Anxious to defend his post with honour, Dunbar--that brave old cavalier--never slept, but remained watching every movement of the enemy, whom we permitted, without molestation, to bear away their wounded from under the very muzzles of our cannon; but the moment this was over, the pipes sounded, the drums beat, and we were again roused to man the ramparts, for again they were coming on, and with renewed vigour, for three battalions of Spanish Imperialists had joined the Count in the night. "Pikes and pistols--here they are again!" cried our veteran major, or sergeant-major, for according to the Danish etiquette we called him both; "but fear not, my brave hearts, for God is with us, and His hand is over us. Believe me, gentlemen, our cannon are noway inferior to theirs for not having Latin mumbled, and holy water sprinkled, over them by the superior of the Jesuits. So to your guns, my wight cannoniers--to them again with handspike and linstock--with rammer and quoin!" About the closing in of the evening, a dense column of Spanish infantry, with pikes and musketeers intermingled, suddenly debouched upon the roadway from behind the little eminence which had sheltered them, and poured impetuously forward, to assail again the stockades of the graff; while a brigade of Austrians rushed towards the sluice which admitted into it the water of the Elbe; and though thrice, by sheer dint of cannon and musketry, we drove them back, they forced a passage to the angle of the ditch, and climbing literally over piles of their own dead and dying, cut the chains by their axes, and, closing the sluice by sledge-hammers, retired with a loud hurrah; for immediately the water in the ditch began to subside. On this the furious Spaniards redoubled their efforts to carry the palisades; but as these projected at the angle of forty-five degrees from a steep bank, and were swept by our fire, it was a task of the greatest danger and difficulty; yet these valiant hearts accomplished it, and reached the inner edge of the ditch, but as fast as they mounted they were shot down, and when struck we could see the blood spouting from their buff coats and corslets as if ejected from a syringe. "Fire on the sluice!" cried Dunbar to Captain Learmonth, whose pikemen still worked our cannon; "break through the planks--admit the Elbe, and fill the graff again." "It is impossible!" replied that cavalier; "for our guns cannot be depressed so low." "Then Heaven help us! for they will soon gain this poor sconce by storm." "We can still retire by the bridge," said Learmonth. "Without orders?" exclaimed Dunbar, the umbriere of whose helmet was, at that moment, torn away by a shot; "nay, I will die first!"