At that moment the report of a gun[5] resounded somewhere in the wood. The down-trodden boar suddenly seemed to feel that the pressure of his opponent's hands and knees was slackening, and rallying all his remaining strength, threw off his assailant and dealt him one last blow with his tusks, and that blow was fatal, for it ripped open the man's throat.
[5] Some pretend that this shot was fired by a secret assassin sent from Vienna. Many doubt whether a shot was fired at all.
His kinsmen and friends, hastening to the spot, found the hero in the throes of death by the side of the dead boar. They rushed up with loud lamentations, and bound up his throat with their kerchiefs.
"It is nothing, my children; it is nothing!" he gasped, and expired.
"Alas! poor warrior!" sighed those who stood around him.
"Alas! my country!" sobbed Helen, raising her tearful eyes to heaven.
The gala-day had become a day of mourning; the hunt a funeral.
The guests sorrowfully followed the body of their best friend to Csakatorny. Only the bald-head took the opposite direction.
"Didn't I say that life was meant for other and better things?" murmured he. "Well, well! the world is large, and men are many. I'll go a kingdom further on."