ned at all hazards to learn what was taking place, in order that
he might enlighten Oxenstiern as to the real sentiments of the duke.
Learning that the principal chamber in the castle had been cleared, and
that a meeting of the officers would take place there in the evening, he
told Thekla when he went home to his meal at midday that she must not be
surprised if he did not return until a late hour. He continued his work
until nearly six o'clock, the time at which the meeting was to begin,
and then extinguishing his light, he made his way through the passages
of the castle until he reached the council chamber, meeting with no
interruption from the domestics, who were by this time familiar with his
person, and who regarded him as one rising in favour with their master.
He waited in the vicinity of the chamber until he saw an opportunity for
entering unobserved, then he stole into the room and secreted himself
behind the arras beneath a table standing against the wall, and where,
being in shadow, the bulge in the hanging would not attract attention.

In a few minutes he heard heavy steps with the clanking of swords and
jingling of spurs, and knew that the council was beginning to assemble.
The hum of conversation rose louder and louder for a quarter of an
hour; then he heard the door of the apartment closed, and knew that the
council was about to commence. The buzz of conversation ceased, and then
a voice, which was that of Field Marshal Illo, one of the three men in
Wallenstein's confidence, rose in the silence. He began by laying before
the army the orders which the emperor had sent for its dispersal to
various parts of the country, and by the turn he gave to these he found
it easy to excite the indignation of the assembly.

He then expatiated with much eloquence upon the merits of the army
and its generals, and upon the ingratitude with which the emperor had
treated them after their noble efforts in his behalf. The court, he
said, was governed by Spanish influence. The ministry were in the pay of
Spain. Wallenstein alone had hitherto opposed this tyranny, and had thus
drawn upon himself the deadly enmity of the Spaniards. To remove him
from the command, or to make away with him entirely, had, he asserted,
been long the end of their desires, and until they could succeed they
endeavoured to abridge his power in the field. The supreme command was
to be placed in the hands of the King of Hungary solely to promote
the Spanis