attery,
driving the imperialists back in disorder. The cavalry, which had
charged the black cuirassiers of Wallenstein, was less successful. They
were repulsed, and the cuirassiers fiercely charged the Swedish infantry
in flank, driving it back beyond the trenches.

This repulse brought on the great disaster of the day. Gustavus, seeing
his infantry driven back, hastened to their aid with a troop of horse,
and through the disorder of the field became separated from his men,
only a few of whom accompanied him, among them Francis, Duke of
Saxe-Lauenburg. His short-sightedness, or the foggy condition of the
atmosphere, unluckily brought him too near a party of the black
cuirassiers, and in an instant a shot struck him, breaking his left arm.

"I am wounded; take me off the field," he said to the Duke of Lauenburg,
and turned his horse to retire from the perilous vicinity.

As he did so a second ball struck him in the back. "My God! My God!" he
exclaimed, falling from the saddle, while his horse, which had been
wounded in the neck, dashed away, dragging the king, whose foot was
entangled in the stirrup, for some distance.

The duke fled, but Luchau, the master of the royal horse, shot the
officer who had wounded the king. The cuirassiers advanced, while
Leubelfing, the king's page, a boy of eighteen, who had alone remained
with him, was endeavoring to raise him up.

"Who is he?" they asked.

The boy refused to tell, and was shot and mortally wounded.

"I am the King of Sweden!" Gustavus is said to have exclaimed to his
foes, who had surrounded and were stripping him.

On hearing this they sought to carry him off, but a charge of the
Swedish cavalry at that moment drove them from their prey. As they
retired they discharged their weapons at the helpless king, one of the
cuirassiers shooting him through the head as he rushed past his
prostrate form.

The sight of the king's charger, covered with blood, and galloping with
empty saddle past their ranks, told the Swedes the story of the
disastrous event. The news spread rapidly from rank to rank, carrying
alarm wherever it came. Some of the generals wished to retreat, but Duke
Bernhard of Weimar put himself at the head of a regiment, ran its
colonel through for refusing to obey him, and called on them to follow
him to revenge their king.

His ardent appeal stirred the troops to new enthusiasm. Regardless of a
shot that carried away his hat, Bernhard charged at their h