When his men saw him fall, they were seized with panic and made off
as quickly as they could, while Tordenskjold's crew, of whom only
fourteen were left, beat their drums and blew trumpets in frantic
defiance. Their captain was for following the Swede and boarding
her, but he couldn't. Sails, rigging, and masts were shot to pieces.
Perhaps the terror of the Swedes was increased by the sight of
Tordenskjold's tame bear making faces at them behind his master. It
went with him everywhere till that day, and came out of the fight
unscathed. But during the night the crew ran the vessel on the
Swedish shore, whence Tordenskjold himself reached Denmark in an
open boat which he had to keep bailing all night, for the boat was
shot full of holes, and though he and his companions stuffed their
spare clothing into them it leaked badly. The enemy got the smack,
after all, and the bear, which, being a Norwegian, proved so
untractable on Swedish soil that, sad to relate, in the end they cut
him up and ate him.

King Charles, himself a knightly soul and an admirer of a gallant
enemy, gave orders to have all Tordenskjold's belongings sent back
to him, but he did not live to see the order carried out. He was
found dead in the rifle-pits before Frederiksteen on December 11,
1718, shot through the head. It was Tordenskjold himself who brought
the all-important news to King Frederik in the night of December
28,--they were not the days of telegraphs and fast steamers,--and
when the King, who had been roused out of bed to receive him, could
not trust his ears, he said with characteristic audacity, "I wish it
were as true that your Majesty had made me a schoutbynacht,"--the
rank next below admiral. And so he took the step next to the last on
the ladder of his ambition.