No less than eighty of these horrid graves were unclosed, and their poor occupants pulled by the legs or arms from among the mould and examined before the discovery of the Prince's piebald charger in one hecatomb gave hope that his late rider's remains might be near; and accordingly, in one that was filled with Mousquetaires Gris et Noires, we found a nude and bloody corpse, which all the French officers at once declared to be Prince Xavier of Saxony, stripped even to his boots. He had received a bullet in the left temple, which was his mortal wound. His right arm was found to be broken. This had been done by the sword of Hob Elliot. His fine hair was still neatly dressed, tied by a blue satin ribbon, and powdered with brown _maréchale_. The poor remains were rolled in a large crimson velvet mantle, bearing a royal star, and placed in the coach, which was driven rapidly off, followed by its escort, to which all our guards, sentinels, and out-pickets presented arms. CHAPTER V. THE BRIDGE OF FREYENTHAL. Severe weather succeeded the battle of Minden, and the Scots Greys, while it continued, were ordered to cantonments in villages near the Lahn. On a dull wet morning we paraded in our cloaks and bade adieu to the banks of the Weser, and to the fatal plain of the 1st of August. By sound of trumpet we fell into our ranks, and the corporal-major of each troop proceeded to call the muster-roll. Alas! there was called over on that morning the name of more than one brave fellow who could respond to it no more, and over whom the autumn grass was sprouting. Amid the snows of winter we idled away our time in those dreary villages of Prussian Westphalia, till Major Shirley arrived with a message of a peculiar nature for Colonel Preston. Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, to whose staff the major was now attached (Lord Sackville having been summarily dismissed the service by the king), sent him to inform the colonel that in the district named the Rodhargebirge, a certain baron named Conrad of Freyenthal--whose character would have suited admirably one of Anne Radcliffe's romances--had placed his wife in a dungeon or vault of his residence, and kept her a prisoner therein, while a mistress occupied her place, as the ballads say, "in bower and hall." The orders of his royal highness were, that we should send a party there to free and protect the lady, and also to blow up a bridge of the Lahn close by Freyenthal, which had been partially undermined already by M. Monjoy, an engineer of the French rear-guard already mentioned. Guided by a peasant, Colonel Preston went with the Light Troop in person on this service, and as it was not likely to be a desperate one, Major Shirley accompanied us, and contrived to play me a trick which I had reason long to remember.