“I think so too,” said Ruth. “Let us turn as she says, Princess Guinevere.”
Guinevere consented, so the three turned back. And no sooner had they done so than they saw the castle, but it looked a great way off.
When they reached the spot where the old man had been, he was no longer there.
With the castle in sight, they pushed along as fast as might be, their hearts thumping anxiously. What a bewildering business it was! Rose and Ruth felt as though they were walking on quicksand, everything seemed so uncertain.
“But what has become of all the knights?” Ruth wanted to know.
And then one appeared, the big black knight, right in the middle of the path. And he smiled full evilly upon the three.
“Welcome, Princesses,” he said. “Yet it meseems that three fair damsels should not be wandering thus unattended through the Perilous Forest.” And again he smiled.
As Ruth told her sister later, that smile felt like an icicle slipped down her back.
Then he set a horn to his lips and blew a shrill call. The girls shrank together, looking anxiously around. No sooner had the echoes of that call died to silence when two other knights in black armour rode up. Bending from their saddles, the three each grasped one of the maidens, swung them to the horses’ backs, and set off full tilt into the forest.
Rose saw Ruth before her, bobbing up and down, and looking back as well as she might could catch a gleam of Guinevere’s bright hair as she was carried along by her captor. She could not see much of her own knight, for his visor was down and he was all covered up in his armour and a black cloak that streamed behind him as they rode.