The golden-haired bridegroom, and his party-coloured butterflies of courtiers, fell beneath the sword of the Duke, as the thousand Philistines beneath the ass's jaw-bone, in the sturdy fist of the son of Manoah; and he who escaped the sword, rushed into the Lion's throat, and was butchered like a defenceless lamb. When the forward wooer and his retinue of serving-men and nobles were abolished, Duke Henry, having used his household privilege as sternly as of old the wise Ulysses to the wooing-club of his chaste Penelope, sat down to table, refreshed in spirit, beside his wife, who was just beginning to recover from the deadly fright his entrance had caused her. While briskly enjoying the dainties of his cook, which had not been prepared for him, he cast a glance of triumph on his new conquest, and perceived that she was bathed in ambiguous tears, which might as well refer to loss as to gain. However, like a man that knew the world, he explained them wholly to his own advantage; and merely reproving her in gentle words for the hurry of her heart, he from that hour entered upon all his former rights. Count Ernst had often listened to this strange story, from the lips of his nurse; yet in riper years, as an enlightened sceptic, entertained doubts of its truth. But in the dreary loneliness of his Grated Tower, the whole incident acquired a form of possibility, and his wavering nursery belief increased almost to conviction. A transit through the air appeared to him the simplest thing in nature, if the Prince of Darkness, in the gloomy midnight, chose to lend his bat-wings for the purpose. Though in obedience to his religious principles, he no night neglected to cut a large cross before him as he went to sleep; yet a secret longing awoke in his heart, without its own distinct consciousness, to accomplish the same adventure. If a wandering mouse in the night-season happened to scratch upon the wainscot, he immediately supposed the Hellish Proteus was announcing his arrival, and at times in thought he went so far as settling the freight charges beforehand. But except the illusion of a dream, which juggled him into an aerial journey to his German native land, the Count gained nothing by his nursery faith, except employing with these fantasies a few vacant hours; and like a reader of novels, transporting himself into the situation of the acting hero. Why old Abaddon showed himself so sluggish in this case, when the kidnapping of a soul was in the wind, and in all likelihood the enterprise must have succeeded, may be accounted for in two ways. Either the Count's Guardian Angel was more watchful than the one to whom Duke Henry had intrusted the keeping of his soul, and resisted so stoutly that the Evil One could get no advantage over him; or the Prince of the Air had grown disgusted with the transport-trade in this his own element, having been bubbled out of his stipulated freightage by Duke