s_ that covered them; indeed,
they could never have done it had not many stout arms and willing
hearts aided in their desperate toil.

'Thirteen men and four beasts of burden!' sorrowfully exclaimed Roller,
who had himself escaped destruction as though by a miracle. 'And my
brave old comrade, the miller of Erbisdorf, gone at last. We two were
carrying the very same cask of water, yet here am I, while he is gone.
Ah, it is indeed true, "The one shall be taken and the other left."'

'I say, neighbour Roller!' cried a muffled voice that seemed to come
from the depths of the earth, 'help me on to my legs again, for mercy's
sake. Here are clods, and stones, and bits of wood jamming me in on
all sides; and here's a donkey's head, and I declare he's trying to
prick his ears!'

With Roller's help the worthy miller was soon landed once more on
_terra firma_. He found himself severely shaken and bruised, but not
otherwise injured, and begged his comrade to see him safe home.
Although his body was in pain, his spirit was by no means cast down.
When he learned that besides killing three men and severely wounding
five others, the exploded mine had cost the lives of two of his
donkeys, he remarked: 'Ah, ha! Then they too have died for their
fatherland, and will sleep in the temple of fame. I can tell you one
thing, though; if the flour does choke us millers up a bit, I'd ten
times rather have to do with that than with your Freiberg earth.
There's something so big and massive about everything belonging to war,
you very soon get enough of it. What will my Anna Maria say when she
sees her husband brought home like a flattened pancake?'

As soon as Roller had seen his friend safely housed, and had made
himself presentable, he hastened back to the Peter Gate, which seemed,
as he approached it, to be all in flames. The wood and twigs the
Swedes had piled against the defensive works before the bastion, had
been set on fire. The rising flames cast a dreadful glare around,
destroyed several of the works in question, and set fire to parts of
the tower above the gate, which, falling into the covered gallery in
rear of the bastion, threatened to set that too in a blaze. The
besieged were able to avert this last calamity by the steady use of
water, though the enemy pressed them hard all the time with
artillery-fire and hand-grenades.

'The Swedes have set all the elements to work against us,' said Roller
to himself. 'They have cu