Meanwhile the camp servants begged permission to attack the city, for they wished greatly to reach the Swedish treasures earliest. The king refused at first, but finally consented. A number of prominent officers undertook to lead them, and among others Kmita, who was imbittered by delay, and not only that, but in general he knew not what to do with himself; for Hassling, having fallen into a grievous fever, lay without consciousness for some weeks and could speak of nothing.
Men therefore were summoned to the storm. Grodzitski opposed this to the last moment, insisting that until a breach was made the city could not be taken, even though the regular infantry were to go to the assault. But as the king had given permission, Grodzitski was forced to yield.
June 15, about six thousand camp servants assembled; ladders, bundles of brush, and bags of sand were prepared. Toward evening a throng, barefoot and armed for the greater part only with sabres, began to approach the city where the trenches and earth defences came nearest the moat. When it had become perfectly dark, the men rushed, at a given signal, toward the moat with a terrible uproar, and began to fill it. The watchful Swedes received them with a murderous fire from muskets and cannons, and a furious battle sprang up along the whole eastern side of the city. Under cover of darkness the Poles filled the moat in a twinkle and reached the walls in an orderless mass. Kmita, with two thousand men, fell upon an earth fort, which the Poles called “the mole-hill,” and which stood near the Cracow gate. In spite of a desperate defence he captured this place at a blow; the garrison was cut to pieces with sabres, not a man was spared. Pan Andrei gave command to turn the guns on the gate and some of them to the farther walls, so as to aid and cover somewhat those crowds who were striving to scale the walls.
These men, however, were not so fortunate. They put the ladders in position, and ascended them so furiously that the best trained infantry could not have done better; but the Swedes, safe behind battlements, fired into their very faces, and hurled stones and blocks prepared for the purpose; under the weight of these the ladders were broken into pieces, and at last the infantry pushed down the assaulters with long spears, against which sabres had no effect.
More than five hundred of the best camp servants were lying at the foot of the wall; the rest passed the moat under an incessant fire, and took refuge again in the Polish intrenchments.
The storm was repulsed, but the little fort remained in the hands of the Poles. In vain did the Swedes roll at it all night from their heaviest guns; Kmita answered them in like manner from those cannon which he had captured. Only in the morning, when light came, were his guns dismounted to the last one. Wittemberg, for whom that intrenchment was as his head, sent infantry at once with the order not to dare return without retaking what had been lost; but Grodzitski sent reinforcements to Kmita, by the aid of which he not only repulsed the infantry, but fell upon and drove them to the Cracow gate.
Grodzitski was so delighted that he ran in person to the king with the report.
“Gracious Lord,” said he, “I was opposed to yesterday’s work, but now I see that it was not lost. While that intrenchment was in the enemy’s hands I could do nothing against the gate; but now only let the heavy guns come, and in one night I will make a breach.”
The king, who was grieved that so many good men had fallen, was rejoiced at Grodzitski’s words, and asked at once,—
“But who has command in that intrenchment?”