"Surely he would call if he were in peril."
With that came a second shot.
"What's that?" all shouted, and sprang to their feet. "Up! Up!" cried the maiden, trembling in every limb, and the entire company hurried in the direction of the shot.
The knight had gone only a few steps into the forest when he came upon the boar at the foot of a great oak. It was a monstrous boar with long black bristles on his back and forehead; his skin like iron lay in thick folds on his neck and his feet were long and sinewy. He had dug himself a litter in the brush, where he now lay. Where he had laid his monstrous head he had torn up by the roots shrubs as thick as one's arm. When the monster heard the steps of a man he raised his head, opened wide his jaws and looked sidewise at his opponent. In order to get a better aim the knight had dropped on one knee, and shot through the sedges at the beast just at the moment when he raised his head. Instead of hitting the skull the ball entered the creature's neck, wounding but not killing him. The wounded animal sprang up, and in his charge at the knight struck his crooked tusks together so that the sparks flew. Such a furious attack might easily have been avoided by a spring to one side, but the knight was not the man to avoid his antagonist. He threw down his gun, tore his sword from its scabbard, stood face to face with the boar and dealt a blow at his head which might have cleft it through and through; but the dangerous stroke fell on the tusk, and upon this, hard as stone, the sword was broken in two at the hilt. Stunned by the blow the boar, though he plunged at the knight with his tusks, inflicted only a light wound in his thigh, at which the man seized the animal by the ears with both hands and a furious struggle began. Without weapon he fought the beast which turned its head with grunt and groan, but the steel-like grasp of the man held his broad ears with irresistible might and when the creature raised himself on his hind legs to throw his opponent, the knight with giant strength gave him a push and threw him over backward. True, he fell too as he did so, but he was on top and raising himself up, pressed down the wild beast struggling in vain against his superior strength, and seated himself in triumph on his belly. The boar seemed to be entirely conquered. His glazing eye grew dim, blood streamed from jaws and nose, he had ceased to roar and made only a rattling sound; his legs contracted, his nose hung down; in a few moments he must certainly die. The knight should have called to his comrades, only a little way off, or kept quiet until the boar bled to death, but this took too much time. He remembered that he had in his girdle a Turkish knife and he thought to put a quick end to the struggle, so he pressed down the head of the boar with one knee, that he might be able to spring when he drew out his knife at his side, and with one hand seized his girdle. Just then, a shot was heard in the forest; the overmastered boar, feeling the pressure of hand and knee lightened, with his remaining strength threw the knight off and dealt one last blow with his tusk. This blow was fatal—it tore the man's throat.
The guests and relations hurrying to him, found the hero dying beside the dead boar. With cries of sorrow they strove to bind his terrible wound.
"It is nothing, my children, nothing," said the knight, even then dying, and he was gone.
"Poor knight!" said the bystanders.
"My poor fatherland," cried Helen, raising to heaven her eyes heavy with tears.
The day of rejoicing was changed to one of mourning; the hunt to a funeral feast. In sorrow the guests attended the corpse of their best friend back to Csakathurm. Only the bald head took another direction.