, and a Note of
Daun's Procedures substituted as yolk. "You are dead, sirrah," said
Daun; "hoisted to the highest gallows: Are not you? But put in a Note
of my dictating, and your beggarly life is saved." Retzow Junior, though
there is no evidence except of the circumstantial kind, thinks this
current story may be true. [Retzow, i. 347.] Certain it is, neither
Friedrich nor any of his people had the least suspicion of Daun's
project, till the moment it exploded on them, when the clock at
Hochkirch struck five. Daun, in the last two days, had been felling even
more trees than they are aware of,--thousands of trees in those Devil's
wildernesses to Friedrich's right; and has secretly hewn himself roads,
passable by night for men and ammunition-wagons there:--and in front of
Friedrich, especially Hochkirch way, Daun seems busier than ever felling
wood, this Friday night; numbers of people running about with axes, with
lanterns over there, as if in the push of hurry, and making a great deal
of noise. "Intending retreat for Zittau to-morrow!" thinks Friedrich, as
the false egg-yolk had taught him; or merely, "That poor precautionary
fellow!" supposing the false yolk a myth. In short, Daun has got through
his nocturnal wildernesses with perfect success. And stands, dreamt of
by no enemy, in the places appointed for his 30,000 and him; and that
poor old clock of Hochkirch, unweariedly grunting forward to the stroke
of five, will strike up something it is little expecting!--

The Prussians have vedettes, pickets and small outposts of Free-corps
people scattered about within their border of that Austrian Wood, the
body of which, about Hochkirch as everywhere else, belongs wholly to
Croats. Of course there are guard-parties, sentries duly vigilant, in
the big Battery to southeast of Hochkirch,--and along southwestward in
that POTENCE, or fore-arm of Four Battalions, which are stationed there.
Four good Battalions looking southward there, with Cavalry to right;
Ziethen's Cavalry,--whose horses stand saddled through the night, ready
always for the nocturnal "Pandourade," which seldom fails them. There,
as elsewhere, are the due vigilances, watchmen, watch-fires. The rest of
the Prussian Army is in its blankets, wholly asleep, while Daun stands
waiting for the stroke of five.

That Daun, bursting in with his chosen 30,000, will trample down the
sleeping Prussian POTENCE at Hochkirch; capture its big Battery to left,
its Village of H