A few moments passed and then they heard the roar of a wild beast; but it was not the well-known roar of a mortally-wounded boar—no, it was a peculiar, gurgling, half-stifled sound that told of a fierce struggle.
"What is that?" was the question which rose to every one's lips. "Surely he would call out if he were in danger!" Then came a second shot. Every one instantly sprang to his feet. "What was that?" they cried. "Oh! let us go! let us go!" exclaimed the girl, trembling in every limb, and the whole company hastened in the direction of the shot.
Our hero had scarcely advanced four or five hundred paces into the thicket when, at the foot of a mighty oak, he came upon the wild beast he sought. It was a gigantic boar, with span-long, glistening black bristles on its back and forehead; the tough hide lay, like plated armour, in thick folds about its huge neck; its feet were long and sinewy. Lazily grunting, it was making for itself a bed beneath the bushes in which its shapeless body was stretched out at full length, and it had found a place for its enormous head by rooting out with its tusks bushes as thick as a man's arm.
On hearing approaching footsteps, the monster irritably raised its head, opened wide its jaws, and cast a sidelong glance at its assailant.
Our hero knelt upon one knee so as to take better aim, and fired at the wild beast just as it suddenly raised its head, so that the bullet pierced its neck instead of its skull, wounding it seriously but not mortally.
The wounded boar instantly sprang from its lair, and gnashing its crooked tusks together so that sparks flew from them, rushed upon its foe. It would not have been difficult to have avoided such a furious attack by a skilful side-spring; but our hero was not the man to get out of any opponent's way; so he threw his gun aside, tore his dagger from its sheath, faced the savage beast, and dealt at its head a blow sufficient to have cleaved it to the chine; but the tremendous blow fell short upon one of the monster's tusks, and the dagger, coming into contact with the stone-like bone, broke off short at the hilt.
Half stunned by the shock, the boar only succeeded in grazing the hero's leg, whereupon the latter seized the beast by both ears and a desperate struggle began. Weaponless as he was, he grappled with the monster, which, grunting and roaring, twisted its head about in every direction; but the hero's iron grasp held fast the broad ears of the monster with invincible force, and when the boar tried to overturn its assailant by suddenly going down on its haunches, the hero, with a swift and tremendous blow of his clenched fist, hurled it backwards, falling himself indeed at the same time, but uppermost, and quickly recovering his balance pressed down with his whole weight upon the boar (which valiantly but vainly continued struggling against superior strength), and triumphantly bestrided its huge paunch.
The boar now appeared to be completely beaten; its glassily glaring eyes were protruding, the blood streamed from its jaws and nostrils; it had ceased to bellow, but a rattling sound came from its throat; its legs writhed convulsively, its snout hung flabbily down; it was plain that it could not hold out much longer.
The hero had now only to call to his companions, who were close at hand, but that would have been too humiliating; or to wait till the boar bled to death, but that would have been too tiresome. Suddenly he recollected that he had a Turkish knife in his girdle, and, meaning to put a speedy end to the long tussle, he pressed down the boar's head with his knee and felt for his knife with one hand.