The coolness of the brilliant Marquis de Gordon, as we advanced, was somewhat amusing. Drawing off his gauntlet, he said to a captain of Ramsay's corps—
'Forbes, I'll trouble you for a pinch of snuff.'
The captain was about to comply, when a second flash broke from the town rampart, and a ball cut him in two.
'Zounds!' said the Marquis, 'M. le Vicomte Arpajou, I shall trouble you, for poor friend and his box have gone together. Comrade,' he added, to a man who fell with a shriek, as his left leg was shattered by a musket-shot, 'why are you making such an outcry? it will not cure you; but here is my silk scarf, 'tis at your service as a bandage.'
'Bravo, comrades and gentlemen!' exclaimed Sir John Hepburn, brandishing his sword; 'here we are at the foot of the glacis!'
Over it, the arquebuses à croc were pouring death and havock among us; but the destruction of their cannon had evidently dismayed the Lorrainers, and deprived them of all confidence. Still their fire was so steady and severe, directed as it was by the dawn which was breaking behind us, and clearly defined our figures, that we wavered now at the edge of the fosse, after surmounting and destroying the stockade by axes, hammers, and crowbars, and there was an unmistakeable reluctance to advance, while the stormers fell fast on every hand, and we heard the tumultuous cheers of Ramsay's covering column, which was pressing on our rear.
Hepburn held aloft his purse.
'Forward, comrades!' he cried; 'a thousand francs to the first with me in the bastion.'
Not a man among us stirred; he grew deathly pale, but still continued to brandish his sword, while the bullets sawed all the turf about him.
'Come on, sirs—my old Scots musketeers and gentlemen of the guard—Dundrennan, Douglas, Blane, and Bruce, follow me!'