inter closed in with the enemy at the
door, burrowing hourly nearer the outworks, and food and fire-wood
grew scarcer day by day in the hard-pressed city. When things were
at the worst pass in February, the Swedes gathered their hosts for a
final assault. In the midnight hour they came on with white shirts
drawn over their uniforms to make it hard to tell them from the
snow. Karl Gustav himself led the storming party and at last was in
the way of "getting speech of brother Frederik," for the Danish King
was as good as his word. He had said that he would die in his nest,
and time and again he had to be sternly reasoned with to prevent him
from exposing himself overmuch. Where the danger was greatest he
was, and beside him ever the queen, all her frivolity gone and
forgotten. She who had danced at the court fetes and followed the
hounds on the chase as if the world had no other cares, became the
very incarnation of the spirit of the bitter and bloody struggle.
All through that winter the royal couple lived in a tent among their
men, and when the alarm was sounded they were first on foot to lead
them. Now that the hour had come, they were in the forefront of the
fight.

Where the famous pleasure garden Tivoli now is, the strength of the
enemy was massed against the redoubts at the western gate. The name
of "Storm Street" tells yet of the doings of that night. King Karl
had promised to give over the captured town to be sacked by his army
three days and nights, and like hungry wolves they swarmed to the
attack, a mob of sailors and workmen with scaling ladders in the
van. The moats they crossed in spite of the gaps that had been made
in the ice to stop them, but the garrison had poured water over the
walls that froze as it ran, until they were like slippery icebergs.
A bird could have found no foothold on them. Showers of rocks and
junk and clubs fell upon the laddermen. Three times Karl Gustav
hurled his columns against them; as often they were driven back,
broken and beaten. A few gained a foothold on the walls only to be
dashed down to death. The burghers fought for their lives and their
homes. Their women carried boiling pitch and poured it over the
breastworks, and when they had no more, dragged great beams and
rolled them down upon the ladders, sweeping them clear of the enemy.
In the hottest fight Gunde Rosenkrantz, one of the king's
councillors, trod on a fallen soldier and, looking into his face,
saw that it was h