John George offered these, offered his family as hostages—whatsoever Gustavus would. Magdeburg, which was another's, had failed to move him. But Leipzig (the prudent city had surrendered on conditions to Tilly) did move him. It might be Dresden next. Besides, he had forty thousand men in brand-new uniforms, bright and hard Saxon confectionery, and Arnim the Lutheran, who had once commanded under Wallenstein, to lead them. Surely between his forces and Gustavus they might trip up Tilly and Pappenheim, and knock the two elderly generals' heads together till they cracked.
So it happened that before John George quite realised that war was upon him, that he had at last committed himself to a side, his beloved country was overrun with armies, and there dawned the day of Breitenfeld, or as some prefer to call it, of Leipzig.
Nigel and Hildebrand were exchanging a few words over a hasty breakfast, while Sergeant Blick was, with the aid of the other officers, overlooking the arms and saddles of the troopers.
"Thank Heaven!" said Hildebrand, "we are meeting the Swede at last! Yet the old man looks grey this morning!"
"Aye!" said Nigel. "Tilly has not been himself since he made his headquarters in the gravedigger's house outside Leipzig."
"It was an ill omen that the only house that was left after our cannonade should be a gravedigger's, with skulls and cross-bones all over it," said the other lugubriously.
"Tut, man! So long as it kept out the weather! Though why Tilly let the Swede and John George join forces without a shot puzzles me. He seems, though he says nothing, to hold the Swede in too much respect."
"Well, the Swede has all his work to do. Tilly has made his dispositions well."
They pushed back their seats and went out.
Behind them was a long range of hills, along which three hundred feet above where they stood were posted battery after battery of Tilly's guns. The two officers looked out over a gently sloping plain to the eastward and descried the long line of a little river, marked here and there by clumps of willows, and the occasional gleam of the morning sun on its surface. Beyond the rivulet at some miles' distance they could make out men and horses in movement, banners, and the play of light upon a rippling sea of weapons: but all was as yet indistinct, save that there seemed to be two separate armies with a considerable space of country between.