And at last there came a day when the army was in line of battle against the Saracen; when the Knights of the Temple vied with the knights of other orders each striving to carry their flag farthest into that thorny jungle of flashing scimitars, and the huge arm of King Richard the Lion-hearted hewed a red road for them all which none could equal; for was he not the strongest man in the two entire armies--this King who could sever an iron bar with a swordstroke? But ever as he plunged with fresh zeal and ringing warcry into the heart of the fray, he became aware of a knight and his squire that as surely as his shadow, kept but a pace behind him; and the blows that were struck in that fight under the burning sun and with the loose sand of the desert underfoot made the day one to be remembered long by those that lived beyond it. At last a fresh troop of tried warriors pressed forward on the wearied men of the West. Louder rang the shout of the turbaned men-- "Allah! Allahu!" Backward, slowly yet surely, they drove their enemies everywhere save in that one spot where Richard swung his mace; and even he, too, gave place for a yard or two, leaving Louis and the other knight fighting like wildcats, back to back. Then Louis went down--down--into darkness. Of what happened next, how his leader for long minutes stood above him guarding both, till with a roar the angry King burst through the Saracens and rescued them, he knew nothing until he woke days afterward, feeling very tired, and a little light-headed, and oddly weak; just awake enough to wonder how he happened to be in a royal tent, watched over by a handsome, golden-haired young man, who smiled sunnily at him and talked to him in good French, saying that his name was Blondel. That Richard had declared so good a squire was worth being cared for by a king; and that Louis had but one business on hand, which was to go to sleep again, which he presently very contentedly did. Now, this is not a history of King Richard. If you would like to know more about him and what he did in England and in Palestine you can read two of Sir Walter Scott's best books, "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman," and very stirring times they tell about. What we are most concerned with is what the fragments of the Iron Star saw in their travels, and one stout piece of its steel had now parted from its comrades for ever. In that terrible battle, what was the value of one sword, more or less, to the knights as they charged and fell back with the surging of the red tide? So the sword that Louis wielded lay uncared for where it fell.