The resolution was taken and carried into effect without delay.  Most of the horses and carts in the town had left with the fugitives, those that remained were at once set to work.  The carts were laden with large barrels of wine and sacks of flour, while the men carried sides of bacon, kegs of butter, and other portable articles on their heads.  The Imperialists, seeing the movement up the steep road to the castle gate, opened fire with their arquebuses, but the defenders of the wall replied so hotly that they were forced to retire out of range.  The cannon played steadily all day, and by nightfall two breaches had been effected in the wall and the gate had been battered down.

But by this time an ample store of provisions had been collected in the castle and as the Imperialists were seen to form up for the assault the trumpet was sounded, and at the signal the whole of the defenders of the walls left their posts and fell back to the castle, leaving the deserted town at the mercy of the enemy.  The Imperialists raised a shout of triumph as they entered the breaches and found them undefended, and when once assured that the town was deserted they broke their ranks and scattered to plunder.

It was now quite dark, and many of them dragging articles of furniture into the streets made great bonfires to light them at their work of plunder.  But they had soon reason to repent having done so, for immediately the flames sprang up and lighted the streets, flashes ran round the battlements of the castle, and a heavy fire was opened into the streets, killing many of the soldiers.  Seeing the danger of thus exposing the men to the fire from the castle, the Imperialist commander issued orders at once that all fires should be extinguished, that anyone setting fire to a house should be instantly hung, and that no lights were to be lit in the houses whose windows faced the castle.

Foreseeing the possibility of an attack from the castle, the Austrians placed a hundred men at the foot of the road leading up to it, and laid their three cannon loaded to the muzzle to command it.

“Have you not,” Malcolm asked the count, “some means of exit from the castle besides the way into the town?”

“Yes,” the count said, “there is a footpath down the rock on the other side.”

“Then,” Malcolm said, “as soon as they are fairly drunk, which will be before midnight, let us fall upon them from the other side.  Leave fifty of your oldest men with half a dozen veteran soldiers to defend the gateway against a sudden attack; with the rest we can issue out, and marching round, enter by the gate and breaches, sweeping the streets as we go, and then uniting, burst through any guard they may have placed to prevent a sortie, and so regain the castle.”