a less valorous youth would have taken to his heels, the undaunted
Childe advanced at once into the apartment. He wore round his neck a
relic of St. Buffo (the tip of the saint's ear, which had been cut off
at Constantinople). "Fiends! I command you to retreat!" said he, holding
up this sacred charm, which his mamma had fastened on him; and at the
sight of it, with an unearthly yell the ghosts of the Baron and the
Baroness sprung back into their picture-frames, as clowns go through a
clock in a pantomime.

He rushed through the open door by which the unlucky Wolfgang had passed
with his demoniacal bride, and went on and on through the vast gloomy
chambers lighted by the ghastly moonshine: the noise of the organ in the
chapel, the lights in the kaleidoscopic windows, directed him towards
that edifice. He rushed to the door: 'twas barred! He knocked: the
beadles were deaf. He applied his inestimable relic to the lock,
and--whiz! crash! clang! bang! whang!--the gate flew open! the organ
went off in a fugue--the lights quivered over the tapers, and then went
off towards the ceiling--the ghosts assembled rushed away with a skurry
and a scream--the bride howled, and vanished--the fat bishop waddled
back under his brass plate--the dean flounced down into his family
vault--and the canon Schidnischmidt, who was making a joke, as usual, on
the bishop, was obliged to stop at the very point of his epigram, and to
disappear into the void whence he came.

Otto fell fainting at the porch, while Wolfgang tumbled lifeless down at
the altar-steps; and in this situation the archers, when they arrived,
found the two youths. They were resuscitated, as we scarce need say; but
when, in incoherent accents, they came to tell their wondrous tale, some
sceptics among the archers said--"Pooh! they were intoxicated!" while
others, nodding their older heads, exclaimed--"THEY HAVE SEEN THE LADY
OF WINDECK!" and recalled the stories of many other young men, who,
inveigled by her devilish arts, had not been so lucky as Wolfgang, and
had disappeared--for ever!

This adventure bound Wolfgang heart and soul to his gallant preserver;
and the archers--it being now morning, and the cocks crowing lustily
round about--pursued their way without further delay to the castle of
the noble patron of toxophilites, the gallant Duke of Cleves.

CHAPTER X.

THE BATTLE OF THE BOWMEN.

Although there lay an immense number of castles and abbeys between
Windeck a