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And so the third course, which was incomparably the worst, found favor in Council of War: That of leaving Gabel and Puttkammer to their fate; and of pushing off for Zittau leftwards through the safe Hills, by Kamnitz, Kreywitz, Rumburg; which, if the reader look, is by a circuitous, nay quite parabolic course, twice or thrice as far: 'In that manner let us save Zittau and our Main Body! said the Council of War.
'Thirty miles, say the multitude of Counsellors: 'Yes, but the first fifteen, TO Gabel, is cross-road, hilly, difficult; they have us in flank! 'We are 25,000, urges the Prince; 'fifteen miles is not much! The thing had its difficulties: the Prince himself, it appears, faintly thought it feasible: '25,000 we; 20,000 they; only fifteen miles, said he.
For the Austrians, immediately after their taking Gabel, sent a strong detachment against Zittau, a trading town in the circle of Upper Saxony, where the Prussians had large magazines, and a garrison of six battalions, and, in his sight, attacked it with uncommon rage.
The 21st Lancers, trotting ahead a mile or more beyond Gabel, came upon a small body of dervishes hiding in a hollow; and Colonel Martin having decided to cut them off, the regiment charged in line, led by Colonel Martin.
A bold summit came in sight, dark, desolate, which they judged to be Great Gabel; and when they had pressed on eagerly for another mile, the valley opened beneath them with such striking suddenness that they stopped on the instant and glanced at each other in silence.
But this was not all. An Englishman had never been seen in Starkenbach before, and as it had been at Gabel, so it was here, multitudes of all ranks and classes flocked to obtain a glimpse of us. Moreover, it soon appeared that they came with more generous intentions than to gratify an idle curiosity, however innocent in itself.
The first glance which we obtained of this said stream sufficed to assure us that in the gentle craft, the good people of Gabel were altogether unpractised. There was no stream at all, but a ditch, deep, here and there, and dark enough, but measuring not more than two feet across, and everywhere overhung with bushes.
"I gave you an army corps of thirty-six thousand men, and you bring me back sixteen thousand! Where have you left my soldiers?" "They lie in the narrow pass of Gabel in the chasms of the Erz mountains they have died of hunger and thirst, and they have deserted," said Prince Augustus, solemnly. "And you dare to tell me this?" said the king. "I dare to tell you what fate has brought upon us."
In 1548, a violent outbreak took place at Bordeaux on account of the gabel or salt-tax; and the king's lieutenant was massacred in it. Anne de Montmorency, whom the king had made constable in 1538, the fifth of his family invested with that dignity, repaired thither at once. The narrator, it will be seen, was not more merciful than the constable.
Lyttleton's and Wauchope's brigade, turning by the left, moved round the bottom of Gabel Surgham; Maxwell passing on their right, while Lewis and Macdonald moved away much farther on the right; and thus the brigades became at some distance apart. And now took place one of the most stirring events of this eventful day.
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