"Michael Tornay, from this day forth you are ennobled. I will give you the parchment to-morrow, and I will make a landed proprietor of you." The lad believed in King Matthias as if he had been some altogether superior being; he was ardently, passionately attached to him, but he said nothing. To tell the truth, he felt more confused than grateful; for the new-made noble, the private of the Black Legion, had just so much delicacy of feeling that he was much more flattered by the king's treating him seriously than he would have been by jests and teasing. For the moment he could not get out a word. There was a mist before his eyes; and after a long pause--for the king himself was touched by the effect of his words--the young man came to himself, and dropping upon one knee said, "Your Highness has made a man of me, and I trust in God that you will never, never repent it!" Few and simple words, but the king was so well pleased with them, and so confirmed in his previous opinion, that at that moment he would have dared to trust the boy with the command of the castle of Visegrád. A week later, after a battle in which Michael had taken part, Matthias made the boy an officer in the famous Black or Death Legion--so called from the colour of its armour and the skull-like shape of its helmets--which was under the command of the king himself. CHAPTER VII. SENT TO PRISON. It would be interesting, no doubt, if we could follow Michael's career step by step; but the next two years of his life must be passed over very briefly. It was true that the king had made a man of him, and already Tornay was a marked personage--a man whose name was often in people's mouths, and well known in the army as a rising young general. There was plenty of work for the Black Legion in those days; for the Turks were perpetually invading the southern provinces, and the Hungarians were left to fight them almost single-handed--though, as the king reminded Louis the Eleventh of France, "Hungary was fighting for all Christendom," as she had been doing for many a long year past. Michael had distinguished himself more than once for his courage, and for a daring which amounted at times to actual foolhardiness, and now he had outdone his previous exploits by the gallant rescue from extreme peril of General Rozgonyi. The general was cut off from his men, and absolutely alone in the midst of a band of Turks, when Michael made a bold dash into their midst, scattering them right and left, and succeeded in extricating himself and Rozgonyi from their clutches. It was a bold exploit and a rash one--madly rash, indeed--but it was successful; and as Michael rode back to his men, wounded, but not seriously so, he was received with loud applause; and perhaps, if the truth must be told, he felt himself something of a hero.