The count at once assented.  In a short time shouts, songs, the sound of rioting and quarrels, arose from the town, showing that revelry was general.  At eleven o’clock the men in the castle were mustered, fifty were told off to the defence with five experienced soldiers, an officer of the count being left in command.  The rest sallied through a little door at the back of the castle and noiselessly descended the steep path.  On arriving at the bottom they were divided into three bodies.  Malcolm with his Scots and fifty of the townspeople formed one.  Count Mansfeld took the command of another, composed of his own soldiers and fifty more of the townspeople.  The third consisted of eighty of the best fighting men of the town under their own leaders.  These were to enter by the gate, while the other two parties came in by the breaches.  The moment the attack began the defenders of the castle were to open as rapid a fire as they could upon the foot of the road so as to occupy the attention of the enemy’s force there, and to lead them to anticipate a sortie.

The breach by which Malcolm was to enter was the farthest from the castle, and his command would, therefore, be the last in arriving at its station.  When he reached it he ordered the trumpeters who accompanied him to sound, and at the signal the three columns rushed into the town uttering shouts of “Gustavus!  Gustavus!”

The Imperialists in the houses near were slaughtered with scarcely any resistance.  They were for the most part intoxicated, and such as retained their senses were paralysed at the sudden attack, and panic stricken at the shouts, which portended the arrival of a relieving force from the army of the King of Sweden.  As the bands pressed forward, slaying all whom they came upon, the resistance became stronger; but the three columns were all headed by parties of pikemen who advanced steadily and in good order, bearing down all opposition, and leaving to those behind them the task of slaying all found in the houses.

Lights flashed from the windows and partly lit up the streets, and the Imperialist officers attempted to rally their men; but the Scottish shouts, “A Hepburn!  A Hepburn!” and the sight of their green scarves added to the terror of the soldiers, who were convinced that the terrible Green Brigade of the King of Sweden was upon them.

Hundreds were cut down after striking scarce a blow in their defence, numbers fled to the walls and leapt over.  The panic communicated itself to the party drawn up to repel a sortie.  Hearing the yells, screams, and shouts, accompanied by the musketry approaching from three different quarters of the town, while a steady fire from the castle indicated that the defenders there might, at any moment, sally out upon them, they stood for a time irresolute; but as the heads of the three columns approached they lost heart, quitted their station, and withdrew in a body by a street by which they avoided the approaching columns.  On arriving at the spot Malcolm found the guns deserted.