is and Kreuz Gates, bustling activity was the
order of the day. Hundreds of tireless workers were tearing up the
paving of the roadways, while women and children carried away the
stones, and piled them against the houses. Not a creature complained
of the cold, though it was by no means small.

As Schoenleben drew near to the city wall and the Kreuz Gate, one
helmeted head after another came into view, rising above the
battlements, and there was a certain comfortable sense of security in
the knowledge that they were the heads of the armed citizens mounting
guard. Men standing still feel the cold severely, and accordingly huge
fires had been built in some of the sheltered corners, round which the
armed burghers stood chatting, each with his firelock ready to hand.

On inquiring for Captain Badehorn, Schoenleben was told that the captain
had been summoned by the commandant, and that the lieutenant of the
City Guard, Peter Schmohl, had command of the Defensioners in the
absence of his superior officer. Schoenleben tried to make out the
Swedish deserter among the Defensioners present, but was obliged to
return home without having done so. Hardly had he turned his back on
the fortifications, when the Swedish cannon opened fire on the Peter
Gate and the neighbouring defensive works. After firing a score of
shots, however, Torstenson sent to the commandant, demanding the
surrender of the town. He had, he said, paraded his army and fired a
salute in his honour; should any further resistance be offered, he
would the next day attack the town more vigorously, and destroy it.
The commandant sent a polite but firm refusal, and on the following day
Torstenson fulfilled the first part of his threat by opening a terrible
fire against the town. In six hours his artillery discharged over
thirteen hundred shots, by which the Peter Gate, the adjoining tower,
and a portion of the city wall were all severely injured, while many
shells, and a perfect hailstorm of large stones, passed over the
ramparts into the town itself. Then the enemy drew near with flying
colours, bringing ladders, for the purpose of scaling the ramparts. By
way of rendering their task easier, they exploded their first mines,
which, however, did not accomplish all that was expected from them.

Meantime the besieged, on their part, were by no means idle. To
prevent the storming of the breach at the Peter Gate, two cannon were
planted in Peter Street, the gaps i