The Mercenary: A Tale of The Thirty Years' War

by W. J. Eccott

"Lieutenant! Make the round of the ramparts with one of the Commandant's soldiers and see what the dispositions are, whether one can leave the castle and how. One cannot make one's plans for leaving the town if one cannot first leave the castle."

"True!" said Hildebrand, who was secretly desirous of retaining the twenty troopers to defend Hradschin. "And sound your men as to whether they will risk a rope with Captain Charteris or remain here with me."

Nigel would have been inclined to resent this, but as Hildebrand was his host he said nothing, only being quite resolved that in the end his men should obey orders, hanging or no hanging.

Then they fell to discuss the road Nigel should take.

"Pilsen is a long journey through the hills!" said the Commandant. "Why not make for Eger? There is a strong garrison at Eger. If you reach there in safety you can get another escort to Vienna, and when things are quiet your men can slip out and go there to await your return." In this way the Commandant made it a more familiar idea to Nigel's mind that he should go alone. And Nigel, on his part, resolved that alone, or accompanied, it would be easier to escape that night, when the citizens would be drowsy with their unwonted watching, say two hours before dawn, than on the morrow when the threatened attack began. The heart of the difficulty to his mind would be the gate at the bridge-head. Even if the guard were overcome there would still be delay, and delay would be fatal.

The lieutenant returned and reported that watch-fires were lit and burning at all the four avenues which gave egress from the neighbourhood of the castle, and at each was a strong guard, all armed with muskets. Any one coming from the castle could be seen. The crowd had dispersed.

The three soldiers put their heads together over a plan of the town, and Nigel asked question after question till he had extracted all the facts he could from the Commandant. Then he asked the Commandant for the quickest-witted of his men, and sent for Sergeant Blick, one of the escort, by special request of Nigel, who had great confidence in his fidelity.

In a quarter of an hour the two men dropped into a flat-bottomed boat kept at a small back gate of the castle for the convenience of the kitchens. And mooring it carefully on the other side, they stood half-way between the fires and the guards to the north and those to the south. The soldier belonging to the castle tapped at a window in the street which faced the castle again and again. Presently the knock was answered. The casement opened. The soldier got through, and burly Sergeant Blick waited for the door to open. Then he entered too. A few words with the goodwife, who supplied the soldiers of the garrison with spiced sausages, and they departed through a door at the back of the house into a darkness that could scarcely have been bettered.

As the clock of the Rathhaus struck one past midnight there gathered in its shadows a knot of men. By a quarter past there were twenty, and at half-past there were forty. Every man came by himself and stealthily, and every man came armed, and was surprised to find so many others there before him, except only the first three, and they were very old in comradeship. As each man came up he murmured "Waldstein," and waited in the gloom in silence.

As the clock of the Rathhaus struck one past midnight Sergeant Blick and two or three men who, like him, knew something about horses, were as silently as possible yoking horses, and in some cases oxen, which had complacently folded their legs and gone to sleep chewing the cud as industriously as usual, to the waggons that stood in the market street and market-place. The noise of horses and waggons clattering or creaking was nothing to the dwellers in that part of the town.