a reversed grasp, point downwards, and drew tight her horse's reins. The noble steed stood perfectly motionless, but he pointed his ears, threw a sidelong glance at the boar, and at the very instant when the rabid beast had passed beneath the horse's belly, and was about to rip it asunder with a powerful upward heave of his gleaming tusks, the well-trained charger suddenly reared and sprang over his assailant; at the same instant the Amazon deftly stooped and hurled her dart deep between the shoulder-blades of the wild boar.

The mortally-wounded beast sank bellowing down into the long grass. Once more he would have rushed upon the girl, but the youth sprang, quick as light, from his horse, and gave him the coup de grâce with his dagger.

At that moment the blast of a horn was heard in the distance. The hero had brought down the stag. The other horsemen, who now overtook the leaders of the chase (but only after making a wide circuit), welcomed the hero of the day with loud cries of "Eljen!"[4]

The herculean horseman was mud-stained from head to foot, nor did the others look much better; only the Amazon's robe was spotless and untorn. Even at such times a girl knows how to take care of her clothes!

When the hero beheld the wild beast slain by his niece, which, as it lay stretched out stark and stiff before him, looked even larger than life-size, he was at first deeply affected, as if he now, for the first time, fully recognized the greatness of the peril to which his darling had been exposed, and he exclaimed, not without alarm—"My Nelly!" but immediately afterwards he stretched out his hand towards her with a smile, and gazed round triumphantly upon the bystanders.

"Did I not say she had my blood in her veins?"

Every one hastened to pay an appropriate compliment to the radiant heroine, who appeared to experience, on this occasion, something of that peculiar satisfaction which only belongs to the lucky huntsman.

The hero again looked proudly around till his eye fell upon the young Transylvanian, who was now sitting on a fresh horse. Him he at once accosted, and pointing to the dead boar asked—

"Nicolas, my son! prithee tell me, does Transylvania produce such boars as that?"

Now, not to mention that the Transylvanian was already somewhat sore on account of his recent mishap, it was not to be expected that he, a Transylvanian born and bred, would for a single moment permit the assumption that any natural product of Hungary was superior to the like product of Transylvania to pass unchallenged, so he answered defiantly—

"Most certainly, and even finer ones."

Nothing at that moment could have more mightily offended the questioner than this curt answer. What! to tell an enthusiastic huntsman that he will find elsewhere game even finer than what he has just been lauding to the skies; game, too, which the darling of his heart has just slain! It was simply outrageous.

"Very well, my son, very well," growled the hero; "we shall see, we shall see!"

With obvious marks of annoyance on his face, he turned away from his contradictor, and ordered that the quarry should be conveyed at once to the hunting-box. Not another word did he exchange with any one but his Nelly; but her he literally overwhelmed with compliments and caresses.

It was already late in the afternoon when the hunters sat them down to a simple but tasty repast spread upon a huge and level grass-plot in the midst of the wood. Wine and merry jests soon set everything right again; they talked of everything at the same time, of war and the chase, of beautiful dames, of poetry (a fashionable subject then amongst the higher classes), and of the intrigues of courts; but even after all this blithe discourse the hero could not quite forget his grievance, and again he inquired impatiently—

"So there really is excellent sport in Transylvania?"

The young Transylvanian began to feel this perpetual harping on the same string a little tiresome. He had never meant to be taken so literally. The bald-pate, remarking the growing tension, sought to change the conversation, and raising his beaker proposed the following toast—

"God keep the Turks in a good humour."

But the hero angrily overturned his glass.

"God grant no such thing!" cried he savagely. "I'm not going to pray for the goggle-eyed dogs now, after fighting against them all my days. The man who is always trying to change masters is a fool."

"Yet the Turk is a very gracious master to us," put in the young Transylvanian, with an ambiguous smile.

"Ha, ha! didn't I say so? With you, even Turks are bigger and finer than they are with us. Of course! of course! In Transylvania everything flourishes better than in Hungary: the boars are bigger, the Turks are daintier, than they are in this part of the country."

At this moment David, the old huntsman, approached the hero and whispered something in his ear. The hero's features brightened as if by magic, and springing from his seat he cried—"Give me my gun!" then, holding his long, silver-mounted musket in his hand, he turned towards his guests with a radiant countenance. "All of you stay here. There is a colossal boar close at hand. You shall see him, my son," added he, tapping Nicolas on the shoulder. "Twice already have I vainly pursued the fellow; this time I mean to catch him. He is, I assure you, a descendant in the flesh of the Calydonian boar"—and with that, carried away by his enthusiasm, he hastened towards that part of the wood which the old huntsman had pointed out to him. David he presently ordered back: nobody was to accompany him.

"I know not how it is," whispered Helen to the youth at her side, "but I have a foreboding that my uncle is in danger. How I wish you were by his side!"

The youth said nothing in reply, but he instantly stood up and seized his gun.

"Pray don't go after him," remarked the Transylvanian, when he saw the young man about to hasten off. "You will only enrage him. He wants to do the whole business himself, and a man who has exterminated hordes of Tartars can easily dispose of a single brute beast."

And so they kept the youth back from going. The men went on drinking, and the lady remained in a brown study, glancing uneasily, from time to time, at the skirts of the wood.

Suddenly a shot resounded through the forest.

Every one put down his glass and glanced at his neighbour with a beating heart.

A few moments passed and then they heard the roar of a wild beast; but it was not the well-known roar of a mortally-wounded boar—no, it was a peculiar, gurgling, half-stifled sound that told of a fierce struggle.

"What is that?" was the question which rose to every one's lips. "Surely he would call out if he were in danger!" Then came a second shot. Every one instantly sprang to his feet. "What was that?" they cried. "Oh! let us go! let us go!" exclaimed the girl, trembling in every limb, and the whole company hastened in the direction of the shot.

Our hero had scarcely advanced four or five hundred paces into the thicket when, at the foot of a mighty oak, he came upon the wild beast he sought. It was a gigantic boar, with span-long, glistening black bristles on its back and forehead; the tough hide lay, like plated armour, in thick folds about its huge neck; its feet were long and