They hesitated under this murderous hail of balls. The prince touched his horse with the spur, and bounded between the storming party and the mill. "They are not so bad as they look!" he cried cheerfully, turning to the soldiers; and reining in his horse, he took off his cap and jokingly saluted a shell which flew over his head and buried itself in the ground. "Hurrah!" cried the soldiers, and again rushed to the attack, led on by their brave lieutenants. At this moment two companies advanced from the bridges, and immediately behind them Colonel Flökher's battalion, and at the same time guns opened behind the storming party from the hill of Merxleben, and a heavy fire from a hastily advanced Hanoverian battery fell on the mill, splintering the roof and shattering the walls. The gallant defenders of the building evidently about to become a heap of ruins, broke through on the other side, and retreated in strong parties along the high road. But they were checked by the second battalion of guards, which had now come up, and which opened a murderous fire upon their flank, whilst two squadrons of hussars who had burst over the bridges galloped down upon them with upraised swords. Some of the fugitives fled over the fields, and were fortunate enough to gain the reserve Prussian division; the hindmost returned to the ruined building, and a white handkerchief soon waved from one of the windows. The firing ceased immediately. Colonel Flökher rode up to the battered door, which was quickly opened, and the last of the brave defenders, about a hundred men, laid down their arms. The courtyard was full of dead and wounded, and just outside lay the Hanoverian soldiers who had fallen. The ruin looked ghastly with its shattered windows and broken walls in the bright sunshine, a picture of destruction, horror, and death. The adjutant-general rode up to Prince Herman. "I compliment you, prince," he said: "you received your baptism of fire gloriously, but you exposed yourself uselessly. What should I have said to the king if any misfortune had befallen you?" "What could I do?" said the prince, laughing, and plucking at the down on his upper lip; "the king has ordered me to head-quarters: ought I to let them say I am afraid of fire?" "They would not have said that," said the colonel, looking kindly at the almost boyish face. "It is better that they cannot say it!" cried the prince, and galloped off with the adjutant-general. A retreat on the part of the enemy was decided upon from this moment. Slowly and in perfect order, under a continuous fire, the Prussian troops formed in squares, and retired in the direction of Gotha covered by their batteries, which kept up a constant fire upon the advancing Hanoverians. At last General Arentschildt had ordered a general attack, but this command only affected a few of the troops, and was indeed superfluous, for the attack had commenced, and no order would have prevented it.