"Not so!" answered Henrik Fagel, from Ahlais village, in Ulfsby, "send all the men to the bow; it is the stern that has stuck."
"All men to the prow," shouted the commander. Then the "Styrbjörn" was again afloat, and all the Swedish fleet followed in her wake. Bäck used to say:
"What the deuce would have become of the fleet if Stedingk had remained deaf?"
Everyone understood the old man; he had saved the entire squadron. Then he used to laugh and add,
"Yes, yes! You see, brother, I was born on the 15th of August; that is the whole secret; I am not to be blamed for it."
After the war was over, Bäck went to Stockholm, and became devoted to the king. He was young, and needed no reason for his attachment.
"Such a stately monarch," was his only idea.
One day, in the beginning of March, 1792, the surgeon, a handsome youth—to use his own expression—had through a chamber-maid at Countess Lantingshausen's, who in her turn stood on a confidential footing with Count Horn's favourite lackey, obtained a vague inkling of a conspiracy against the king's life. The surgeon resolved to act Providence in Sweden's destiny, and reveal to the monarch all that he knew, and perhaps a little more. He tried to obtain an audience of the king, but was denied by the chamberlain, De Besche. A second attempt had the same result. The third time, he stood in the road before the royal carriage, waving his written statement in the air.
"What does this man want?" asked Gustave III. of the chamberlain.
"He is an unemployed surgeon," replied De Besche, "and begs your Majesty to begin another war, that he may go on lopping off legs and arms."