The next day all was ready for the assault.  It was Palm Sunday, the 3d of April, and the attack was to take place at five o’clock in the afternoon.  Before advancing, Hepburn and several of the other officers wished to lay aside their armour, as its weight was great, and would impede their movements.  The king, however, forbade them to do so.

“No,” he said; “he who loves my service will not risk life lightly.  If my officers are killed, who is to command my soldiers?”

Fascines and scaling ladders were prepared.  The Green Brigade were to head the assault, and Gustavus, addressing them, bade them remember New Brandenburg.

At five o’clock a tremendous cannonade was opened on the walls from all the Swedish batteries, and under cover of the smoke the Green Brigade advanced to the assault.  From the circle of the walls a cloud of smoke and fire broke out from cannon and arquebus, muskets, and wall pieces.  Sir John Hepburn and Colonel Lumsden, side by side, led on their regiments against the Guben gate; both carried petards.

In spite of the tremendous fire poured upon them from the wall they reached the gate, and the two colonels fixed the petards to it and retired a few paces.  In a minute there was a tremendous explosion, and the gate fell scattered in fragments.  Then the Scottish pikemen rushed forward.  As they did so there was a roar of cannon, and a storm of bullets ploughed lanes through the close ranks of the pikemen, for the Imperialists, expecting the attack, had placed cannon, loaded to the muzzle with bullets, behind the gates.

Munro’s regiment now leapt into the moat, waded across, and planting their ladders under a murderous fire, stormed the works flanking the gate, and then joined their comrades, who were striving to make an entrance.  Hepburn, leading on the pikemen, was hit on the knee, where he had in a former battle been badly wounded.

“Go on, bully Munro,” he said jocularly to his old schoolfellow, “for I am wounded.”

A major who advanced to take his place at the head of the regiment was shot dead, and so terrible was the fire that even the pikemen of Hepburn’s regiment wavered for a moment; but Munro and Lumsden, with their vizors down and half pikes in their hands, cheered on their men, and, side by side, led the way.

“My hearts!” shouted Lumsden, waving his pike —­ “my brave hearts, let’s enter.”

“Forward!” shouted Munro; “advance pikes!”

With a wild cheer the Scots burst forward; the gates were stormed, and in a moment the cannon, being seized, were turned, and volleys of bullets poured upon the dense masses of the Imperialists.  The pikemen pressed forward in close column, shoulder to shoulder, the pikes levelled in front, the musketeers behind firing on the Imperialists in the houses.