“These two fellows abuse the patience of the court. We beg the president to cut short this idle chatter.”
“By my Kitty’s good name! I ask nothing better,” said Toric-Belfast, “provided your worships will give me the thousand crowns offered for the head of Hans, for it was I who took him prisoner.”
“You lie!” cried the little man.
The soldier clapped his hand to his sword: “It is very lucky for you, you rascal, that we are in the presence of the court, where a soldier, even a Munkholm musketeer, must never resort to force.”
“The reward,” coldly observed the little man, “belongs to me; for if it were not for me, you would never have won Hans of Iceland’s head.”
The indignant soldier swore that it was he who captured Hans of Iceland, when, wounded on the field of battle, he was just beginning to revive.
“Well,” said his opponent, “you may have captured him, but it was I who struck him down. If it had not been for me, you could never have taken him prisoner; therefore the thousand crowns are mine.”
“It is false,” replied the soldier. “It was not you who struck him down; it was an evil spirit, clad in the skins of wild beasts.”
“It was I!”
“No, no!”