ptors and brained the other. For all that they nearly got him. He
saved himself only by wriggling out of his belt and leaving it in
the hands of the enemy. Eight years he campaigned in Poland and
Prussia, learning the arts of war. Then he was ready for his
life-work. He made a truce with Poland that freed his hands for a
season, and went home to Sweden.

That spring (1629) he laid before the Swedish Estates his plan of
freeing the Protestants. To defend Sweden, he declared, was to
defend her faith, and the Estates voted supplies for the war. To
gauge fully the splendid courage of the nation it must be remembered
that the whole kingdom, including Finland, had a population of only
a million and a half at the time and was preparing to attack the
mighty Roman empire. In the first year of the war the Swedish budget
was thirteen millions of dollars, of which nine and a half went for
armaments. The whole army which Gustav Adolf led into Germany
numbered only 14,000 soldiers, but it was made up of Swedish
veterans led by men whose names were to become famous for all time,
and welded together by an unshakable belief in their commander, a
rigid discipline and a religious enthusiasm that swayed master and
men with a common impulse. Such a combination has in all days proven
irresistible.

The King's farewell to his people--he was never to see Sweden
again--moved a nation to tears. He spoke to the nobles, the clergy
and to the people, admonishing them to stand together in the hard
years that were coming and gave them all into the keeping of God.
They stood on the beach and watched his ships sail into the sunset
until they were swallowed up in glory. Then they went back home to
take up the burden that was their share. On the Ruegen shore the King
knelt with his men and thanked God for having brought them safe
across the sea, then seized a spade, and himself turned the first
sod in the making of a camp. "Who prays well, fights well," he said.

He was not exactly hospitably received. The old Duke of Pommerania
would have none of him, begged him to go away, and only when the
King pointed to his guns and hinted that he had keys well able to
open the gates of Stettin, his capital, did he give in and promise
help. The other German princes, with one or two exceptions, were as
cravenly short-sighted. They held meetings and denounced the Emperor
and his lawless doings, but Gustav they would not help. The princes
of Brandenburg and of Saxo