ere even some rash spirits, who, deserting the sheltering
breastworks, sprang into the breach, and saluted the dense ranks of the
enemy with 'morning-stars'[1] and heavy broadswords. During this
attack, which lasted a full hour, the Swedish fire was steadily
maintained against gates, walls, and towers, occasionally even against
the breach itself, where it inflicted some loss on besiegers as well as
besieged. The former, under the command of Generals Wrangel and
Mortainne, were led by these officers in person to storm the breach.
Field-Marshal Torstenson, a martyr to gout, could only sit at the
window of his quarters in the hospital, directing the attack, and
chafing inwardly at its continued want of success. While the battle
still raged round the Peter, Meissen, and Erbis Gates, and the Swedes
fancied the Freibergers a prey to anxiety and fear, the undismayed
miners made a sortie through the Donat Gate, destroyed the Swedish
siege-works that lay in that quarter, slew a number of the enemy, and
returned into the city, bringing with them several prisoners.

The general fight was still raging; the shout of battle, the thunder of
the guns, the confused din of the storming-parties, and the showers of
great stones and shot still filled the air, as the Burgomaster,
agitated by growing anxiety, and unable to find rest anywhere, turned
his uneasy steps towards the Peter Gate, the most threatened point of
all. It must be remembered that to a brave man like Schoenleben it was
a far harder task to stand by, a mere spectator of this important
battle, than it would have been to take an active share in its turmoil
and danger. To him the assault on the gates, which had perhaps lasted
an hour, appeared to have been going on for ever, while those who were
actually engaged in the strife would have sworn it had been an affair
of a few minutes at the most.

In no small danger of his life, the Burgomaster forced his way, through
a storm of bullets and falling masonry, into the strong tower that
protected the Peter Gate. Having at last succeeded in ascending the
narrow stone stairs and reaching the vaulted guard-room, he was able to
make out indistinctly, through the smoke and dust that filled the room,
the forms of a number of men who were keeping up an incessant and
almost deafening fire on the enemy through the narrow loop-holes with
which the thick walls were pierced.

'They fly!' shouted one of these marksmen in a stentorian voic