On Sunday morning, January 15th, the deadly, concentric fire of shot and shell was opened upon the crowded city, where women and children, torn by war’s merciless missiles, ran to and fro frantic with terror. The dreadful storm continued to rage, with but few intermissions, until Wednesday. Still there were no signs of surrender. The king, though his head-quarters were a few miles distant, at Ottmachau, was almost constantly on the ground superintending every thing. As he felt sure of the entire conquest of Silesia, the whole province being now in his possession except three small towns, he looked anxiously upon the destruction which his own balls and bombs were effecting. He was destroying his own property. On Wednesday morning General Borck was sent toward the gates of the city, accompanied by a trumpeter, who, with bugle blasts, was to summon General Roth to a parley. General Borck was instructed to inform the Austrian commander that if he surrendered immediately he should be treated with great leniency, but that if he persisted in his defense the most terrible severity should be his doom. To the people of Neisse it was a matter of but very little moment whether they were under Austrian or Prussian domination. They would gladly accede to any terms which would deliver them from the dreadful bombardment. General Roth, therefore, would not allow what we should call the flag of truce to approach the gates. He opened fire upon General Borck so as not to wound him, but as a warning that he must approach no nearer. The king was greatly angered by this result. [Illustration: ATTACK UPON NEISSE.] In burning the suburbs, one of the mansions of the bishop, a few miles from Neisse, had escaped the general conflagration. The Prussians had taken possession of this large and commodious structure, with its ample supply of winter fuel. General Roth employed a resolute butcher, who, under the pretense of supplying the Prussians with beef, visited the bishop’s mansion, and secretly applied the torch. It was a cold winter’s night. The high wind fanned the flames. Scarcely an hour passed ere the whole structure, with all its supplies, was in ashes. The Prussian officers who had found a warm home were driven into the icy fields. These two events so exasperated his Prussian majesty that the next morning, at an early hour, he reopened upon the doomed city with renewed vigor his fire of bombshells and red-hot shot. Fire companies were organized throughout the city, to rush with their engines wherever the glowing balls descended, and thus the flames which frequently burst out were soon extinguished. All day Thursday, Thursday night, Friday, and until nine in the morning of Saturday, the tempest of battle, with occasional lulls, hurled its bolts and uttered its thunders. There was then a short rest until four o’clock on Sunday afternoon, when the batteries again opened their action more vigorously than ever, nine bombs being often in the air at the same time.