"Knights, are you ready? One, two, three. LOS!" (let go.)
At the signal, the two steeds tore up the ground like whirlwinds;
the two knights, two flashing perpendicular masses of steel, rapidly
converged; the two lances met upon the two shields of either, and
shivered, splintered, shattered into ten hundred thousand pieces, which
whirled through the air here and there, among the rocks, or in the
trees, or in the river. The two horses fell back trembling on their
haunches, where they remained for half a minute or so.
"Holy Buffo! a brave stroke!" said the old hermit. "Marry, but a
splinter wellnigh took off my nose!" The honest hermit waved his pipe
in delight, not perceiving that one of the splinters had carried off the
head of it, and rendered his favorite amusement impossible. "Ha! they
are to it again! O my! how they go to with their great swords! Well
stricken, gray! Well parried, piebald! Ha, that was a slicer! Go it,
piebald! go it, gray!--go it, gray! go it, pie--Peccavi! peccavi!" said
the old man, here suddenly closing his eyes, and falling down on his
knees. "I forgot I was a man of peace." And the next moment, muttering
a hasty matin, he sprung down the ledge of rock, and was by the side of
the combatants.
The battle was over. Good knight as Sir Gottfried was, his strength
and skill had not been able to overcome Sir Ludwig the Hombourger, with
RIGHT on his side.
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