Black Knight

“ Seest thou nought else, Rebecca, by which the Black Knight may be distinguished?"
"Nothing," said the Jewess; "all about him is black as the wing of the night raven. Nothing can I spy that can mark him further; but having once seen him put forth his strength in battle, methinks I could know him again among a thousand warriors. He rushes to the fray as if he were summoned to a banquet. There is more than mere strength—there seems as if the whole soul and spirit of the champion were given to every blow which he deals upon his enemies. ”

“ Quick as thought, the black knight sprang from his horse, dragged his fainting comrade up into the saddle, and bidding Roland ride by the hurt man and support him till he reached the town, turned like a hunted lion on the pursuing English, whirling his mighty axe over his head with both hands. ”

“ Two of the foremost instantly fell, and the rest gave way, notwithstanding all their leaders' efforts to stop them. The Black Knight was soon engaged in desperate combat with the Norman chief, and the vaulted roof of the hall rung with their furious blows. At length De Bracy fell.
"Yield thee, De Bracy," said the Black Champion, stooping over him, and holding against the bars of his helmet the fatal poniard with which the knights despatched their enemies. "Yield thee, rescue or no rescue, or thou art but a dead man." ”

“ Meantime the combat between the Scottish Champion and the Black Knight continued with unabated fury. Any advantage gained by one was foiled by the other, till at length Saint Andrew, uttering his battle-cry, struck so mighty a blow with his battle-axe, that he clave the Georgian’s burgonet, and his head beneath, from his crown to his shoulders, and his body fell lifeless on the ground. ”

“ Again and again, when, after straining every faculty of my brain, I made my move and raised my eyes to watch in the priest's face the effect of a stroke to which I saw no reply, a faint mocking smile would curl for a moment his cruel lips, and the black knight would be moved once more, threatening dangers which I had overlooked, and dashing my premature hopes to the ground. It was as though some secret link existed between that particular bit of bone and the grim, ghoulish spectator of our game. ”

“ Neither horse nor armour wilt thou get of me, except thou win it with thy hands.”
“Say you so?” said the black knight, smiling. “Now, yield thy lady to me without more words, for it beseems not a kitchen-knave to ride with such a lady.”
“Thou liest,” answered Beaumains. “I am a gentleman born, and of higher lineage than thou, and that will I prove upon thy body.”
Then in great wrath they drew apart with their horses, and ran together with a crash like thunder. The black knight broke his spear to no purpose, but Beaumains’ spear thrust through the other’s side, and broke in his body. ”

“ Before he had time to do so, however, they heard a great noise in the courtyard, and looking down, saw that the body of the Black Knight had been discovered. Near it stood a beautiful lady, more beautiful than any Sir Ivaine had ever seen, except Queen Guinevere. She was dark like the queen, and her eyes were as bright as stars. He would have looked at her a long time, but the little maiden begged him to hide without delay.
"Quick!" she cried. "The men have seen that there is the front part of a horse inside the gate, and know that the person who has killed our lord must be here. ”

“ Rooks were sacrificed for bishops, and bishops exchanged for inoffensive pawns, while the kings stood disregarded on their knights' squares, and the fight raged hotly round the black knight, who seemed to bear a charmed life and sprang nimbly about the board, always evading my opponent's headlong attempts at his capture. At last, in desperation, he offered the bribe of the white queen, but I obstinately refused to part at any price with my dusky cavalier, and a few moves later brought the game to a successful end with a smothered mate, the very bone of contention inflicting the deathblow. ”

“ The old woman looked at her suspiciously. "The two are one," she answered; "for the Black Knight chanced to have a spell thrown over him, which turned him into a Black Bull, and which could not be lifted until he had fought with, and overcome, a mighty Spirit of Evil that lived in a dark glen. He fought with the Spirit, and overcame it and once more regained his true form; but 'tis said that his mind is somewhat clouded at times, for he speaketh ever of a maiden whom he would fain have wedded, and whom he hath lost. ”

“ The black knight, black indeed to all his adversaries, when viewing the wonderful valour of Anaxius, with whom then rival in fame he entertained a terrible emulation, what bred terror in others, bred in him contentment; that his conquest, whereof he never doubted, might be endeared by the difficulty, and his victory be honoured by so honourable an enemy, with whom, above all others, he laboured to meet, by the ruin of many making a room where they might fight. ”

“ At this moment Wamba winded the outlaw's bugle, which he had been given to carry. The sudden sound made the murderers bear back once more, and Wamba did not hesitate to rush in and assist his knight to rise.
"Shame on ye, false cowards!" exclaimed he in the blue harness; "do ye fly from the empty blast of a horn blown by a jester?"
Animated by his words, they attacked the Black Knight anew, whose best refuge was now to place his back against an oak, and defend himself with his sword. ”

“ When Fair-hands saw that the Black Knight had been so well horsed and armed, he alighted down and armed himself in the dead man's armour, took his horse, and rode after the damsel. When she saw him come nigh, she said, "Away, kitchen-knave, out of the wind, for the smell of thy foul clothes offendeth me. Alas that ever such a knave as thou art should by mishap slay so good a knight as thou hast done. ”

