The enemy were close at our heels; there was not a moment to be lost between deciding upon instant embarkation, or a surrender of the whole eight thousand men to Count Tilly. Duke Bernard and his bravest and most distinguished officers, even the Baron Karl and Rittmaster Hume, had lost all authority, for a terror of the victorious Imperialists bore all before it; and there, as if to tantalize us, was our fleet lying in the roadstead, with the loosened sails glimmering in the broad moonlight, which shed a blaze of splendour on the wide blue Baltic. A mole, or broad pier of stone, which jutted out into the sea, was densely crowded by a column of cavalry, nearly a thousand German Reitres and Danish lancers, who were waiting the approach of two large vessels, the _Scottish Crown_ of Leith, and a Dane, whose crews, more courageous than others, were fast warping inwards, and had approached within fifty yards of the shore. A shout of rage burst from our ranks, when we found ourselves compelled to halt before this hopelessly disorganized mass. "Duke of Saxe-Weimar," said our colonel to the general, "after holding the pass of Oldenburg for the whole evening against ten thousand men, are my brave soldiers--the children of my tribe--to fall into the hands of the foe, because these Danish cowards will neither fight nor flee!" "Taunt me not, Sir Donald Mackay," replied the brave Bernard, lifting the umbriere of his helmet by one hand, and reining in _Raven_, his fiery war-horse, by the other; "for they have sealed their own doom--not I. But they have covered with disgrace the name I have won me on two-and-twenty battle-fields." "Seven hundred brave hearts yet remain to you," replied the stately chief, who was an old comrade of the duke, "and these will embark your excellency, or perish on the shore." "By the grey stone of M'Gregor, we will!" added M'Alpine, who led the first company. "Dioul! it was well said, stout colonel," said Ian; "shall we be the victims of these hen-hearted cowards! Are these figures in iron, women or slaves?" "Let us clear the pier of the horsemen! Let us attack and cut to pieces this band of cowards who bar the way!" cried McAlpine. "Let us form square and fire on them," said M'Kenzie of Kildon. "But they will charge us," added another officer. "Dioul!" said Tan; "let us charge them, and then their blood be on their own heads. Hark--by the Holy Iron! there are the cannoniers of the enemy." "Pikemen to the front--to the front against horsemen!" cried Sir Donald in a voice of thunder, while high in his stirrups he raised his towering form; "heed not the wolves behind--but bear away those sheep in front! Shoulder to shoulder, Highlandmen--forward, charge!"