So all seemed happiness; but alas! dark misfortune was at hand.

Almidor, the black King of Morocco, who had long wooed the Princess
Sâbia in vain, without having the courage to defend her, seeing that the
maiden had given her whole heart to her champion, resolved to compass
his destruction.

So, going to King Ptolemy, he told him--what was perchance true--namely,
that the beauteous Sâbia had promised St. George to become Christian,
and follow him to England. Now the thought of this so enraged the King
that, forgetting his debt of honour, he determined on an act of basest
treachery.

Telling St. George that his love and loyalty needed further trial, he
entrusted him with a message to the King of Persia, and forbade him
either to take with him his horse Bayard or his sword Ascalon; nor would
he even allow him to say farewell to his beloved Sâbia.

St. George then set forth sorrowfully, and surmounting many dangers,
reached the Court of the King of Persia in safety; but what was his
anger to find that the secret missive he bore contained nothing but an
earnest request to put the bearer of it to death. But he was helpless,
and when sentence had been passed upon him, he was thrown into a loathly
dungeon, clothed in base and servile weeds, and his arms strongly
fettered up to iron bolts, while the roars of the two hungry lions who
were to devour him ere long, deafened his ears. Now his rage and fury at
this black treachery was such that it gave him strength, and with mighty
effort he drew the staples that held his fetters; so being part free he
tore his long locks of amber-coloured hair from his head and wound them