arms. So when spring returned they set forth, as knights errant, to seek
for foreign adventure.

And for thirty days and thirty nights they rode on, until, at the
beginning of a new month, they came to a great wide plain. Now in the
centre of this plain, where seven several ways met, there stood a great
brazen pillar, and here, with high heart and courage, they bade each
other farewell, and each took a separate road.

Hence, St. George, on his charger Bayard, rode till he reached the
seashore where lay a good ship bound for the land of Egypt. Taking
passage in her, after long journeying he arrived in that land when the
silent wings of night were outspread, and darkness brooded on all
things. Here, coming to a poor hermitage, he begged a night's lodging,
on which the hermit replied:

"Sir Knight of Merrie England--for I see her arms graven on thy
breastplate--thou hast come hither in an ill time, when those alive are
scarcely able to bury the dead by reason of the cruel destruction waged
by a terrible dragon, who ranges up and down the country by day and by
night. If he have not an innocent maiden to devour each day, he sends a
mortal plague amongst the people. And this has not ceased for twenty and
four years, so that there is left throughout the land but one maiden,
the beautiful Sâbia, daughter to the King. And to-morrow must she die,
unless some brave knight will slay the monster. To such will the King
give his daughter in marriage, and the crown of Egypt in due time."

"For crowns I care not," said St. George boldly, "but the beauteous
maiden shall not die. I will slay the monster."