CHAPTER XLVII.
LAST ASSAULT OF STRALSUND.
I found that a salvo had completely breached the curtain of the bastion at the Frankendör; that the debris of fallen masonry, wooden platforms, cannon and their carriages, had half filled up the ditch before the gap; and that a strong column of Imperialists were advancing to a general assault, led by several officers on horseback, one of whom wore that large red plume for which the Count of Carlstein was so remarkable. Another, who was generally by his side, rode a magnificent white horse, and wore a cuirass and helmet which glittered like silver in the sun, being of the most beautiful workmanship; while his scarf, gloves, holsters, and housings, were fringed with the richest bullion.
This cavalier was the great Duke of Friedland himself, and the place where he rode, at the head of that advancing column, was the mark of nearly a thousand muskets; for the Lord Spynie's regiment of Lowland Scots was now brigaded with ours, but both were greatly reduced in number; and a line of hollow-eyed and pale-visaged men they were; yet as desperate as the most resolute valour, goaded by starvation and disease, could make them.
Three strong regiments advanced to the attack;—one was the battalion of Camargo; another was the Spanish Arcabuziers of Coloredo; and in front was the regiment of Merodé, led by six soldiers, bearing on their shoulders a black coffin!
Within that coffin was Merodé, whom De Vart had slain by a mortal wound; but whose dying injunctions were, that, dead or living, he should head the assault of Stralsund. Ruffians though they were, his soldiers had a wild species of love for him; and now sword in hand, and shoulder-high, six of them bore his coffin towards the breach, the fire from whence, by frequently killing the bearers, threw the dead man heavily on the earth.
"Gentlemen and comrades," said Sir Donald; "pikemen and musketeers—to your duty, and do it according to your wont! Remember how many generations of our ancestors, all brave men, who loved the battle as a pastime, are this day looking down upon you from the place of the good man's reward in heaven."
"Dirk and claymore! dirk and claymore!" cried our men, and the shout was heard above the roar of the musketry.
"Yes!" said Ian emphatically, as he shook his lofty plumes; "in Heaven's name let it be dirk and claymore! I would rather meet those fellows hand to hand, in the good old Highland fashion, than by bandying bullets from behind a stone-dyke. Let us this day save Stralsund, or perish with her!"
"Better it is to die by musket-shot, than by starvation or the plague," grumbled Phadrig Mhor.
"Ian," said I, "you have still something to live for. Remember Moina!"