others to be afraid of the addresses of a spirit. They gave the
tribute which Cothrob demanded, and in an instant the sisters
were transported to an enchanted castle on the mountains of
Tugrut, in Kurdistan, and were never again seen by mortal eye.
But in process of time seven youths, distinguished in the war and
in the chase, appeared in the environs of the castle of the
demons. They were darker, taller, fiercer, and more resolute
than any of the scattered inhabitants of the valleys of
Kurdistan; and they took to themselves wives, and became fathers
of the seven tribes of the Kurdmans, whose valour is known
throughout the universe."

The Christian knight heard with wonder the wild tale, of which
Kurdistan still possesses the traces, and, after a moment's
thought, replied, "Verily, Sir Knight, you have spoken well
--your genealogy may be dreaded and hated, but it cannot be
contemned. Neither do I any longer wonder at your obstinacy in a
false faith, since, doubtless, it is part of the fiendish
disposition which hath descended from your ancestors, those
infernal huntsmen, as you have described them, to love falsehood
rather than truth; and I no longer marvel that your spirits
become high and exalted, and vent themselves in verse and in
tunes, when you approach to the places encumbered by the haunting
of evil spirits, which must excite in you that joyous feeling
which others experience when approaching the land of their human
ancestry."

"By my father's beard, I think thou hast the right," said the
Saracen, rather amused than offended by the freedom with which
the Christian had uttered his reflections; "for, though the