the warrior’s rank:  his blank shield bore no cognizance.  As gracefully poising his lance he rode into the green space where the Rowski’s tents were pitched, the hearts of all present beat with anxiety, and the poor Prince of Cleves, especially, had considerable doubts about his new champion.  “So slim a figure as that can never compete with Donnerblitz,” said he, moodily, to his daughter; “but whoever he be, the fellow puts a good face on it, and rides like a man.  See, he has touched the Rowski’s shield with the point of his lance!  By St. Bendigo, a perilous venture!”

The unknown knight had indeed defied the Rowski to the death, as the Prince of Cleves remarked from the battlement where he and his daughter stood to witness the combat; and so, having defied his enemy, the Incognito galloped round under the castle wall, bowing elegantly to the lovely Princess there, and then took his ground and waited for the foe.  His armor blazed in the sunshine as he sat there, motionless, on his cream-colored steed.  He looked like one of those fairy knights one has read of—­one of those celestial champions who decided so many victories before the invention of gun powder.

The Rowski’s horse was speedily brought to the door of his pavilion; and that redoubted warrior, blazing in a suit of magnificent brass armor, clattered into his saddle.  Long waves of blood-red feathers bristled over his helmet, which was farther ornamented by two huge horns of the aurochs.  His lance was painted white and red, and he whirled the prodigious beam in the air and caught it with savage glee.  He laughed when he saw the slim form of his antagonist; and his soul rejoiced to meet the coming battle.  He dug his spurs into the enormous horse he rode:  the enormous horse snorted, and squealed, too, with fierce pleasure.  He jerked and curveted him with a brutal playfulness, and after a few minutes’ turning and wheeling, during which everybody had leisure to admire the perfection of his equitation, he cantered round to a point exactly opposite his enemy, and pulled up his impatient charger.

The old Prince on the battlement was so eager for the combat, that he seemed quite to forget the danger which menaced himself, should his slim champion be discomfited by the tremendous Knight of Donnerblitz.  “Go it!” said he, flinging his truncheon into the ditch; and at the word, the two warriors rushed with whirling rapidity at each other.

And now ensued a combat so terrible, that a weak female hand, like that of her who pens this tale of chivalry, can never hope to do justice to the terrific theme.  You have seen two engines on the Great Western line rush past each other with a pealing scream?  So rapidly did the two warriors gallop towards one another; the feathers of either streamed yards behind their backs as they converged.  Their shock as they met was as that of two cannon-balls; the mighty horses trembled and reeled with the concussion; the lance aimed at the Rowski’s helmet bore off the coronet, the horns, the helmet itself, and hurled them to an incredible distance:  a piece of the Rowski’s left ear was carried off on the point of the nameless warrior’s weapon.  How had he fared?  His adversary’s weapon had glanced harmless along the blank surface of his polished buckler; and the victory so far was with him.