On the night fixed for the murder,
Wallenstein's faithful friends, Illo, Terzka, Kinsky, and Captain
Neumann were at a banquet in the castle of Eger. The agents of death
were Colonel Butler, an Irish officer named Lesley, and a Scotchman
named Gordon, while the soldiers employed were a number of dragoons,
chiefly Irish.
In the midst of the dinner the doors of the banqueting hall were burst
open, and the assassins rushed upon their victims, killing them as they
sat, with the exception of Terzka, who killed two of his assailants
before he was despatched.
From this scene of murder the assassins rushed to the quarters of
Wallenstein. It was midnight and he had gone to bed. He sprang up as his
door was burst open, and Captain Devereux, one of the party, rushed with
drawn sword into the room.
"Are you the villain who would sell the army to the enemy and tear the
crown from the emperor's head?" he shouted.
Wallenstein's only answer was to open his arms and receive the blow
aimed at his breast. He died without a word. Thus, with a brief interval
between, had fallen military genius and burning ambition in two
forms,--that of the heroic Swede and that of the ruthless Bohemian.
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