But there was no answer from within the helmet.  When it was withdrawn, the teeth were crunched together; the mouth that should have spoken, grinned a ghastly silence:  one eye still glared with hate and fury, but it was glazed with the film of death!

The red orb of the sun was just then dipping into the Rhine.  The unknown knight, vaulting once more into his saddle, made a graceful obeisance to the Prince of Cleves and his daughter, without a word, and galloped back into the forest, whence he had issued an hour before sunset.

CHAPTER XIII.

The marriage.

The consternation which ensued on the death of the Rowski, speedily sent all his camp-followers, army, &c. to the right-about.  They struck their tents at the first news of his discomfiture; and each man laying hold of what he could, the whole of the gallant force which had marched under his banner in the morning had disappeared ere the sun rose.

On that night, as it may be imagined, the gates of the Castle of Cleves were not shut.  Everybody was free to come in.  Wine-butts were broached in all the courts; the pickled meat prepared in such lots for the siege was distributed among the people, who crowded to congratulate their beloved sovereign on his victory; and the Prince, as was customary with that good man, who never lost an opportunity of giving a dinner-party, had a splendid entertainment made ready for the upper classes, the whole concluding with a tasteful display of fireworks.

In the midst of these entertainments, our old friend the Count of Hombourg arrived at the castle.  The stalwart old warrior swore by Saint Bugo that he was grieved the killing of the Rowski had been taken out of his hand.  The laughing Cleves vowed by Saint Bendigo, Hombourg could never have finished off his enemy so satisfactorily as the unknown knight had just done.

But who was he? was the question which now agitated the bosom of these two old nobles.  How to find him—­how to reward the champion and restorer of the honor and happiness of Cleves?  They agreed over supper that he should be sought for everywhere.  Beadles were sent round the principal cities within fifty miles, and the description of the knight advertised, in the Journal de Francfort and the Allgemeine Zeitung.  The hand of the Princess Helen was solemnly offered to him in these advertisements, with the reversion of the Prince of Cleves’s splendid though somewhat dilapidated property.

“But we don’t know him, my dear papa,” faintly ejaculated that young lady.  “Some impostor may come in a suit of plain armor, and pretend that he was the champion who overcame the Rowski (a prince who had his faults certainly, but whose attachment for me I can never forget); and how are you to say whether he is the real knight or not?  There are so many deceivers in this world,” added the Princess, in tears, “that one can’t be too cautious now.”  The fact is, that she was thinking of the desertion of Otto in the morning; by which instance of faithlessness her heart was wellnigh broken.