ts and furious lions he and
Le Crapeau slew on the road while escorting the princess, though they
were very numerous. They put to flight also a whole army of Pagans, who
came to carry off their precious charge. Le Crapeau himself, however,
took care not to omit the details, nor did Saint Denis pass them by in
silence. The King of Armenia, who had long mourned his daughter as lost
to him for ever, was so grateful to the French Knight that he at once
promised her to him in marriage, and entertained him with the most
sumptuous banquets and balls, and other pleasant divertisements which
his court could produce.

CHAPTER SIX.

THE ADVENTURES OF SAINT JAMES OF SPAIN.

Saint James, the Champion of Spain, on parting from his comrades at the
brazen pillar, took ship, and was wrecked on the coast of Sicily.

Travelling through the island, followed by his Squire, Pedrillo, he
reached the foot of Etna, then terrifically spouting forth vast masses
of flame and boiling metal, and ashes, and smoke. Unappalled by the
sight, he climbed the mountain's height, where, perched on a pinnacle of
rock, appeared a mighty bird, with fiery pinions--a winged phoenix. No
sooner did the monster see him than, darting down, it attacked him with
its red-hot beak, for having dared thus to enter its dominions.

Saint James drew his trusty falchion, and, whirling it round his head,
kept the fearful beak from approaching his helmet, for well he knew that
one thrust from its deadly point would pierce through steel and skull as
easily as a lady's bodkin through her kerchief.

The fearful combat lasted for many hours, till the monster, hopeless of
triumph, flew back to its nest within the crater's fiery bosom.

The following day the fight was renewed, while the faithful Pedrillo
stood at a distance, counting his rosaries, and called loudly on all the
saints to aid his master. At length the Knight and the monster, seeing
that no profit or glory was to be acquired, retired, by mutual consent,
from the combat.

Saint James then passed into Africa, where, passing through a region
infested by monsters, he slew so many that the inhabitants wished to
adopt him as their Sovereign.

Crossing the Red Sea, he was once more shipwrecked, when, had not a
troop of mermaids carried him and his Squire, with their horses and
furniture to the shore, they would all have been drowned.

At length he reached the beautiful city of Ispahan, the capital of
Persia