Closely pursued by a volley of oaths and bullets, I ran towards the bridge of the Elbe, and had almost reached the _tête-du-pont_ when, lo! the arches rocked beneath my feet, there was a tremendous explosion, with a broad blaze of lurid light, and then a cloud of darkness, dust and stones arose before me, and I knew not whether I was in the clouds or on the earth, as the mine was sprung, and the great centre arch blown into the air. Like the shower of a volcano, the debris descended upon the crystal current of the Elbe. Before me, a deep chasm yawned between the ruined piers; behind me, were the fierce Imperialists! On the opposite ruin stood Dunbar, still grasping his restive horse by the bridle. "I could not help it, Rollo," he cried; "better that one should be lost, than all!" I thought my heart would burst under its band of steel; but tearing the silken colour from its staff, and placing a stone within it, I flung it across to Dunbar. He snatched it up, sprung into his saddle, and galloped after the retiring Highlanders, who had now disappeared in the silent streets of Boitzenburg. Though encumbered by my back, breast, and headpieces, my heavy tartan kilt and accoutrements, my first thought was to spring into the river and swim it, as I had often swam the Dee and Don; but a bullet, almost spent, struck my head. The good steel cap prevented it from piercing my brain, but I sank on the spot, and felt the ruin crumbling under me, as, with one arm overhanging the water, I lay upon the fragment of the bridge. I remember no more. CHAPTER XX. RUPERT-WITH-THE-RED-PLUME. I lay long insensible, concealed by a mound of rubbish which the explosion of the bridge had thrown up between me and the sconce, where the fierce Croats and savage Spaniards had barbarously slain all our poor wounded men, and thrown them into the river; for the first objects which appeared when sense returned, were several corpses in dark green tartan floating on the surface of the Elbe almost below me, and in the yellow flush with which the setting sun tinged the broad river. Many of these bodies were half-stripped by those infamous women who followed the Imperialists in such numbers, and who found an unwonted prize in the silver brooches and jewelled biodags of the Highland soldiery. "Oh cursed bigotry, and accursed ambition!" thought I, when reflecting on these horrors; for ambition had produced the war of aggression, and religious bigotry had inflamed the minds of the enemy, and urged them to that atrocious pitch of cruelty, of which the sack of Magdeburg was an example so terrible! I was about to stagger up to seek a draught of water--for the agony I endured from thirst cannot be written--when a heavy hand was laid upon me, and a somewhat familiar voice said-- "If you would escape death, lie still as if you were dead."