“ Then, lifting each man with extraordinary ease, he laid him across the saddle of that horse from which he had fallen, as though he were a sack of grain. And all this Sir Lionel beheld with very great wonder, marvelling much at the strength and prowess of that black knight. "Ha," quoth he to himself, "I will go and inquire into this business, for it may haply be that yonder black knight shall not find it to be so easy to deal with a knight of the Round Table as with those other three knights." ”

“ No white knight, rescuing white fair ones from cruel oppression, ever felt the throbbing of a chivalrous heart more intensely than I, a black knight, did, in running down a chicken in an out-of-the way place to hide till dark, and then carry to some poor overworked black fair one, to whom it was at once food, luxury, and medicine. ”

“ An uneasy, puzzled look came into his face, and this time it was with an uncertain, vacillating movement that he raised his hand to play. Again I looked at the priest. His expression was more bitterly mocking and more exultingly fiendish than ever as he directed my glance by a movement of his own to the hand which hovered over the board. His treacherous design was transmitted in a flash to my mind by some unexplained interaction of our brains. An illegal move with the black knight, in defiance of the rules of the game, was to snatch the nearly won victory from my grasp. ”

“ Beside the shield there was a long black spear, and close to the spear there was a great black horse, covered with silk, and the silk was black. And looking blacker than all the rest was a huge black rock.
Through the darkness they could see some [77] one sitting near the rock. It was a knight, and he was armed in black armour, and his name was ‘the Knight of the Black Land.’
Lynette saw the knight. ‘Flee down the valley, before the Black Knight saddles his horse,’ she called to Gareth. But she knew that even the Black Knight would not frighten her kitchen-knave. ”

“ Piece after piece was taken from the board and dropped on the sand at our feet; the ranks of pawns grew thinner and thinner, but still that one black knight, now the only piece left to my antagonist, sprang over the board, evading my deep-laid plans for his capture. The opening was long passed, the wavering fortune of the middle-game had waned with the long hours to an end-game. ”

“ But the knights are both on their feet again in a moment, and are falling upon each other with their swords, cutting and slashing and warding and advancing and retreating, till it is hard to tell which is the black knight and which the green, or whether they are not both black and both green. ”

“ And so for some time the fight went on; many combatants falling on either side. But soon the conflict became even more desperate when the Black Knight, at the head of a body of his followers, led an attack upon the outer barrier of the barbican. Down came the piles and palisades before their irresistible onslaught; but their headlong rush through the broken barriers was met by Front-de- Boeuf himself and a number of the defenders. ”

“ Flowers are her passion; so he brings her flowers, having slain the bold gardener to obtain them. She takes the flowers and seeks the body of the dead gardener, who was also her lover; but flowers can inflict no wounds, so she stays beside him till the flowers wither, and she withers with them. ‘The Black Knight’ has been done full justice to by Longfellow. The practice of wearing visors in the ages of chivalry made such tales a poetic possibility. Death comes to joust in a king’s court, like a knight in black armour on black steed ”

“ The Black Knight then turned upon Athelstane, wrenched from the hand of the bulky Saxon the battle-axe which he wielded, and bestowed him such a blow on the crest that Athelstane also lay senseless on the field. Having achieved this double feat he retired calmly to the extremity of the lists, leaving his leader to cope as best he could with Brian de Bois-Guilbert. This was no longer matter of so much difficulty. The Templar's horse had bled much, and gave way under the shock of the Disinherited Knight's charge. ”

“ As they continued to look they saw many of the country people salute the black knight. Some time afterwards a squire came to Pellounes, the lord of the castle, and told him that a fierce combat had taken place in the road some distance in advance, and that a knight with a black shield had smitten down thirteen others. He was still there, ready for any who might wish to meet him, and holding a tournament of his own in the highway.
"On my faith, that is Palamides!" said Tristram. "The worthy fellow must be brimful of fight. ”

“ On the snow lay black before him the penitential bag and the rope, but he stood there long, feeling that something in his soul was unhinging, something breaking, something coming to an end, something dying, and that soon he would be no longer a knight, no longer Yurand of Spyhov, but a wretch, a slave without name, without fame, without honor. ”

“ The beast certainly looked incongruous among my Stauntons, but something in his human eyes and lifelike expression of malicious humour caught my fancy, and I asked to be allowed to play with the black men. The Colonel acquiesced, but declined the privilege of first move, which usually goes with the white. We accordingly drew for the move, and I won it.
Led partly by my fancy for the black knight, and partly "to take my opponent out of the books," I began the game by making the paperweight first take the field. ”

“ Many tilts are run. The stranger knight unhorses several riders. When called on by the herald to raise his visor he courteously declines, rides three times round the field, displaying his colours, the Moorish cognisance of yellow on a black ground, then vanishes through the open gates, his black slaves after him. Many sharp blows are then exchanged and wounds inflicted in this mimic warfare, to the delight of the king, who rises to his feet loudly laughing and clapping his hands as the vanquished knights are carried from the field. ”