, sent old Boreas with his bellows,
who, as the match descended to the pan, gave a blast that blew the priming
from the touch-hole.

Thus waged the fight, when the stout Risingh, surveying the field from
the top of a little ravelin, perceived his troops banged, beaten, and
kicked by the invincible Peter. Drawing his falchion, and uttering a
thousand anathemas, he strode down to the scene of combat with some such
thundering strides as Jupiter is said by Hesiod to have taken when he
strode down the spheres to hurl his thunderbolts at the Titans.

When the rival heroes came face to face, each made prodigious start, in
the style of a veteran stage champion. Then did they regard each other for
a moment with the bitter aspect of two furious ram-cats on the point of a
clapper-clawing. Then did they throw themselves into one attitude, then
into another, striking their swords on the ground, first on the right
side, then on the left; at last at it they went, with incredible ferocity.
Words cannot tell the prodigies of strength and valor displayed in this
direful encounter--an encounter compared to which the far-famed battles of
Ajax with Hector, of Aeneas with Turnus, Orlando with Rodomont, Guy of
Warwick and Colbrand the Dane, or of that renowned Welsh knight, Sir Owen
of the Mountains, with the giant Guylon, were all gentle sports and
holiday recreations. At length the valiant Peter, watching his
opportunity, aimed a blow, enough to cleave his adversary to the very
chine; but Risingh, nimbly raising his sword, warded it off so narrowly,
that glancing on one side, it shaved away a huge canteen in which he
carried his liquor: thence pursuing its trenchant course, it severed off a
deep coat pocket, stored with bread and cheese which provant rolling among
the armies, occasioned a fearful scrambling between the Swedes and
Dutchmen, and made the general battle wax ten times more furious than
ever.

Enraged to see his military stores laid waste, the stout Risingh,
collecting all his forces, aimed a mighty blow full at the hero's crest.
In vain did his fierce little cocked hat oppose its course. The biting
steel clove through the stubborn ram beaver, and would have cracked the
crown of any one not endowed with supernatural hardness of head; but the
brittle weapon shivered in pieces on the skull of Hardkoppig Piet,
shedding a thousand sparks, like beams of glory, round his grizzly visage.

The good Peter reeled with the blow, and tur