“My lord,” replied the English knight, “you know how, in despite of your earnest remonstrances, I rode from your castle gate. The moon was bright and clear, and I soon reached the entrance of the Vandal camp; without a pause I rode in and blew my bugle.
‘Methought an answer met my ear,— Yet was the blast so low and drear, So hollow and so faintly blown, It might be echo of my own.’
‘Then sudden in the ring I view, In form distinct of shape and hue, A mounted champion rise.’
Without a word the demon prepared for the charge; I raised my shield, couched my lance, and rushed to the attaint; we both staggered with the charge; our lances broke in half, but the points glided harmlessly from our armor. I still pressed on, and my adversary’s horse stumbled and fell; the demon was rolled on the ground. In a moment I was by his side, and seized his horse’s rein; the demon seemed to revive; he saw my action, snatched a portion of his broken lance, and darted it at me as a javelin. It struck me on my thigh, but in my eagerness I felt it not. In a moment
‘He seem’d to vanish from my sight: The moonbeam droop’d, and deepest night Sunk down upon the heath.’
Had I not that dark black horse as a witness of the combat, I should begin to doubt whether I had met the demon.”
“Let us see the demon’s steed,” said the old lord, after he had thanked the knight for his relation of the adventure; “even now the dawn is about to break, and we must seek some little rest before day shines out.”
In the court-yard they found the black steed; his eye lustrous, his neck proudly arched, his coat of shining black, and a glittering war saddle on his back. The first streaks of the dawn began to appear as they entered the castle yard; the black steed grew restless, and tried to break from the hands of the groom; he champed his bit, snorted as in pain and anger, and struck the ground with his feet, until the sparks flew. The cock crowed—the black steed had disappeared.
Every year, on the self-same night, at that self-same hour, did the wound of the English knight burst out afresh, and torment him with severe anguish; to his dying day he bore this memorial of his encounter with the demon champion of the Vandal camp.