"Speak!" said he in a fierce whisper to Dreghorn and to me. He spoke in broken German, with a word or two of Spanish, and placed a pistol to each of our heads. I felt the cold muzzle against my left temple. My heart stopped—then there was a terrible conflict within it; but I knew the narrow path that honour required me to pursue. Again the sentinel challenged, and cocked his piece.
"Maldetto! will you speak—or you?" growled Bandolo.
"No—never!" said Dreghorn; "not to be made king o' a' braid Scotland—Heevin bless every inch o't!"
"Maldicion!" howled the bravo, gnashing his teeth.
"Treachery, M'Bane!" I shouted in Gaëlic; "treachery, treachery! The Imperialists are upon you! Cairn na cuimhne! Claymore and biodag!"
There was a red flash as he fired his musket, and a Croat fell beside me, kicking up his heels in the dark; two pistol-shots followed, and, shot through the brain, poor Dandy Dreghorn sank dead at my feet. I thought myself also slain—for an instant all was chaos! I fell across his body, yet fortunately my cheek was only scorched by powder, while the ball had grazed my helmet, but with sufficient force to knock me down. My escape was miraculous, and Bandolo deemed me shot when I fell on the roadway, and, luckily for myself, close to a small recess in an abutment of the bridge, where I lay unobserved; for to advance would be to fall a sacrifice to the fire of my comrades, who with Ian guarded the gate of the bridge; to retire, would be to perish among the ferocious Imperialists.
Firing a volley through the loopholes of the archway, the Highland guard closed the klinket of the well-barricaded gate, and retired double quick into the castle; and now began one of the grandest scenes of war I ever had the fortune to witness! From the high ramparts of the gothic fortress, there burst upon the midnight gloom and on the narrow bridge a flood of light, with a storm of cannon-shot and musketry.
"To the assault! to the assault! and death be the doom of the first who turns his back!" cried Tilly, rushing on foot across the bridge at the head of his pikemen, with a standard in his left hand, and a horse-pistol in the right; for the old Jesuit, though he trembled last night before an antique picture, and had implicit faith in quacks and astrologers, was brave as a lion. "Forward, my hardy rogues! there are a hundred hogsheads of good wine in yonder castle—all the spoil of the heretical Bishop of Hildesheim. On, on brave cavaliers and valiant pikemen! Remember that every blow of your swords, and thrust of your pikes, is beheld with joy by the mother of God! Strike for the good cause! thrust for the blessed cause! Strike and thrust for the Cross and the Empire!"
The hoarse hurrah of the German infantry, the yells of the Croats, and the chivalric war-cry of the Spaniards, replied to his urgent address.
"Santiago! Santiago! and close, Spain! Viva el Conde Tilly! Viva Juan de Tserclä! Viva el Espiritu Santo!"