CHAPTER XXV.
MINE HOST RUNS HIS LAST RACE Hearty were the greetings when the soldiers found us all safe and sound.
They shook us again and again by the hand.

They clapped us on the back.
They examined professionally the dead who lay strewn about.
"A good stroke! Well smitten!" they cried, as they turned them over, like spectators who applaud at a game they can all understand.

Specially did they compliment me on my axe-work.

Never had anything like it been seen in Plassenburg.

The head of the yearling calf was duly exhibited, when the neatness of the blow and the exactness of the aim at the weakest jointing were prodigiously admired.
The good fellows, mellow with the Burgomeister's sinall-ale, were growing friendly beyond all telling, when, in the light of the offertory taper, now growing beguttered and burning low, there appeared the Lady Ysolinde.
You never saw so quick a change in any men.