The Amazon, to whom the youth seemed to be whispering many a sweet word, formed a complete contrast to him; she had an earnest, fearless, lively countenance; her eyes were brighter than garnets; she loved to curl her lip and draw down her fine, thick eyebrows, giving to her face an expression of pride, then when she glanced up again and parted her lips with a spirited smile, you might see a heroine indeed. Her dark braids hung over her shoulders half their length and then were looped back under her cap of ermine with its waving plume. She wore a silk riding habit fitting closely to her slender figure and falling in heavy folds over the flanks of her Arab horse. Figure and face called for homage rather than love; no smile played over these features, her great, dark, fathomless eyes rested many a time upon the youth as he bent toward her, shedding a rare charm, a fulness of love, a nobler, higher longing which means more than love, more than ambition, which is perhaps the self-consciousness of great souls who have a hint of their eternal fame.
Behind this beautiful pair rode two men whose dress indicated their high rank; one about thirty years old, the other a pale, elderly man with dress simple to affectation. It is worth while to mark this man's face, for we shall often meet him; cold dry features, thin blonde hair and beard mixed with grey, a pointed cleft chin, scornful pale lips, quick watery blue eyes with red rims, jutting eyebrows, a high bald shining forehead which with every change of feeling was wrinkled in all directions. This face we may not forget. The rest—the Herculean rider, the smiling youth, the stately girl,—will hurry past us like fleeting pictures which come only to go; but this last will accompany us throughout the entire course of events, ever appearing only to cast down or to build up, to determine the fate of great men and lands. The bald head moved nearer to the knight at his side who was testing his lance as if for a throw, and said to him in an undertone, evidently continuing a conversation:
"So, then, you Transylvanians will not have anything to do with this affair?"
"Let me have a rest from politics to-day," answered the other, starting impatiently. "You have got so that you cannot live a single day without intrigues, but I beg of you, spare me to-day. To-day I wish to hunt, and you know how passionately I love the chase."
With these words he spurred his horse forward, and joined the stately knight.
Thus rebuffed, the older man bit his lips in vexation, then turned with a smile to the youthful knight riding before him.
"A glorious morning, gracious lord; would that our horizon were as bright in every direction."
"Would that it were," answered the youth, without really knowing what it was to which he was replying, while the beautiful Amazon leaned over and said to him:
"I don't know why it is but I cannot place any confidence in that man. He is forever putting questions and never answers any himself."
Just then the stately rider came up with the group of hunters, acknowledged their loud greetings and stopped in their midst.