King Charles, himself a knightly soul and an admirer of a gallant enemy, gave orders to have all Tordenskjold’s belongings sent back to him, but he did not live to see the order carried out.  He was found dead in the rifle-pits before Frederiksteen on December 11, 1718, shot through the head.  It was Tordenskjold himself who brought the all-important news to King Frederik in the night of December 28,—­they were not the days of telegraphs and fast steamers,—­and when the King, who had been roused out of bed to receive him, could not trust his ears, he said with characteristic audacity, “I wish it were as true that your Majesty had made me a schoutbynacht,”—­the rank next below admiral.  And so he took the step next to the last on the ladder of his ambition.

Within seven months he took Marstrand.  It is part of the record of that astonishing performance that when the unhappy Commandant hesitated as the hour of evacuation came, not sure that he had done right in capitulating, Tordenskjold walked up to the fort with a hundred men, half his force, banged on the gate, went in alone and up to the Commandant’s window, thundering out: 

“What are you waiting for?  Don’t you know time is up?”

In terror and haste, Colonel Dankwardt moved his Hessians out, and Tordenskjold marched his handful of men in.  When he brought the King the keys of Marstrand, Frederik made him an admiral.

It was while blockading the port of Goeteborg in the last year of the war that he met and made a friend of Lord Carteret, the English Ambassador to Denmark, and fell in love with the picture of a young Englishwoman, Miss Norris, a lady of great beauty and wealth, who, Lord Carteret told him, was an ardent admirer of his.  It was this love which indirectly sent him to his death.  Lord Carteret had given him a picture of her, and as soon as peace was made he started for England; but he never reached that country.  The remnant of the Swedish fleet lay in the roadstead at Goeteborg, under the guns of the two forts, New and Old Elfsborg.  While Tordenskjold was away at Marstrand, the enemy sallied forth and snapped up seven of the smaller vessels of his blockading fleet.  The news made him furious.  He sent in, demanding them back at once, “or I will come after them.”  He had already made one ineffectual attempt to take New Elfsborg that cost him dear.  In Goeteborg they knew the strength of his fleet and laughed at his threat.  But it was never safe to laugh at Tordenskjold.  The first dark night he stole in with ten armed boats, seized the shore batteries of the old fort, and spiked their guns before a shot was fired.  The rising moon saw his men in possession of the ships lying at anchor.  With their blue-lined coats turned inside out so that they might pass for Swedish uniforms, they surprised the watch in the guard-house and made them all prisoners.  Now that there was no longer reason for caution, they raised a racket that woke the sleeping town up in a fright.  The commander of the other fort sent out a boat to ascertain the cause.  It met the Admiral’s and challenged it, “Who goes there?”