But in the Swedish camp that singing and music made no small impression. The soldiers in the trenches heard it at first with wonder, then with superstitious dread.
“How is it,” said they to one another, “we have cast so much fire and iron at that hen-house that more than one powerful fortress would have flown away in smoke and ashes, but they are playing joyously? What does this mean?”
“Enchantment!” said others.
“Balls do not harm those walls. Bombs roll down from the roofs as if they were empty kegs! Enchantment, enchantment!” repeated they. “Nothing good will meet us in this place.”
The officers in fact were ready to ascribe some mysterious meaning to those sounds. But others interpreted differently, and Sadovski said aloud, so that Miller might hear: “They must feel well there, since they rejoice; or are they glad because we have spent so much powder for nothing?”
“Of which we have not too much,” added the Prince of Hesse.
“But we have as leader Poliorcetes,” said Sadovski, in such a tone that it could not be understood whether he was ridiculing or flattering Miller. But the latter evidently took it as ridicule, for he bit his mustache.
“We shall see whether they will be playing an hour later,” said he, turning to his staff.
Miller gave orders to double the fire, but these orders were carried out over-zealously. In their hurry, the gunners pointed the cannons too high, and the result was they carried too far. Some of the balls, soaring above the church and the cloister, went to the Swedish trenches on the opposite side, smashing timber works, scattering baskets, killing men.
An hour passed; then a second. From the church tower came solemn music unbroken.