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'Twas the last blow that the Count of Eulenschreckenstein ever struck in battle! The curse was on his lips as the crushing steel descended into his brain, and split it in two. He rolled like a log from his horse: his enemy's knee was in a moment on his chest, and the dagger of mercy at his throat, as the knight once more called upon him to yield. But there was no answer from within the helmet.

A rose-colored hat, with towering pea-green ostrich-plumes, looks absurd on his bull-head; and though it is time of peace, the wretch is armed with a multiplicity of daggers, knives, yataghans, dirks, sabres, and scimitars, which testify his truculent and bloody disposition. 'Tis the terrible Rowski de Donnerblitz, Margrave of Eulenschreckenstein.

"Ay, and thine ears with it, yokel," roared Donnerblitz. "Peace, noble Eulenschreckenstein," said the Duke with dignity: "let the Duke of Cleves deal as he will with his own men-at-arms. And you, young sir, unloose the grip of thy dagger." Otto, indeed, had convulsively grasped his snickersnee, with intent to plunge it into the heart of the Rowski; but his politer feelings overcame him.

That fair-haired, bright-eyed thing in the Bird of Paradise and the Turkish Simar with the love-bird on her finger, I'm sure must have been taken from from somebody perhaps whom you don't know but she's known at Munich, Waggle my boy, everybody knows the Countess Ottilia de Eulenschreckenstein.

That very afternoon, no small bustle and conversation took place in the castle, on account of the sudden departure of the Rowski of Eulenschreckenstein, with all his train and equipage. He went away in the greatest wrath, it was said, after a long and loud conversation with the Prince.

"In the name of the high and mighty Rowski, Prince of Donnerblitz, Margrave of Eulenschreckenstein, Count of Krotenwald, Schnauzestadt, and Galgenhugel, Hereditary Grand Corkscrew of the Holy Roman Empire to you, Adolf the Twenty-third, Prince of Cleves, I, Bleu Sanglier, bring war and defiance.

He came once more to the castle gate, and there proclaimed that the noble Count of Eulenschreckenstein was in arms without, ready to do battle with the Prince of Cleves, or his champion; that he would remain in arms for three days, ready for combat. If no man met him at the end of that period, he would deliver an assault, and would give quarter to no single soul in the garrison.

"E bellissima, certamente," said the Duca de Montepulciano, and stroked down his jetty moustache. "Ein gar schones Madchen," said the Hereditary Grand Duke of Eulenschreckenstein, and turned up his carroty one. "Elle n'est pas mal, ma foi!" said the Prince de Borodino, with a scowl on his darkling brows. "Mon Dieu, que ces cigarres sont mauvais!" he added as he too cast away his Cuba.

His opponent magnanimously declined to take advantage of the opportunity thus offered him of finishing the combat by splitting his opponent's skull with his curtal-axe, and, riding back to his starting-place, bent his lance's point to the ground, in token that he would wait until the Count of Eulenschreckenstein was helmeted afresh.