“Our friends,” said Wilfred, “will surely not abandon an enterprise so gloriously begun and so happily attained.⁠—O no! I will put my faith in the good knight whose axe hath rent heart-of-oak and bars of iron.⁠—Singular,” he again muttered to himself, “if there be two who can do a deed of such derring-do! 36 ⁠—a fetterlock, and a shacklebolt on a field sable⁠—what may that mean?⁠—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. God assoilize him of the sin of bloodshed!⁠—it is fearful, yet magnificent, to behold how the arm and heart of one man can triumph over hundreds.”