Page:Life and surprising adventures of Frederick Baron Trenck.pdf/11

 with them pell-mell into the suburbs, and the enemy's light troops swarmed in all the environs. Our commandant sent me immediately to receive the King's orders. After having fought him a great while, I found him at last on the top of a steeple, with a perspective glass in his hand. I never saw him so uneasy and undetermined as on that day. We were ordered to retreat immediately, and to retire through the town to the opposite suburb, where we were directed to halt without taking the bridles or saddles off our horses.

We were scarcely there, when a dark night came on, accompanied by a deluge of rain. About nine o'clock, Trenck (an Austrian commander, and a relation of mine) appeared with his Turkish muse, and set fire to several houses. As soon as we perceived it, we began to fire musketry out of the windows. The tumult was terrible. The town was so full of people that we could not force an entrance; the gate was shut, and our field pieces kept firing from above. Trenck stopped the passage of the water; by midnight it was as high as our horses' bellies, and we were almost entirely abandoned. We lost six men, and my horse was wounded in the neck-It is certain that the King, as well as the rest of us, would have been made prisoners, if my cousin could have continued the attack: But receiving a wound in the foot with a cannon ball, he was obliged to be carried off, and the Pandours retired. The day following, Nassau's corps came to our assistance. We left Kollin, and while on the march the King said to me, "Your cousin might have played us an unlucky trick that night; but, according to the report of the deserters, he was killed."

About the middle of December we arrived at Berlin, where I was received with open arms. I