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Now the Black Valley lieth deep within the mountains. What name it may bear now I know not; at that time the country people gave it this title because of the deep gloom that the tall trees, chiefly fir-trees, threw over the ravine. Even the brook bubbling between the rocks had a black look, and was far less joyous in its flow than streams that have the blue sky over them. And now, in the darkening twilight, it ran yet more wild and gloomy beneath the hills.

With no little anxious care the knight rode along the edge of the brook; at one moment he feared that by delay he might allow the fugitive to get too far in advance, and at the next, that in his overhaste he might pass her by in some hiding-place. He had meanwhile penetrated far into the valley and hoped soon to win his quest, if so be that he were on the right track. The fear, indeed, that this might not be the case, made his heart beat fast with dread. How, he