"To the assault! to the assault! and death be the doom of the first who turns his back!" cried Tilly, rushing on foot across the bridge at the head of his pikemen, with a standard in his left hand, and a horse-pistol in the right; for the old Jesuit, though he trembled last night before an antique picture, and had implicit faith in quacks and astrologers, was brave as a lion. "Forward, my hardy rogues! there are a hundred hogsheads of good wine in yonder castle--all the spoil of the heretical Bishop of Hildesheim. On, on brave cavaliers and valiant pikemen! Remember that every blow of your swords, and thrust of your pikes, is beheld with joy by the mother of God! Strike for the good cause! thrust for the blessed cause! Strike and thrust for the Cross and the Empire!" The hoarse hurrah of the German infantry, the yells of the Croats, and the chivalric war-cry of the Spaniards, replied to his urgent address. "Santiago! Santiago! and close, Spain! Viva el Conde Tilly! Viva Juan de Tserclä! Viva el Espiritu Santo!" A flood of armed men--the regiments of Merodé and Camargo--poured along the bridge against that gate, which formed the only barrier between them and the fertile and unravaged provinces of Saxe-Lauenburg, Holstein, and Denmark, and they rushed impetuously against it, their pioneers being in front, with axes and sledge-hammers, petards and levers. Other corps followed, column after column, with all their bright points and uplifted pikes gleaming in the blaze of a _light-ball_, which (by Major Wilson's orders) was now burned on the summit of the castle, and which poured a torrent of dazzling radiance on every object. This engine (so useful for revealing the position and number of a foe at night) is usually a large bomb, filled and covered with powder, saltpetre, turpentine and rosin, well rammed with birchwood charcoal, and covered by innumerable coats of paper steeped in melted pitch. On the grey battlements of Lauenburg this blazed like a comet, and enabled the Highlanders to direct their fire of musketry from the parapets above, and the Barbette batteries below--so named because, in their passage, the shots from them shave the cope of the rampart. The shower of missiles that swept the bridge was terrible! Two great basilisks, or 48-pounders, loaded with musket-balls, did frightful execution, while the enormous bombarde vomited stang-balls, or shot with double heads, having fourteen inch bars to connect them; these shred away whole ranks of men, who, as they crowded upon the bridge in their eagerness, impeded the operations of those who assailed the gate. "Cairn na cuimhne!" rang at times above the uproar from the castle wall. I thought I could detect the voice of Ian; for it was the war-cry of the M'Farquhars--their Cairn of Remembrance on the hills of Strathdee.