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." 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.