Their numbers, too, increased with their success, for every knight or man-at-arms who fell, or was taken prisoner, mounted and armed a peasant; and it was singular to observe with what skill and judgment the leader apportioned his best spoils to his best men: so that, developing his resources slowly--never admitting any man to enter his cavalry who had not approved himself a soldier, who could not ride well, and charge a lance fearlessly, nor enrolling any one among his footmen who was not well armed with a corslet or shirt-of-mail, and steel cap or sallet, with sword, dagger, and pike, or crossbow--he was soon at the head of two thousand excellent foot, and above three hundred lances, admirably mounted, who fought under his own immediate orders. Who he was, no one knew, or conjectured. It was reported that his own men were unacquainted with his name, and that his face, when the vizor of his helmet was raised, was covered by a sable mask. How much of truth or falsehood there might be in these vague rumors, no man seemed to know; but it is certain that a mysterious and almost supernatural terror attached to the “Black Rider,” as he was universally termed, whenever he was spoken of--a terror which perhaps he took a secret pleasure in augmenting, either from motives of policy or of pride. The strong suit of knight’s armor which he wore, of the best Milan steel, was black as night from the crest to the spur, without relief of any kind, or device on the shield, or heraldric crest on the burgonet. The plume which he wore on his casque was similar to those affixed in modern days to hearses; and another, its counterpart, towered between the ears of his charger, which was a coal-black barb, without one white hair in its glossy hide, barded with chamfront, poitrel, neck-plates, and bard proper, all of black steel, with funeral-housings of black cloth. Such was the man who alone of the leaders of the Jacquerie seemed to make war on a system, acting according to the dictates of the soundest judgment rather than, like the others, by wantonness or whim; permitting no license, nor promiscuous individual pillaging, but causing all plunder to be brought together for the common weal--thus making war support war, according to the prescribed plan of the greatest of modern conquerors--and subsisting his men on the spoils of the powerful and rich, without trespassing in any wise on the property of the poor, whose favor it was his object to conciliate. It came, too, to be understood, ere long, that his cruelty was no less systematic than his plundering. No wanton barbarity, no torturing, roast, crucifying, or the like, was ever perpetrated by his band; and of himself, it was notorious that, except in open warfare or in the heat of battle, he had never dealt a blow against a man, or laid a rude hand on a woman, of the hated caste of nobles. Still, neither man nor woman ever escaped his rancorous and premeditated vengeance.