Chapter 11

HISTORICAL.

While the scene narrated in our last chapter was being enacted, another and more joyous one was taking place at the Donat Gate. Three men, two of them miners, suddenly appeared running towards the gate, and making eager signs to the sentries in the barbican with the view of obtaining speedy admission. This being at once granted, the little party turned out to consist of the two miners, Roller and Wahle, sent some days before on a special mission, together with Master Prieme, who had fortunately succeeded in making his escape. Roller and his comrade brought letters and advices from Marshal Piccolomini; these, addressed to the commandant and the town authorities, and written at Brix on February 5th, promised that within six, or at longest eight days, the imperial army should be seen on the mountain beyond the city, advancing to free Freiberg, by the blessing of God, from the presence of the foe. The marshal further announced that as he approached he would set fire to a house or two in the village of Leichtenberg on the Mulda, so that by midnight his advance should be known in the city; and that immediately on reaching the mountain, where the enemy would doubtless discover his presence, he would fire six guns morning and evening, and three more as he actually began his march down towards the city. Thus the garrison would have timely notice of the arrival of help.

Piccolomini's despatch to Schönleben ran as follows:--

'To our trusty, best, and right well-beloved Burgomaster, Herr Jonas Schönleben,--Be it known that I have kept the messengers by me, that their bodily eyes might see my army set forward on its march, and that thus they might take assured news thereof into the good city of Freiberg. And inasmuch as I shall in few days arrive before Freiberg with such army (whereof the enemy neither have knowledge nor can conceive aught aright), and so, with the help of Almighty God, shall relieve the city, I hereby beseech the said noble Burgomaster to do his utmost, with aid of all and sundry those brave and honourable burghers by whom he is at this present sustained, to maintain and defend the said post until my arrival; and to that end to encourage and hearten all men, as hitherto hath been so notably done by him, that they may not make surcease for so few days of that stedfast toil and bravery which they have heretofore shown. May God have all in his keeping!'

The receipt of these cheering messages revived the spirits of the besieged--a service the more necessary because the enemy, getting word that a hostile army was on the march, made strenuous efforts to gain possession of the town. The fortifications, many of which were now little more than heaps of rubbish, were still obstinately defended by the unconquerable bravery of the besieged. Pieces of both the outer and inner walls, twenty and thirty ells in length, had been destroyed by mines and artillery-fire, and their downfall had in many places choked up the moat. Some of the barbicans before the gates were in the enemy's possession, and even the Peter Gate itself. The towers that guarded the town resembled ancient ruins; and the defensive works were now chiefly represented by wooden galleries, palisadoes, piles of gabions, and the walls of half-destroyed houses, behind which, however, the besieged found shelter, from which they still kept up a vigorous fire. The underground war, too, was still hotly maintained; and when, as often happened, the hostile sappers heard the sounds of each other's voices, emulation still excited them to struggle as if for life and death.

On February 14th the Swedes attempted to storm two of the defenders' positions, and advanced to the assault with loud shouts and in considerable force. A few bold soldiers, indeed, succeeded in making good their entrance into one of the towers; but the besieged, in expectation of this attack, had filled the inside of the tower with wood and other combustibles. Fire was set to these materials, and to the gallery adjoining the tower, and thus the enemy was compelled to withdraw. Meantime, behind the burning ruin, the citizens constructed a new defensive work, and both here and in the breach offered so brave a resistance, that the foe, after repeated attempts, was once more baffled and compelled to fall back.

In the evening of the same day Roller appeared at home with his head bound up.

'It is nothing!' he assured his alarmed family. 'A Swedish bullet glanced aside and grazed my temple; that is all. But you, my dear people--ah! you may lift up your heads to look whether your day of deliverance is coming; you may gaze towards the Liechtenberg, and try to make out the beacon fire our deliverers were to kindle. Not six or even eight, but _nine_ whole days have gone by, and no helpers have made their appearance! "Put not your trust in man," was as true a word as was ever spoken!'

This was the first time Roller had ever given way to repining before the women. The next day, February 15th, the Friebergers, wishful to gain time, resolved on asking Marshal Torstenson for an armistice, hoping to use that opportunity of smuggling two or three persons unobserved out of the city, and so sending word to Dresden of Freiberg's desperate straits.

On pretence of discussing the proposed armistice, three Swedish colonels appeared by consent of the besieged on the top of the tower at the Peter Gate. They made good use of their eyes to learn all that could be learned about the condition of the defence, and found it still such as to inspire them with all due respect. When this result had been satisfactorily achieved, the armistice was formally refused, the battle being at once renewed; and at two o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, the city was once more summoned to surrender. The prompt refusal of this demand provoked renewed efforts on the part of the besiegers to gain possession of the hard-pressed city.

Matters stood at this desperate pass, when, on the evening of the same day, the shout of 'Fire!' sounded through the streets of Freiberg. It was no alarm, but a genuine cry of joy.

