Page:Stories after Nature.pdf/40

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16
CHRISTIAN AND HIS COMPANIONS;

faced upon his friends. Christian and Frederick looked on each other amazed, and Christian said sorrowfully, "We are no longer the crescent three." Frederick turned furiously round, and made an attack upon the part where Gustavus was stationed; and having left the main battle to Christian, he with an hundred chosen men chased Gustavus up and down the ranks, cleaving his way through every opposition, till he had secured him and taken him prisoner. Christian, seeing a favourable opportunity, found it prudent to sound a retreat; having sustained but little loss, and disabled the king's troops too much to follow him. In the morning they assembled and sat in judgment upon their prisoner; who, by this time, had come to a full sense of his dishonour, and desired nothing so much as to die, and end at once his misery, and the mean opinion he had of himself. When he was brought before them, he stood with much humility and unaffected sorrow; never lifting his eyes from the ground, or shifting his melancholy position. Christian spoke, saying, "What are we to do with thee? Thou hast deserved the death for sacrificing thine honour to thine inclination; for abandoning the sacred cause of liberty and the people; and (worst of all) abetting their fast enemy.