A flood of armed men—the regiments of Merodé and Camargo—poured along the bridge against that gate, which formed the only barrier between them and the fertile and unravaged provinces of Saxe-Lauenburg, Holstein, and Denmark, and they rushed impetuously against it, their pioneers being in front, with axes and sledge-hammers, petards and levers. Other corps followed, column after column, with all their bright points and uplifted pikes gleaming in the blaze of a light-ball, which (by Major Wilson's orders) was now burned on the summit of the castle, and which poured a torrent of dazzling radiance on every object. This engine (so useful for revealing the position and number of a foe at night) is usually a large bomb, filled and covered with powder, saltpetre, turpentine and rosin, well rammed with birchwood charcoal, and covered by innumerable coats of paper steeped in melted pitch.
On the grey battlements of Lauenburg this blazed like a comet, and enabled the Highlanders to direct their fire of musketry from the parapets above, and the Barbette batteries below—so named because, in their passage, the shots from them shave the cope of the rampart. The shower of missiles that swept the bridge was terrible! Two great basilisks, or 48-pounders, loaded with musket-balls, did frightful execution, while the enormous bombarde vomited stang-balls, or shot with double heads, having fourteen inch bars to connect them; these shred away whole ranks of men, who, as they crowded upon the bridge in their eagerness, impeded the operations of those who assailed the gate.
"Cairn na cuimhne!" rang at times above the uproar from the castle wall. I thought I could detect the voice of Ian; for it was the war-cry of the M'Farquhars—their Cairn of Remembrance on the hills of Strathdee.
The yells, cries, and tumult upon the narrow bridge were appalling, and almost equalled the din of the fire-arms and artillery in Lauenburg. What a contrast now was there! ten minutes before the stillness had been like that of a desert, unbroken save when the solitary sentinel sang, or when the wind shook the rushes of the Elbe, and swept along its darkened waters with a moaning sound.
A thick mist arose from its bosom, and on that mist fell the ghastly and sulphurous glare, amid which—yet half in obscurity—were seen the columns moving to the attack, like troops of spirits, with their armour and weapons gleaming as if tipped with blue fire, among that cold white vapour.
Down from the lofty rampart, lighting up its grim architecture of the twelfth century, poured that torrent of flame, revealing every object, even to the checks in the tartan plaids of the Highlanders; larger it grew, broader and brighter, until every ornament and stud upon the coats-of-mail were visible. The whole fortress was illuminated; the spire of Saxe-Lauenburg, the houses and their windows, the rolling mist, the broad river, and its clumps of pale green weeping willows and dusky copper beeches; the advancing columns with their umbered arms and rustling banners; the stormers on the bridge, swarming and swearing, jostling and crushing forward over the dead and dying, and uttering yells of rage and defiance, whenever a cannon-shot made a lane of carnage through their living mass, were fully and fearfully visible.
Surmounted by the demi-eagle of Anhalt rising from its ducal crown, before them lay the old archway with its deep dark mouth, having a false portcullis jagged with iron teeth, flanked by the Barbette batteries, and swept from innumerable loopholes of the casemates, from the recesses of which red streaks of fire and wreaths of pale blue smoke—blue even amid that pallid glare—burst forth incessantly, as the radiance of the blazing fireball enabled the Scottish musketeers to direct their deadly aim with precision and security.
At last this light from the castle began to subside and die away; but just then the Austrian petardiers blew up the Anhalt gate, and half their number with it; the din of hammers and axes followed; then another wild shout of triumph, and the musketeers of Merodé, the pikemen of Camargo, and the Croats of Castanovitz, with the whole of Tilly's column, began to pour along the bridge, through the shattered archway, and entered the duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg.
The Scottish major had undermined the bridge; but the powder found a vent somewhere, and the chamber was fired without effect; then a triumphant shout of fear, derision, and defiance arose from the soldiers of the Empire! The Rubicon was passed; the passage of the Elbe achieved, but with great loss; and the castle was immediately outflanked and environed on every side.
Column after column—horse foot and artillery—defiled along the bridge, until the whole main body of the Imperialists had passed, but not without severe loss; for my brave comrades fired incessantly until their bandoliers were empty, and their cannon had become so hot, that to cool them they were compelled to cease for a time; and then, on day breaking, the gallant Lowland cavalier who led them, finding the castle invested on every point, craved a parley by beat of drum, and, through the intervention of Tilly's aide-de-camp, and of his confessor, Father Ignatius d'Eydel, an influential Jesuit, obtained permission to march out with all the honours of war, and to retire without molestation down the right bank of the Elbe, to the fortress of Glückstadt.