'Fire! fire!' exclaimed Mistress Blüthgen, as with a beaming face she came rushing into the living-room, where the disabled miller and his wife, Roller, with bandaged head, surrounded by his family, and the remaining members of the household were all assembled. 'Fire over the Liechtenberg at last!' she cried again, throwing her arms, as she spoke, round the neck of the miller's wife.

'Fire over the Liechtenberg!' rang along the narrow street outside. All who could, now climbed out on to the roof of the house to see the long-desired sight for themselves. If, at the beginning of the siege, a magnificent rainbow had been hailed as an omen of good, the Freibergers now gazed at the red glow on the distant horizon as at a beacon-light that surely could not deceive them.

'It seems to me,' said Roller, pushing back the bandage that covered his ear, 'it seems to me as though I heard firing as well.'

The dull roar of cannon, several times repeated, was now plainly heard from the far-off height.

'It is they! it is our deliverers!' cried all, as their joy broke out afresh.

Confidence and hope work wonders. They nerved the courage of these distressed Freibergers, until the most faint-hearted among them rose into a hero. Let the Swedes renew their assault on the next day as fiercely as they pleased; let them summon the town three times over to surrender, and make all their preparations for a final attack; nothing could now take away the joyful assurance of immediate relief. On the previous day, a mine had torn down a large piece of the main city wall, twenty yards in length, near the Peter Gate, and so shattered the great flanking tower at that point that its downfall seemed every moment imminent. In spite of a heavy fire, the Freibergers made good use of the night in preparing trenches, thickly studded with palisadoes, close behind the main wall, in throwing up great piles of branches and trunks of trees in the new breach, and doubling the number of men at the points chiefly threatened. Having made these preparations, they confidently awaited the onset of the enemy, whose numerous forces were now steadily drawing nearer and nearer to the city.

Who would not have trembled for Freiberg at sight of that veteran army, trained in long and stormy years of battle, and led by a renowned general, bent on destroying the city and putting all its inhabitants--men and women, old and young--to the sword? Ambition and shame alike stimulated the Swedish general, as he thought how this insignificant country town had so long thwarted all his best efforts. His men, on the other hand, were inspired by thirst for plunder and a burning desire to avenge all the toils and troubles they had endured amid the severities of that bitter winter.

On the side of the Swedes were many thousand veteran men-at-arms, a commander well known to fame, over a hundred pieces of artillery, and free access to the whole country around, furnishing constant fresh supplies both of men and the necessaries of war. On the side of the Saxons was a little band of three hundred soldiers, a leader of whom renown as yet had scarcely heard, an untrained crowd of peaceful citizens and country-people, and last, though not least, the true-hearted miners. These, with the help of a few cannon and a limited supply of ammunition, were holding shattered heaps of ruins against an unwearied foe. But the Freibergers threw into the scale on their side, loyalty to their prince, love for fatherland, for hearth, and home, and liberty; and thus the balance weighed in their favour.

With thoughts like these present in many minds, passed away the daylight hours of that memorable 16th of February, and the night appointed for the general assault came down at last. Eight captains, each with a hundred and twenty men, a company of seventy or eighty picked men with hand-grenades, and as many more with axes, were told off to make the first attack, their advance being supported by four thousand men of the main storming party. In the evening, Torstenson had, by a great effort, ridden quite round the town, marking out the points to be specially attacked, assigning his troops their respective places, and ordering several new batteries to be placed in position. As Wallenstein once before Stralsund, so now Torstenson before Freiberg, swore to take the city, even though it were under the special protection of Heaven itself.

The besieged were aware, both through their prisoners and by other means of information, that the most desperate of all their struggles awaited them to-night, and they did not attempt to conceal from themselves the terrible peril in which they stood. They spent a social hour at home with wife and children, took what might well prove a final farewell, and then each man went forth to his dangerous post with the stedfast determination to die rather than yield. And among those ranks of silent, resolute men in the deadly breach, was seen the reverend figure of good Master Spelling, in his preacher's robe, the book of the Holy Gospels in his hand.

'My beloved brethren in Christ!' he cried; 'if we live we live unto the Lord, and if we die we die unto the Lord; whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. Yea, the Lord is our strength and our shield; and though we wander through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for His right hand hath holden us up that we should not fall. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth. He will hear their cry and will save them. "Call upon me," saith He, "in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." Put your trust in the Lord, not in the Imperialists, and not in your own might. Think who it was that broke the power of Sennacherib before Jerusalem, when a hundred and eighty thousand of Israel's foes perished in a single night! The Lord our God! And His power is not lessened since that day, neither is His glory dimmed. Three men once sang in the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Cannot we, too, lift our feeble voices to God where we stand in the deadly breach? Let "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" be our shout of victory when the foe comes on against us; and let us, ere we part, chant together the jubilant words, "Jesus lives; I shall live also. O Death! where is thy sting?"'

So they sang, and their voices sounded far out into the night; they knelt, and their pastor invoked God's blessing on them for the approaching battle,--for victory, if so it might be, or for a happy and joyous entrance into the better land.