“The chances against our winning a victory are fully five to one.  Granted the fall of Nordlingen will injure us in the eyes of the princes and people of Germany; but with good management on our part the feeling thus aroused will be but temporary, for we should soon wipe out the reverse.  Of the 35,000 men of which the Imperial army is composed, 8000 at least are Spaniards who are on their way to Flanders, and who will very shortly leave it.

“On the other hand the Rhinegrave Otto Ludwig is with 7000 men within a few marches of us; in a short time therefore we shall actually outnumber the enemy, and shall be able to recover our prestige, just as we recovered it at Leipzig after suffering Magdeburg to fall.  We shall recapture the towns which he has taken, and if the enemy should dare to accept battle we shall beat him, and shall be in a position to march upon Vienna.”

“Horn’s arguments are the strongest,” Nigel Graheme said gravely; “the course he advises is the most prudent one.”

“Undoubtedly,” Munro replied; “but I think that it will not be followed.  The duke is of a fiery spirit, and he would feel it, as most of us would feel it, a disgrace to fall back without striking a blow for Nordlingen.  He has, too, been goaded nearly to madness during the last few days by messengers and letters which have reached him from the reformed princes and the free towns in all parts of Germany, reproaching him bitterly for having suffered Ratisbon and Donauworth to fall into the hands of the enemy without a blow, and he feels that his honour is concerned.  I have little doubt that we shall fight a great battle to save Nordlingen.”

CHAPTER XXV NORDLINGEN

While Colonel Munro and his companions were discussing the matter a council of war was being held, and Duke Bernhard’s view was adopted by all his generals, who felt with him that their honour was involved in the question, and that it would be disgraceful to march away without striking a blow to save the besieged city.  Horn, therefore, being outvoted, was forced to give way.  Up to nightfall the Imperialists had showed no signs of an intention to occupy the Weinberg, their forces being massed on and around the Allersheim Hill.  It was determined therefore to seize the Weinberg at once, and the execution of this step was committed to Horn.

The choice was most unfortunate.  The service was one upon the prompt carrying out of which victory depended, and Horn, though a brave and capable commander, was slow and cautious, and particularly unfitted for executing a service which had to be performed in a dark night across a country with which he was not familiar.  Taking with him four thousand chosen musketeers and pikemen and twelve guns he set out at nine o’clock, but the rough road, the dikes, and ditches which intercepted the country impeded him, and the fact that he was unacquainted with the general position of the country made him doubly cautious, and it was not until midnight that he reached the foot of the hill.