After the death of the king, Malcolm Graheme, full of grief and rage at the loss of the monarch who was loved by all his troops, and had treated him with special kindness, joined the soldiers of Duke Bernhard, and took part in the charge which swept back the Imperialists and captured the cannon on the hill.  At the very commencement of the struggle his horse fell dead under him, and he fought on foot among the Swedish infantry; but when the arrival of Pappenheim on the field enabled the Imperialists again to assume the offensive, Malcolm, having picked up a pike from the hands of a dead soldier, fought shoulder to shoulder in the ranks as the Swedes, contesting stubbornly every foot of the ground, were gradually driven back towards the road.

Suddenly a shot struck him; he reeled backwards a few feet, strove to steady himself and to level his pike, and then all consciousness left him, and he fell prostrate.  Again and again, as the fortune of the desperate fray wavered one way or the other, did friend and foe pass over the place where he lay.

So thickly strewn was the field with dead that the combatants in their desperate struggle had long ceased to pick their way over the fallen, but trampled ruthlessly upon and over them as, hoarsely shouting their battle cry, they either pressed forward after the slowly retreating foe or with obstinate bravery strove to resist the charges of the enemy.  When Malcolm recovered his consciousness all was still, save that here and there a faint moan was heard from others who like himself lay wounded on the battlefield.  The night was intensely dark, and Malcolm’s first sensation was that of bitter cold.

It was indeed freezing severely, and great numbers of the wounded who might otherwise have survived were frozen to death before morning; but a few, and among these were Malcolm, were saved by the frost.  Although unconscious of the fact, he had been wounded in two places.  The first ball had penetrated his breastpiece and had entered his body, and a few seconds later another ball had struck him in the arm.  It was the first wound which had caused his insensibility; but from the second, which had severed one of the principal veins in the arm, he would have bled to death had it not been for the effects of the cold.  For a time the life blood had flowed steadily away; but as the cold increased it froze and stiffened on his jerkin, and at last the wound was staunched.

It was none too soon, for before it ceased to flow Malcolm had lost a vast quantity of blood.  It was hours before nature recovered from the drain.  Gradually and slowly he awoke from his swoon.  It was some time before he realized where he was and what had happened, then gradually his recollection of the fight returned to him.

“I remember now,” he murmured to himself, “I was fighting with the Swedish infantry when a shot struck me in the body, I think, for I seemed to feel a sudden pain like a red hot iron.  Who won the day, I wonder?  How bitterly cold it is!  I feel as if I were freezing to death.”