Blake cast aside his buckler, nor was there any to reprove him now. Instead they smiled proudly and knowingly, for had they not seen him best Sir Malud without other defense than his horsemanship and his sword?
The trumpets blared again. Blake turned and put spurs to his charger. Straight down the center of the lists he rode. From the opposite end came a Knight of the Sepulcher to meet him!
"Sir James! Sir James!" cried the spectators in the stands upon the south side, while the north stands answered with the name of their champion.
"Who is the black knight?" asked many a man in the north stands of his neighbor.
"He hath no buckler!" cried some. "He be mad!" "Sir Guy wilt cleave him open at the first pass!" "Sir Guy! Sir Guy!"
CHAPTER XVII
"The Saracens!"
Just as the second day of the Great Tourney had opened in the Valley of the Sepulcher upon the plains below the city of Nimmr, a band of swart men in soiled thobs and carrying long matchlocks topped the summit of the pass upon the north side of the valley and looked down upon the City of the Sepulcher and the castle of King Bohun.
They had followed upward along what may once have been a trail, but for so long a time had it been unused, or so infrequently had it been used that it was scarce distinguishable from the surrounding brush; but below them now Ibn Jad saw at a short distance a better marked road and, beyond, what appeared to him a fortress. Beyond that again he glimpsed the battlements of Bohun's castle.