“Now I hear his steps even down here. They are getting still more violent and restless. He is so lonely. When I saw him in Hadjash bowing and bowing among the generals, I could only think: How lonely he is!”
“If the little Holsteiner slips away from here alife, he will always remember the steps we heard tonight and always call this refuge Fort Garden.”
The ensign nodded his approval and answered, “Go to the stable, major, and seek rest and shelter a while between the horses. And there through the walls you can better hear the king and watch over him.”
Thereupon the ensign began to sing with resonant voice:
“O Father, to Thy loving grace....”
The Holsteiner went back across the garden into the stable and, his voice quavering with cold, intoned with the other:
“In every time and every place
My poor weak soul would I commend.
Oh, Lord, receive it and defend.”
“Oohaho! Oohaho!” answered the Cossacks in the storm, and it was already night.
The Holsteiner squeezed himself in between the two horses and listened till weariness and sleep bowed his head. Only at dawn was he wakened by a clamor. He sprang out into the open air and beheld the king already standing in the garden, looking at the sword that had been set up as a sun-dial.
By the gate the Cossacks had collected, but when they saw the motionless sentry, they shrank back in superstitious fear and thought of the rumors concerning the magic of the Swedish soldiers with blow and shot.