"It is impossible!" replied that cavalier; "for our guns cannot be depressed so low."
"Then Heaven help us! for they will soon gain this poor sconce by storm."
"We can still retire by the bridge," said Learmonth.
"Without orders?" exclaimed Dunbar, the umbriere of whose helmet was, at that moment, torn away by a shot; "nay, I will die first!"
Learmonth, who was levelling a cannon, was about to make some devil-may-care reply, when two musket-balls struck him; one pierced his cuirass, and wounded him in the breast; the other tore away three fingers of his left hand, and he fell without a cry, but with a heavy groan, while his lieutenant, old Martin of that Ilk, assumed his place.
"This, to avenge thee, Balcomie," said he, discharging the cannon, and unhorsing a cavalier, whose bright armour and waving plumage made him dangerously conspicuous above the dense mass of Spaniards who were swarming over the stockades, and lowering their ladders into the now almost empty fosse.
"Well done, stout Martin!" said Dunbar, brandishing his sword; "to thy cannon again, and give me another good shot—another like that for the Queen of Bohemia! Down with that tall fellow in the gilt armour! Cocksnails, man!—he may be Carlstein himself! Down with the black eagle, and down with the cross of Burgundy! Load with cartridge shot my cannoniers, and sweep the stockade; sweep, my comrades, and be stanch as your swords of steel. Ah! pikes and pistols—my poor Martin—and thou, too?" he added, as a ball from a falconet passed through the head of the old lieutenant, and killed him on the spot: he was the last of the Martins of that Ilk, a good old family ruined in the affair of the Spanish Blanks, since when he had fed himself with the blade of his sword among the Scottish bands in Bohemia, or elsewhere.
It was frightful! Poor Martin's brains flew over me, and, half blinded, I wiped them off my face with my scarf; while, enraged by the loss of two favourite officers (though Lowlanders), our clansmen redoubled their energies, and thus the din increased as the smoke and slaughter deepened around us.
Brightly the evening sun was shining on the blue water and green banks of the Elbe; but enveloped in the white cloud of war, inspired with ferocity, and bent on carnage and destruction, we saw nothing but the enemy and our dying comrades, who every moment fell heavily down in their accoutrements, bleeding and in agony, or stone dead, as the fated shot might strike them; but closing up, shoulder to shoulder, the little band of survivors stood firm on the parapet ready to repel the assault; for still the Danish flag was flying on the colour-staff, and still the Scottish cross was streaming on the rampart. We—the officers—fought side by side with our musketeers, till our mustaches were all matted by the wet powder of bitten cartridges, and our shoulders ached with the exertion of incessant firing, while the barrels of our muskets became so hot that there was eminent danger in recharging them; yet still we toiled on. And now came the crisis; for though three successive storming parties had been swept away, our ammunition began to fail, and, as the bandoliers emptied, our fire slackened, and then the Spaniards and Austrians—pikemen, halberdiers, and musketeers, all mingled pell-mell—led by officers having pistols in their belts, and swords, daggers, and demi-lances, poured into the ditch; rushing down their ladders, and planting them against the wall, they swarmed up its face in hundreds.
Sheathed in brilliant armour, magnificently inlaid with gold, having his visor closed, a sword in his right hand and a poniard in his left, which also grasped a light rondelle or buckler, the tall and stately Count of Carlstein, wearing above his gorget the Golden Fleece and the White Eagle, led the forlorn hope.