[CHAPTER XXVII.]
THE RESTLESSNESS OF STEPHANIE.
The next few days passed at Halberstadt in transforming the mass of fugitives into the semblance of an army. Cavalry and infantry were re-mustered under their regimental standards, where a nucleus existed in the shape of an old regiment. Where there was none, a new one was formed. All found an entry on some roster. The defences of the city were improved in all possible ways and provisions were got in. The little general busied himself in sending messages to all the imperial garrisons within reach to concentrate at a spot named, by the river Weser, and it was from this source that he expected to collect another army rather than from any fresh enlistments. Tilly with a bite and a sup would gladly have passed on. He fretted under the inaction which his numerous wounds made absolutely necessary: the more so that as yet he had no certain knowledge of the trend of the plans of his great adversary. Sometimes he talked as though he had done with war. These were the days when his wounds did not look like healing. Nigel knew the old war-dog well enough to ask, "Who shall succeed?" That stiffened the Count von Tzerclaës quickly enough. He was one of those men who do not breed successors.
But by the first days of October it was announced and confirmed that Gustavus had turned to march westward, and that the Elector of Saxony was to march upon Prague. Tilly's plans soon took a definite shape. He, too, would march westward, but along the plains of Lower Saxony into Brunswick, then towards the Rhine, gathering garrisons as he went, till he could turn and meet Gustavus with a force sufficient to annihilate him.
Nigel's rough-riders became the nucleus of a regiment, which was given to Hildebrand von Hohendorf, and he himself was again chosen by Tilly for a confidential journey to the Emperor. This time nothing was committed to writing save the commendations General Tilly thought fit to make of Nigel's conduct in the battle and during the retreat. Tilly's plans for the future conduct of the campaign, and such requests as he had to make, were carefully committed to Nigel's memory. A small escort was given him, for the task of getting from Halberstadt to Vienna without falling into the arms of Gustavus's rearguard, or some of the widely-spread Saxon contingents moving, as doubtless many of them would be doing, eastward, was one requiring great vigilance, skill, and, above all, speed, and numbers would have availed less than nothing. His plan was to make his way as straightly as possible to the nearest point of the Bavarian border, and once across that, the roads to Vienna were for the present likely to be free from Swede and Saxon alike.
The only document he carried, in addition to Count Tilly's letter to the Emperor, was the extraordinary letter from Wallenstein taken from the dead Count von Teschen. This the Archduchess Stephanie had returned to him privately, with these few words inscribed upon the inside of the paper that enveloped them—
"The ardour of a great loyalty createth a cloud of smoke, seen through which other men's actions may be distorted out of the natural semblance of beauty. So doth the ardour of a great love."
Pondering over this, Nigel set out.