"Help! help!" cried her Grace; "help for the Lord Chamberlain!"
So they sprang to the centre of the hall where he was lying, dashed aside his assailants, and lifted up the old man from the floor with his hand all bleeding.
But Joachim Budde, who was seated on the very same bench which Ulrich had in vain tried to reach, began to mock the old knight. Whereupon Ulrich asked if it were he who had struck her Grace with the drumstick. "Ay," quoth he, laughing, "and would that she had got more of it for treating that darling, sweet, beautiful Sidonia no better than a kitchen wench. Where is the old hag now? I will teach her the catechism with my drumstick, I warrant you."
And he was going to rise, when Ulrich made a sign to the executioner, who instantly dropped his red cloak, under which he had hitherto concealed his long sword, and just as Joachim looked up to see what was going on, he whirled the sword round like a flash of lightning, and cut Budde's head clean off from the shoulders, so that not even a quill of his Spanish ruff was disturbed, and the blood spouted up like three horse-tails to the ceiling (for he drank so much that all the blood was in his head), and down tumbled his gay cap, with the heron's plume, to the ground, and his head along with it.
In an instant all was quietness; for though some of the ladies fainted, amongst whom was her Grace, and others rushed out of the hall, still there was such a silence that when the corpse fell down at length heavily upon the ground the clap of the hands and feet upon the floor was quite audible.
When Ulrich observed that his victory was complete, he waved his hat in the air, exclaiming, "The princely house of Pomerania is saved! and, as long as I live, its honour shall never be tarnished for the sake of a harlot! Remove Prince Ernest and Sidonia to separate prisons. Let the rest go their ways;--this devil's festival is at an end, and with my consent, there shall never be another in Wolgast."
_How Sidonia is sent away to Stettin--Item, of the young lord's dangerous illness, and what happened in consequence._
Now the Grand Chamberlain was well aware that no good would result from having Sidonia brought to a public trial, because the whole court was on her side.