For a moment, while these levin brands were lighting earth and heaven with their ghastly glare, we could distinctly perceive the bastions of the ravelin, and the ranks of the regiment; for all its bonnets of steel, and bright musket-barrels, glittered in the gleam above the stone parapet and redoubts of turf. I could see the strong beeches, bending like willows before the breath of the sweeping storm, the turgid waters of the Frankenlake, and the countless bright points—helmets, pike-heads and musket-barrels, cuirasses and standards, of two vast columns of infantry, that moved stealthily round each flank of its margin, to assail on two quarters the post we had orders to defend to the last—the Frankendör—the most untenable, and the weakest redoubt in the whole city of Stralsund.
The lightning passed away; the bright edges faded from the clouds, and the bosom of the lake and all its banks vanished into darkness, as instantaneously as they had become visible; but we had seen enough to acquaint us with the force, disposition, and intentions of the foe.
The thunder then rattled in deep hoarse peals across the sky, and died away in echoes over the isle of Rügen, and along the Pomeranian shore.
"Now, my brave lads—cock up your bonnets!" cried Sir Donald, whose deep and powerful voice rose above even the howling of the stormy wind; "'tis the enemy—the Imperialists, who mean to beat up our quarters, and have sworn to beat us out of them; so let us give these gentlemen a good account of ourselves. Musketeers—look to your pouches and hammer-stalls."
These leather covers, by which our men protected their locks and matches from rain, were instantly unstrapped from the muskets, the pouches were opened, and I could perceive the red glow-worm-like gleam, as each musketeer lit his match at his comrade's lock, and all stood ready to fire upon the enemy, waiting only for the order in silence, and amid a stillness broken only by the sweeping gusts.
Another gleam of light shot between an opening in the clouds, and we saw the advancing columns nearer still—so near that their ladders, and other paraphernalia of escalade, were visible. Then the colonel spoke to the pipers who stood by his side, and the onset burst from their instruments; but the scream of the chanters and bray of the drones were lost and drowned in the roar of the musketry, for seven hundred barrels of steel were levelled at once over the parapet, and seven hundred flashes of red fire burst at once upon the murky night. Again the arms were loaded, and the rattle of iron ramrods and brass butts!—the bustle of charging home the cartridges, casting about, blowing matches, and priming pans, became incessant; and with no other light to guide them than the occasional gleams of lightning, our soldiers poured volley after volley, on those close ridges of helmets, strewing the route of the Imperialists with dead and dying men.
Wild hurrahs, shrieks, and outcries, were tossed towards us on the gusty wind, or were borne away to the seaward; and now, to add tenfold grandeur to the terrible and magnificent scene, the Imperialists shot a succession of fireballs into the air, and each one, as it soared like a mountain of fire, shed a flood of brilliance upon the rippled lake, the smoky ravelin, and the columns of Spanish and Austrian musketeers who were pouring forward to the attack. The explosion of these fireballs, which sprung like rockets above the lake and sheeted it with light, until they fell, to splutter, hiss, and float upon its surface (for neither wind nor water could extinguish their flames), had a most fatal effect for the assailants themselves, by enabling us to direct our fire upon them with the deadliest precision.
"Unhorse me yonder fellow with the Red Plume!" said Sir Donald Mackay. "By my father's soul! 'tis his example alone that leads yon wavering column on! Down with him! level surely—Gillian M'Bane, thou art a deadly shot at a red deer or a capercailzie. My silver brooch to thine, if thou makest yonder fellow kiss the turf."
"'Tis Rupert-with-the-Red-plume!" cried a hundred voices. My heart leaped at the cry; but, before I could speak, Gillian M'Bane had fired, and I could perceive the cavalier indicated by the colonel—and who was an officer magnificently armed and accoutred, brandishing his long sword, and conspicuous by a scarlet plume—reel in his saddle; but the shot had only cut the lacing of his helmet, which rolled among his horse's feet; and still he pressed on, with his long grizzled hair, and longer cavalier-lock streaming on the wind.
"Spare that officer!" I exclaimed, striking up five or six levelled muskets with my sword. "I owe him my life, and more than my life; besides, he is my own near kinsman, though he serves the German emperor."