n swept
the ground that by morning the first parallel was completed, and the
soldiers were under shelter behind a thick bank of earth.

All day the Imperialists kept up their fire, the Scots gradually pushing
forward their trenches. In the evening Colonel Axel Lily, one of the
bravest of the Swedish officers, came into the trenches to pay a visit
to Hepburn. He found him just sitting down to dinner with Munro by the
side of a fire in the trench. They invited him to join them, and the
party were chatting gaily when a heavy cannonball crashed through the
earthen rampart behind them, and, passing between Hepburn and Munro,
carried off the leg of the Swedish officer.

Upon the following day the governor, seeing that the Swedes had erected
several strong batteries, and that the Green Brigade, whose name was a
terror to the Imperialists, was preparing to storm, capitulated, and
his soldiers were allowed to march out with all their baggage, flying
colours, and two pieces of cannon. Eighty pieces of cannon fell into the
hands of the Swedes. The citizens paid 220,000 dollars as the ransom
of their city from pillage, and the Jews 180,000 for the protection
of their quarters and of their gorgeous synagogue, whose wealth and
magnificence were celebrated; and on the 14th of December, 1631, on
which day Gustavus completed his thirty-seventh year, he entered the
city as conqueror.

Here he kept Christmas with great festivity, and his court was attended
by princes and nobles from all parts of Germany. Among them were six
of the chief princes of the empire and twelve ambassadors from foreign
powers. Among the nobles was the Count of Mansfeld, who brought with him
his wife and daughter. Three days before Christmas Hepburn's brigade
had been moved in from their bivouac in the snow covered trenches,
and assigned quarters in the town, and the count, who arrived on the
following day, at once repaired to the mansion inhabited by the colonel
and officers of Munro's regiment, and inquired for Malcolm Graheme.

"You will find Captain Graheme within," the Scottish soldier on sentry
said.

"It is not Captain Graheme I wish to see," the count said, "but Malcolm
Graheme, a very young officer."

"I reckon that it is the captain," the soldier said; "he is but a boy;
but in all the regiment there is not a braver soldier; not even the
colonel himself. Donald," he said, turning to a comrade, "tell Captain
Graheme that he is wanted here."

In a s