“The news was brought to young Charles the Twelfth when he was out hunting, a sport of which he is passionately fond.  By all accounts, he is an extraordinary young fellow.  He is not content with hunting bears and shooting them, but he and his followers engage them armed only with forked sticks.  With these they attack the bears, pushing and hustling the great creatures, with the forks of their sticks, until they are completely exhausted, when they are bound and sent away.  In this hunt Charles took fourteen alive, one of which nearly killed him before it was captured.  He did not break up the hunting party, but continued his sport to the end, sending off, however, orders for the concentration of all the troops, in Livonia and Finland, to act against the Saxons.

“As soon as the King of Denmark heard of the siege of Riga, he ordered the Duke of Wurtemberg-Neustadt, his commander-in-chief, to enter Holstein with his army, sixteen thousand strong.  All of that country was at once overrun, the ducal domains seized, and great contributions exacted from Schleswig and Holstein.  Fleming and the Saxons, after one severe repulse, forced the garrison of the fort of Dunamund, commanding the mouth of the Duna, to surrender.  Tonningen is the only fortress that now holds out in Holstein.  So you see, lads, there is every chance of there being brisk fighting, and I warrant the young King of Sweden will not be backward in the fray.  A man who is fond of engaging with bears, armed with nothing but a forked stick, is not likely to hang back in the day of battle.

“But, at present, we will say no more on the matter.  Now that we have got beyond the shelter of the island, the waves are getting up, and the vessel is beginning to toss and roll.  I see that Sir Marmaduke has retired to his cabin.  I mean to remain here as long as I can, and I should advise you both to do the same.  I have always heard that it is better to fight with this sickness of the sea, as long as possible, and that it is easier to do so in fresh air than in a close cabin.”

The lads quite agreed with this opinion, but were, in spite of their efforts, presently prostrate.  They remained on deck for some hours, and then crawled to their cabin, where they remained for the next three days, at the end of which time they came on deck again, feeling better, but as weak as if they had suffered from a long illness.

Mr. Jervoise had been in frequently to see them, having escaped the malady, from which, as he told them, Sir Marmaduke was suffering to the full as severely as they were.

“So you have found your feet again,” the captain said, when they appeared on deck.  “You will be all right now.”

“We feel much better,” Harry said, “now that the storm is over.”

“Storm!  What storm?  The weather has been splendid.  We cannot wish for anything better.  It has been just as you see it now—­a bright sun, and just enough wind for her to carry whole sail.”