o prevent this design
from being put into execution. The less bold majority gained the day,
and announced their intention to yield themselves up as prisoners of
war. Juechziger had received his reward. His body, with a severe wound
on the head, was found lying trampled down by the feet of the Swedish
soldiers into the waters of the Muenzbach; and the dangerous petard was
discovered sunk into a hole prepared with much toil and secrecy by
Juechziger in the strong arch on which the tower stood.

The fight was hardly over when the commandant appeared, come to see
what was going on.

'I trust,' said Hillner respectfully, 'that your excellency will pardon
my being here, instead of under arrest where I was placed. I shall now
hasten to give myself up again. But that I am at least no traitor to
my fatherland, this wounded hand may surely bear witness.'

'My dear Defensioner,' replied Schweinitz heartily, 'the enemy may
commence their grand assault at any moment. There is no time now to
examine into your affair. For the present you are liberated on parole.
Be of good courage, and get your wound attended to the very first
thing.'

With these words, the commandant, finding his presence no longer
necessary, hastened away.

The firing on both sides continued till midnight. Then the Freibergers
heard loud sounds of confusion and disturbance and much shouting in the
Swedish camp; but the dreaded general assault was still unaccountably
delayed.

Between two and three o'clock on the morning of February 17th, there
arrived at the city moat an Imperialist soldier, who had been taken
prisoner by the Swedes before Leipzig, and had now made his escape. On
being admitted into the town, he announced that the enemy were making
hasty preparations for departure, that the military stores were already
loaded, and that he himself had been employed with others in removing
the charges from the Swedish mines. This joyful and unexpected news
passed rapidly from mouth to mouth, and put the whole city in a
ferment. Hope turned to glad certainty, when, at break of day, the
enemy's army, with its artillery and baggage-waggons, was seen marching
away from the city, and taking the road towards Klein-Waltersdorf;
although four or five hundred Swedish dragoons still held the Hospital
Church, whence they fired on the town and on all who issued from it.
The Freibergers, instead of abandoning themselves to the transports of
an excessive joy, re-