“Ah! ah! what you are your deeds and this letter show,” cried King Ptolemy, stamping with rage. “You despise our ancient religion, and would make converts of our people. Bear him and his attendant off to prison.”
The King pondered all night how he should destroy the strangers, and he resolved to make them join in combat with a hundred of the fiercest lions ever collected, to make sport for his subjects. The day arrived when the dreadful combat was to take place, and thousands of people assembled in the vast amphitheatre built for the purpose, to which even the huge pyramids seemed as pismires’ nests.
Saint George claimed the right of having his sword and steed; and the King, little dreaming of the courage and sagacity of Bayard, and the virtues which existed in Ascalon, and believing that, although a few lions might be killed thereby, greater sport would be afforded to his people, as he had no doubt the rest would easily tear him from his horse, and crush him in his armour, granted his request.
With a flourish of trumpets the Knight and his Squire entered the arena. De Fistycuff kept carefully behind his master. With terrific roars the hundred lions rushed in at once, amidst the loud plaudits of the spectators. On they bounded towards the Knight. Ascalon was in his hand. One after the other their heads fell, severed from their tawny bodies by the trusty steel. The Squire’s chief labour was to keep them off Bayard’s tail, lest, when he flung his heels out behind, the Champion’s aim might be less certain. The plaudits of the spectators were changed to groans of rage when they saw the carcasses of their favourite lions, who had already swallowed so many thousand slaves, strewing the wide arena. They shouted loudly to have an end put to the pleasant pastime.
“Fair play!” cried De Fistycuff, in return brandishing his sword. “In the name of my noble master, I demand fair play!”
And Saint George went on riding round and round, and slashing away with Ascalon, till he had slain every one of the hundred lions.
The treacherous King, fearing what might occur should so brave a champion wander freely through his dominions, had, in the meantime, summoned five thousand chosen warriors, and charged them to bring the Knight, dead or alive, bound before him. Scarcely was the last lion killed than they rushed into the arena, and before he and his squire had time to offer any effectual resistance, they had borne him to the ground. Then, throwing chains of steel around him, they carried him, helpless as an infant, before the King. Thence, without form of trial, he was cast into a dungeon, so massive that no strength could break through it. There, guarded night and day by lynx-eyed warders, he languished for many long years, his only companion being the faithful De Fistycuff; their chief subject of conversation being the deeds that they had done, and the wonders they had seen, and the deeds they would do, and the wonders they hoped to see.
There we must leave them, to tell what became of the Princess Sabra. In vain she waited and pined for the return of her gallant and true knight, Saint George. He came not, because, as has been seen, he could not, while the black King of Morocco, with every art he could devise, prosecuted his hateful suit. Whether or not he might have succeeded is doubtful, when one night, as the Princess slept on her couch she dreamed that Saint George appeared, not, as she had seen him, in shining armour, with his burgonet of glittering steel, and crimson plume of spangled feathers, but in overworn and simple attire, with pale countenance and emaciated form; and thus he spoke:—
“Sabra, I am betray’d for love of thee,
And lodged in cave as dark as night,
From whence in vain I seek—ah! woe is me!
To fly and revel in thy beauteous sight.
Remain thou true and constant for my sake,
That of my absence none may vantage take.
“Let tyrants know, if ever I obtain
The freedom lost by treason’s wicked guile,
False Afric’s scourge I ever will remain,
And turn to streaming blood Morocco’s soil;
That hateful Prince of Barbary shall rue
The just reward which is his treason’s due.”
These words so encouraged the Princess that when she awoke she went to her sire, and entreated him, with scalding tears, to dismiss Almidor from his court, and to allow her to enjoy that single blessedness for which she professed to have for the present so ardent an admiration. The King at length, softened by her grief, consented to her request, and, with many courteous expressions, informed the black Monarch that his daughter had finally resolved to decline his proposals. This announcement created the greatest fury in the breast of Almidor.