When Sidonia observed all this, she felt quite certain that a terrible storm was brewing for all of them, and so she ran to shelter herself through the first open door that came in her way, and up into the second corridor; but further adventures awaited her here, for not being acquainted with this part of the castle, she ran direct into an old lumber-room, where she found, to her great surprise, a young man dressed in rusty armour, and wearing a helmet with a serpent crest upon his head. This was Hans von Marintzky, whose brain Sidonia had turned by reading the Amadis with him in the castle gardens, and as she had often sighed, and said that she, too, could have loved the serpent knight, the poor love-stricken Hans, taking this for a favourable sign, determined to disguise himself as described in the romance, and thus secure her love.
So when her beautiful face appeared at the door, Hans screamed for joy, like a young calf, and falling on one knee, exclaimed--"Adored Princess, your serpent knight is here to claim your love, and tender his hand to you in betrothal, for no other wife do I desire but thee; and if the Princess Rosaliana herself were here to offer me her love, I would strike her on the face."
Sidonia was rather thunderstruck, as one may suppose, and retreated a few steps, saying, "Stand up, dear youth; what ails you?"
"So I am dear to you," he cried, still kneeling; "I am then really dear to you, adored Princess? Ah! I hope to be yet dearer when I make you my spouse."
Sidonia had not foreseen this termination to their romance reading, but she suppressed her laughter, remembering how she had lost her lover Uckermann by showing scorn; so she drew herself up with dignity, and said, with as grave a face as a chief mourner--
"If you will not rise, sir knight, I must complain to her Highness; for I cannot be your spouse, seeing that I have resolved never to marry." (Ah! how willingly, how willingly you would have taken any husband half a year after.) "But if you will do me a service, brave knight, run instantly to the court, where Wedig and Appelmann are going to murder each other, and separate them, or my gracious lady and old Ulrich will awake, and then we shall all be punished."
