Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume I

by M. Y. Halidom

The adversaries charged together, and so violent was the shock with which Hans came upon his foe, and so accurately did he direct his lance, that the deadly weapon pierced through the massive breast plate of his enemy and came out at his back.

Hans, whose natural strength was terrific, and which was increased ten-fold by the magical touch he had received from his spouse, whirled the dead champion at the point of his lance two or three times round his head, and then flung the body to an incredible distance over the heads of the crowd.

The champion of the Princess Carlotta, seeing the fate of the other champion, would fain have drawn back, for he thought Hans could be none other than the foul fiend himself.

But the crowd cried out to him, "Thou, too, votest for the Princess Carlotta."

"Ay," he was constrained to say.

"Do battle for her, then," said Hans.

Carlotta's champion sullenly laid his lance in rest, and aimed at a portion of Hans' vast body which seemed least protected; but the point of his lance got entangled in the shirt of mail that Hans wore beneath his plate armour without doing further injury to him, while Hans' lance pierced through the left eye of his foe, and passing through the back of his skull, helmet and all, pinned him to the ground, whilst his horse galloped off through the crowd.

Now, the news of the return of their sister and the defeat of their champions soon reached the ears of the twin princesses, who knew not how to contain their rage; but the Princess Clothilde, the more wily and wicked of the two, bribed her followers with large sums of money to feign to vote for the Princess Bertha, and thus make friends with this stranger knight, and invite him into their houses, to offer him a cup of wine after the fatigue of the combat, which, when unobserved, she commanded them to drug, and as soon as he was insensible he was to be carried off to prison and loaded with chains, care being taken to secure the Princess Bertha at the same time.

Hereupon all those who had formerly voted for the Princess Clothilde commenced to shout, "Long live the Princess Bertha!"

But the little princess, suspecting treachery—for she recognised the faces of the men who now shouted for her as being the same as before shouted for her sister—warned her spouse not to receive any man's hospitality but the arch-priest's, telling him that if he disobeyed her command it might cost him his life.