the noisy supper in the gun-room, where salted beef, cold Russian tongue, and Holstein bacon, were washed down by many a brown flagon of German wine; then came the frolics and merriment—for, with the heedlessness of soldiers, my comrades forgot the hardships and dangers of the past year, and cared nothing for those that were to come. They spent that night in jovialty as our ship bore away for Rodbye.
I alone was mute, pale, downcast, and inexpressibly miserable.
I was at times in a state of absolute horror. I could not realize my separation from Ernestine; and if, when overcome by thought, sleep closed my eyes, it was but for a moment—her voice came to my ear, and I started and awoke.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CAPTURE OF BURG.
I did my duty well, but mechanically; for my mind was always wandering, and occupied by vague surmises, foreign from what passed around me.