'Roller,' called the Burgomaster, 'you are exactly the man I wanted. Come to me as soon as you go off duty, we have something to say to you.'
'Very good, respected Herr Burgomaster,' replied Roller, and then accompanied his little daughter out of the gallery to see her safely started on her homeward way. 'Why, where is Conrad Schmidt loitering?' he asked in surprise.
The boy was standing by his friend the Defensioner, who now sprang up from the ground and hastened to his commanding officer. 'Your excellency!' he cried, 'down in that corner the Swedes can be distinctly heard tunnelling through the earth. They are almost under the gallery now.'
'Quick, then, to countermine them!' said Schweinitz, and immediately left the gallery to give the necessary orders. Then began a severe subterranean battle. Both sides made desperate exertions in the attempt to get the upper hand, and for very plain reasons the Freibergers did their utmost to steal a march on the enemy. Although the ground was frozen so hard that it had first to be thawed by the use of fire, two hours had not passed away before the untiring energy of the miners had driven a heading of tolerable length, the foremost man in which stood Roller.
'We too may yet find that this is our last day,' said Roller composedly to the man working behind him. 'Every man's day is coming, whether he likes it or not. And besides, if the Swedes can give up their lives for mere money, cannot we do as much for fatherland, and wife and child? Therefore to work with a will! So long as we can hear the Swedes tunnelling, there is no need to light the match.'
'Now the sounds have ceased,' he muttered to himself after a short interval. 'It will soon be all over with us.' And he picked and shovelled away with redoubled energy, lest his comrades should abate their efforts on noticing that the Swedes had ceased work.
'The earth gets loose and spongy,' he said a little later. 'We must be approaching the Swedish mine. Now then for water, and hot water first of all, so as to get through the earth the quicker!'
Some of the miners went above ground and passed a long trough through the heading. This they sloped and kept constantly filled with water, which rushed gurgling down at the lower end, for the purpose of drowning the Swedish mine. Among those busy bringing the water in firemen's buckets and other utensils, was the miller of Erbisdorf, who had harnessed a team of his donkeys into a large sledge, loaded with steaming hot water.
'Slow and steady wins the race,' was his greeting to Roller, as he pointed to his long-eared friends. 'Our wives are brewing away yonder as though they had their coppers full of good wort instead of water out of the Münzbach. Well, the Swedish tipplers are quite welcome to have it all in their mine.'
As Roller and the miller were just in the act of lifting the heavy cask from the sledge to the trough, a dull report was heard under the earth. The ground quivered, then opened, and a red stream of fire gushed forth, accompanied by clouds of smoke and stones. The Swedes had observed the presence of an unusual number of people at this point, and had exploded an already prepared mine. There was one loud, involuntary cry from those injured by the explosion, then all was still.