The lady calmly awaited the furious boar. She held her dart with a reversed grasp, point downwards, and drew tight her horse's reins. The noble steed stood perfectly motionless, but he pointed his ears, threw a sidelong glance at the boar, and at the very instant when the rabid beast had passed beneath the horse's belly, and was about to rip it asunder with a powerful upward heave of his gleaming tusks, the well-trained charger suddenly reared and sprang over his assailant; at the same instant the Amazon deftly stooped and hurled her dart deep between the shoulder-blades of the wild boar. The mortally-wounded beast sank bellowing down into the long grass. Once more he would have rushed upon the girl, but the youth sprang, quick as light, from his horse, and gave him the _coup de grâce_ with his dagger. At that moment the blast of a horn was heard in the distance. The hero had brought down the stag. The other horsemen, who now overtook the leaders of the chase (but only after making a wide circuit), welcomed the hero of the day with loud cries of "Eljen!"[4] [Footnote 4: _Eljen!_ = Long live!] The herculean horseman was mud-stained from head to foot, nor did the others look much better; only the Amazon's robe was spotless and untorn. Even at such times a girl knows how to take care of her clothes! When the hero beheld the wild beast slain by his niece, which, as it lay stretched out stark and stiff before him, looked even larger than life-size, he was at first deeply affected, as if he now, for the first time, fully recognized the greatness of the peril to which his darling had been exposed, and he exclaimed, not without alarm--"My Nelly!" but immediately afterwards he stretched out his hand towards her with a smile, and gazed round triumphantly upon the bystanders. "Did I not say she had my blood in her veins?" Every one hastened to pay an appropriate compliment to the radiant heroine, who appeared to experience, on this occasion, something of that peculiar satisfaction which only belongs to the lucky huntsman. The hero again looked proudly around till his eye fell upon the young Transylvanian, who was now sitting on a fresh horse. Him he at once accosted, and pointing to the dead boar asked-- "Nicolas, my son! prithee tell me, does Transylvania produce such boars as that?" Now, not to mention that the Transylvanian was already somewhat sore on account of his recent mishap, it was not to be expected that he, a Transylvanian born and bred, would for a single moment permit the assumption that any natural product of Hungary was superior to the like product of Transylvania to pass unchallenged, so he answered defiantly-- "Most certainly, and even finer ones."