tirely exhausted. The summer had been
unusually hot. The shrunken waters of the Pegnitz were putrid and
stinking, the carcasses of dead horses poisoned the air, and fever
and pestilence raged in the camp. Leaving, then, Kniphausen with eight
thousand men to aid the citizens of Nuremberg to defend the city should
Wallenstein besiege it, Gustavus marched on the 8th of September by
way of Neustadt to Windsheim, and there halted to watch the further
movements of the enemy.

Five days later Wallenstein quitted his camp and marched to Forsheim.
So far the advantage of the campaign lay with him. His patience and iron
resolution had given the first check to the victorious career of the
Lion of the North.

Munro's regiment, as it was still called--for he was now its full
colonel, although Lieutenant Colonel Sinclair commanded it in the
field--had suffered terribly, but less, perhaps, than some of those
who had in vain attempted to force their way up the slopes of the Alte
Veste; and many an eye grew moist as at daybreak the regiment marched
into its place in the ranks of the brigade and saw how terrible had been
the slaughter among them. Munro's soldiers had had but little of that
hand to hand fighting in which men's blood becomes heated and all
thought of danger is lost in the fierce desire to kill. Their losses
had been caused by the storm of cannonball and bullet which had swept
through them, as, panting and breathless, they struggled up the steep
slopes, incapable of answering the fire of the enemy. They had had their
triumph, indeed, as the Imperial regiments broke and fled before their
advance; but although proud that they at least had succeeded in a day
when failure was general, there was not a man but regretted that he had
not come within push of pike of the enemy.

Malcolm Graheme had passed scatheless through the fray--a good fortune
that had attended but few of his brother officers. His uncle was badly
wounded, and several of his friends had fallen. Of the men who had
marched from Denmark but a year before scarce a third remained in the
ranks, and although the regiment had been strengthened by the breaking
up of two or three of the weaker battalions and their incorporation
with the other Scottish regiments, it was now less than half its former
strength. While Gustavus and Wallenstein had been facing each other at
Nuremberg the war had continued without interruption in other parts, and
the Swedes and their allies ha