(for we had come over terrible ground, most of it being uphill), and ultimately it fell dead lame. Then whoop--tally-ho! I spurred onward alone. Just as the furious giant was coming to bay in a narrow gorge, and, fastening on his flanks and neck, the maddened dogs were tearing him down, their red jaws steaming in the frosty air, the Count came up on foot, breathless and thoroughly blown, to have the honour of slaying this antlered monarch of the Dinovian Alps. But I was too quick for him. I had sprung from my horse, and with my unsheathed _hanshar_ or Croatian knife had flung myself, fearlessly and regardless of all danger, upon the buck, eluding a last and desperate butt made at me with his pointed horns. Another moment saw my knife buried to the haft in his throat, and a torrent of crimson blood flowing upon the snow, then I courteously tendered my weapon by the hilt to the Count, who, in admiration of my adroitness, presented me with this ring--a very fine brilliant, you may perceive--which his grandfather had received from the Empress Maria Theresa, and the pure gold of which is native, from the sand upon the banks of the Drave." And as he concluded his anecdote, which he related with considerable pomposity and perfect coolness, he twirled round his finger this remarkable ring, of which I was eventually to hear more from time to time. "So, out of a thousand Croatian horsemen, _you_ were the only one in at the death! It says little for their manhood," said an old fox-hunter, as he filled his glass with burgundy, and pretty palpably winked to Sir Madoc, under cover of an épergne. "This may all be true, Harry, or not--only _entre nous_, I don't believe it is," said Phil Caradoc aside to me; "for who here knows anything of Croatia? He might as well talk to old Gwyllim the butler, or any chance medley Englishman, of the land of Memnon and the hieroglyphics. This fellow Guilfoyle beats Munchausen all to nothing; but did he not before tell something _else_ about that ring?" "I don't remember; but now, Phil, that you have seen her," said I, in a tone of tolerably-affected carelessness, "what do you think of _la belle_ Cressingham?" "She is very handsome, certainly," replied Phil, in the same undertone, and luckily looking at his glass, and not at me, "a splendid specimen of her class--a proud and by no means a bashful beauty." "Most things in this world are prized just as they are difficult of attainment, or are scarce. I reckon beauty among these, and no woman holds it cheap," said I, not knowing exactly what to think of Caradoc's criticism. "There is Miss Lloyd, for instance--" "Ah," said he, with honest animation, "she is a beauty too, but a gentle and retiring one--a girl that is all sweetness and genuine goodness of heart." "With some dairy-farms in the midland counties, eh?"