Whilst two of their number went off at once to alarm the garrison of the water-tower and the men on the neighbouring fortifications, the rest of the courageous little band took post around the vaulted entrance of the tunnel, in readiness to give the enemy a warm reception. This arrangement was not completed without some noise; and, as a consequence, a head appeared from beneath the archway to see what was going on outside. It was the head of the treacherous town servant; and Roller promptly dealt it so severe a blow with a stout cudgel, that its owner instantly drew back with a yell of pain. Some minutes of ominous silence then passed, in which the enemy were doubtless busy taking counsel as to what should be done next. Then they suddenly burst forth with loud shouts and wild uproar. Though one and another of their number dropped beneath the shower of stones with which they were greeted, they did not even pause, but pressed furiously forward against their antagonists.
'Light the petard!' shouted a terrible voice from beneath the archway, at the sound of which Hillner's arm seemed involuntarily to lose its power. Immediately afterwards a Swede made his appearance, whose murderous eyes and bushy red beard were plainly visible in the torchlight.
'Father!' cried Hillner sadly; and his strong right arm fell mechanically at his side, while the left was extended imploringly, as though to shield him from his father's uplifted sword.
A frightful oath was the answer, the one that Conrad heard on the Erbisdorf road, and, by his comrade's wish, wrote down on paper; and the oath was at once followed up by a desperate cut. The young man's wounded hand fell helpless; and a second blow his father levelled at him must undoubtedly have been at once fatal, had not a well-aimed stone struck the Swede in the face at the critical moment and made him stagger back. Before he could recover himself, a musket-ball struck him in the chest, and he fell to rise no more. This fortunate shot, with a volley of others that now greeted the Swedes, was fired by a party of men approaching at a rapid pace under the leadership of Master Prieme.
'We wanted to snatch a laurel from your wreath,' was his hasty greeting to Hillner, who, after his father's fall, was once more, with his uninjured hand, doing vigorous work against the enemy.
The foe, attacked in rear by the garrison of the water-tower, were gradually compelled to give way before the superior force of the Freibergers, and were at length driven back beneath the arched vault of the Münzbach, a retreat into which the Saxon bullets followed them, rapidly thinning their ranks.
'Yield, you dogs!' shouted Prieme, fearful, and not without good reason, that they might even now explode the petard.
Thereupon arose a short, sharp contest among the entrapped Swedes, in which the smaller and more courageous section wished to fire the petard already sunk in the foundations of the water-tower, and bury all in the ruins; while the other party did their utmost to prevent this design from being put into execution. The less bold majority gained the day, and announced their intention to yield themselves up as prisoners of war. Jüchziger had received his reward. His body, with a severe wound on the head, was found lying trampled down by the feet of the Swedish soldiers into the waters of the Münzbach; and the dangerous petard was discovered sunk into a hole prepared with much toil and secrecy by Jüchziger in the strong arch on which the tower stood.
The fight was hardly over when the commandant appeared, come to see what was going on.
'I trust,' said Hillner respectfully, 'that your excellency will pardon my being here, instead of under arrest where I was placed. I shall now hasten to give myself up again. But that I am at least no traitor to my fatherland, this wounded hand may surely bear witness.'