ingratitude. Among his officers, Wallenstein had particularly
distinguished one Leslie, an Irishman, and had made his fortune.

[Schiller is mistaken as to this point. Leslie was a Scotchman,
and Buttler an Irishman and a papist. He died a general in the
Emperor's service, and founded, at Prague, a convent of Irish
Franciscans which still exists.--Ed.]

This was the man who now felt himself called on to execute the sentence
against him, and to earn the price of blood. No sooner had he reached
Egra, in the suite of the duke, than he disclosed to the commandant of
the town, Colonel Buttler, and to Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon, two
Protestant Scotchmen, the treasonable designs of the duke, which the
latter had imprudently enough communicated to him during the journey.
In these two individuals, he had found men capable of a determined
resolution. They were now called on to choose between treason and duty,
between their legitimate sovereign and a fugitive abandoned rebel; and
though the latter was their common benefactor, the choice could not
remain for a moment doubtful. They were solemnly pledged to the
allegiance of the Emperor, and this duty required them to take the most
rapid measures against the public enemy. The opportunity was
favourable; his evil genius seemed to have delivered him into the hands
of vengeance. But not to encroach on the province of justice, they
resolved to deliver up their victim alive; and they parted with the bold
resolve to take their general prisoner. This dark plot was buried in
the deepest silence; and Wallenstein, far from suspecting his impending
ruin, flattered himself that in the garrison of Egra he possessed his
bravest and most faithful champions.

At this time, he became acquainted with the Imperial proclamations