A cry of rage burst from the pale lips of Colonel von Baerenklau, and he would have rushed upon the impudent peasants who dared to fasten such a disgrace upon him. But his own men kept him back.
"We do not want to be slaughtered," they cried, perfectly beside themselves with terror; "we will surrender, we will lay down our arms!"
A deathly pallor overspread the cheeks of the unfortunate officer.
"Do so, then," he cried. "Surrender yourselves and me to utter dishonor! I am no longer able to restrain you from it."
And with a sigh resembling the groan of a dying man, Colonel von Baerenklau fainted away, exhausted by the terrible exertion and the loss of blood which was rushing from a gunshot wound on his neck.
"We surrender! We are ready to lay down our arms!" shouted the Bavarians to the Tyrolese, who were still thinning their ranks by the deadly fire of their rifles and their terrible butt-end blows.
"Very well, lay down your arms," cried Andrews Hofer, in a powerful voice. "Stop, Tyrolese! If they surrender, nobody shall hurt a hair of their heads, for then they are no longer our enemies, but our brethren.—Lay down your arms, Bavarians!"
The Tyrolese, obedient to the orders of their commander, stopped the furious slaughter, and gazed with gloomy eyes at their hated enemies.
There was a moment of breathless silence, and then the Bavarian officers were heard to command in tremulous voices, "Lay down your arms!"
And their men obeyed readily. Three hundred and eighty soldiers, and
nine officers, laid down their arms here on the plain of the
Sterzinger Moos, and surrendered at discretion to the Tyrolese.
[Footnote: "Gallery of Heroes: Andrews Hofer," p. 3l.]