g journey north
toward the hills of Derby. For many days they travelled, riding upon
two small donkeys. Strange sights filled the days for the little boy
who remembered nothing outside the bare attic of his London home and the
dirty London alleys that he had traversed only by night.

They wound across beautiful parklike meadows and through dark,
forbidding forests, and now and again they passed tiny hamlets of
thatched huts. Occasionally they saw armored knights upon the highway,
alone or in small parties, but the child's companion always managed to
hasten into cover at the road side until the grim riders had passed.

Once, as they lay in hiding in a dense wood beside a little open glade
across which the road wound, the boy saw two knights enter the glade
from either side. For a moment, they drew rein and eyed each other in
silence, and then one, a great black mailed knight upon a black charger,
cried out something to the other which the boy could not catch. The
other knight made no response other than to rest his lance upon his
thigh and with lowered point, ride toward his ebon adversary. For a
dozen paces their great steeds trotted slowly toward one another, but
presently the knights urged them into full gallop, and when the two iron
men on their iron trapped chargers came together in the center of the
glade, it was with all the terrific impact of full charge.

The lance of the black knight smote full upon the linden shield of his
foeman, the staggering weight of the mighty black charger hurtled upon
the gray, who went down with his rider into the dust of the highway. The
momentum of the black carried him fifty paces beyond the fallen horseman
before his rider could rein him in, then the black knight turned to view
the havoc he had wrought. The gray horse was just staggering dizzily to
his feet, but his mailed rider lay quiet and still where he had fallen.

With raised visor, the black knight rode back to the side of his
vanquished foe. There was a cruel smile upon his lips as he leaned
toward the prostrate form. He spoke tauntingly, but there was no
response, then he prodded the fallen man with the point of his spear.
Even this elicited no movement. With a shrug of his iron clad shoulders,
the black knight wheeled and rode on down the road until he had
disappeared from sight within the gloomy shadows of the encircling
forest.

The little boy was spell-bound. Naught like this had he ever seen or
dreamed.

"Some