That day passed about the same as the first. We toiled along the road for the most part in gloomy silence. The soldiers were pouring in thicker and thicker. Sometimes as many as two hundred of them in a single body passed us so that we were forced to leave the highway and stand on the banks to let them go by.
At another time later on a great lord from the east swept along. He was dressed in shining armor from head to heel. In his helmet waved a plume of feathers dyed red and white and a broadsword hung in its glittering scabbard by his side. In his train were at least five hundred followers, some of them of almost as high degree as he; others with long lances rode directly behind him, while further back a troop of archers completed the array.
It was a sight to admire. From where we had halted on the side of the road, my captor pointed at them with his finger.
“That,” said he, “is what you have come to see.”
His grimness puzzled me.
“Has a war broken out?” I asked.
“Not yet,” was the answer, “—and it will never be called a war. These men are on their way to crush the Black Prince of England.”
I drew a long breath.
“—the Black Prince!” I exclaimed. “Why, you can’t do that. There is not a leader alive who can cope with him in the field.”
A slow smile came over his face.