The forester rushed to the court. Fink carried off a few men with him to the side of the house on which the men with ladders were advancing. All were in confusion. Even Fink's threatening voice no longer took effect upon them.
At that moment some men, with bars of iron in their hands, were seen hurrying in from the court-yard to the hall door. "Make way!" cried a stalwart figure; "this is blacksmith's work!" The man pushed back the bolts of the door. The opening was filled by the burning wagon. Spite of smoke and flames, the smith leaped upon its burning frame. "Help me, you hares!" screamed he, in angry tones.
"He is right," cried Anton. "Onward, my men!"
Boards and poles were brought, and the men unweariedly pressed onward through the smoke, and pushed and heaved away at the glowing mass. At length the smith succeeded in throwing down some of the sheaves. One could now get a glance of the dark sky, and the smoke was less stifling.
"Now we have it!" cried he, triumphantly; and bundle after bundle fell to the ground, and burned harmlessly away. The wagon was more and more quickly unloaded, blazing feather-beds and billets of wood falling with other things.
Anton had the door half closed as the enemy's bullets passed through the flames, and the men had to use their levers from the side. The wagon-ladders fell down, burned to charcoal; and with a shout of triumph, all the levers were applied at once, and the fragments of the wagon pushed a few yards from the door, which was quickly locked again from inside; while the men, black as imps, and with clothes burned, loudly congratulated each other.
"Such nights as these make strong friendships," cried the smith, in great delight, as he shook Anton's hand, which was little less black than his own.
Meanwhile the axes of the besiegers were hacking away at several windows of the lower story, the loosened boards creaked, and Fink's voice was heard saying, "Knock them down with the butt-ends!"
Anton and the forester now betook themselves upon the window through which the besiegers sought to enter. But the worst was over there too. Fink came to meet them, the bloody axe of an insurgent in his hand, and, flinging it away, he cried to Anton and his party, "Put new boards into the windows. I hope the butchery is at an end."
A few more salvos from without, and single shots from within, and all was still in the castle and in the field. The walls still glowed a while in the firelight, but it faded and faded away. The wind rose and drove away the smoke curling round the windows from the burning fragments before the door. The pure night air filled the corridors and the halls once more, and the starlight shone quietly on the sunken eyes and pale faces of the garrison. On both sides the energies of the combatants were exhausted.