CHAPTER XVIII.
HOW OUR OLD SCOTTISH BLADES POMMELED THE IMPERIALISTS.
As we had secured, sunk, or destroyed, all the boats and other craft on the Elbe, the Imperialists had no other means of crossing but passing, at push of pike, the long stone bridge which spanned the river by its strong and stately arches; and as the whole line of it, and the approaches thereto, were liable to be raked by the cannon and musketry of the sconce, they made immediate preparations to gain the latter by assault.
There were not less than ten thousand men approaching to force this passage, which our five hundred Highlanders were left to defend. They were led by the great Count of Carlstein, whose name was only less familiar to us than that of Count Tilly. He was said to be a distinguished soldier of fortune, on whom the ambitious but generous Emperor had freely bestowed (that which did not belong to him) a Bohemian coronet, together with a free gift of that magnificent Castle of Carlstein, built by Charles IV., eight miles from Prague, and where the regalia of the conquered palatinate were kept.
At length, then, we saw them, and were invested and surrounded by those haughty, proud, and ferocious soldiers of the Empire, to whom battle was a pastime, and human blood as water; the terror of the Protestants and scourge of Bohemia; those sons of rapine and outrage, steeped to the lips in the darkest crimes, yet flushed by the memory of a hundred victories. Numerous though they were, our little band of kilted clansmen stood to their arms undauntedly, feeling an honest confidence in their own valour, with a hatred of their enemies; for in the name of religion, with the cross of God on their standards and on their breasts, those Imperialists, wherever they had been victorious, at Fleura, at Bergen-op-Zoom, and after every field from Prague to that of Lütter, had committed such atrocities as would have made even the heart of a Nero recoil.
Full orbed, and round as the shield of Fingal, the unclouded moon rose brightly above the Elbe; its glassy waters rolled in light, and the woods and thickets which fringed the southern bank, together with the old fantastic houses of Boitzenbnrg on the north, were all bathed in that silver sheen, which in brightness contrasted so strongly with the deep black shadows.
Under the central arch of the bridge three red lights were reflected in the current of the river. These were the lanterns of our miners, who, under the direction of the Laird of Balcomie, were sinking a chamber in one of the piers, and charging it with powder. So bright was the lustre of the July moon that we could discern every movement of the enemy as clearly as if it were noonday.
A regiment of musketeers, clad in white buff coats and steel caps, and having two large banners with the Austrian Eagle and Burgundian Cross, poured along the road, and, under a discharge of their cannon (which took possession of an eminence about five hundred yards distant), advanced to storm and destroy the palisades which protected the outer side of our wet-graff; two other regiments endeavoured to outflank the redoubt, and force, by the river side, a passage to the tête-du-pont, but a heavy fire met them at every angle; their cannon-shot began to knock splinters of stone and clouds of earth about us, or crashed into our parapets, and now began in earnest the whole uproar of war, which now I heard for the first time.
Our company of M'Farquhars had to defend that face of the sconce which swept the roadway; and over our earthen parapets we poured a close and deadly fire, to which the Imperialists replied with equal rapidity, but not with equal effect; for while our men levelled over a rampart, which protected them breast high, the assailants were wholly exposed, and levelled their long matchlock-muskets over iron forks; but the front rank came on with arms slung, and using only hatchets attacked the palisades, hewing them down frantically in their efforts to force a passage to the ditch.
"Shoulder to shoulder, my men! fire close, and fire low!" cried Ian, whose eyes flashed brighter as the conflict increased; and though it was his first, he was as cool as old Dunbar, who had served with the Scottish bands under Hepburn in Bohemia. His example strung my heart, and recalled my somewhat scattered energies, which had become a little confused; for every instant a heavy cannon-shot boomed over our heads, to crash among the roofs of the town, or with a dull heavy sound, sank deep into the turf breastwork of the sconce; while the hiss of the musket-balls, which flew past us like a leaden storm, was ceaseless as the splash of rain upon the casement. The whole fort was enveloped in smoke, for as our mousquetade mingled with theirs, we could no longer see the enemy; but we heard the crash of the axes among the falling palisades, the cries of the wounded, and the yells of the fierce and eager; their incessant war-cry of "Sancta Maria! Sancta Maria!" and the din of their drums beating the charge; but into the dark and opaque cloud, from the bosom of which all these dire sounds proceeded, our brave clansmen shot fast and sure, at the practised level; and Balcomie's lieutenant, a brave old soldier, David Martin of that Ilk, inspired his pikemen to handle our brass culverins in such wise, that every bullet must have made a frightful lane through the dense column of attack.