he gallant knight was not daunted, and eagerly scanned the dragon
as if to see where he might strike him.

Suddenly it was seen that the dragon held the White Cat under its
talons, so that the Knight of the Cross in charging the dragon had to
take care not to strike her. Spurring his horse on, he never pulled up
till he had transfixed the dragon with his lance, and, jumping off the
saddle, he drew his sword and cut off the monster's head.

No sooner had he done this than he was surrounded by ten enormous
serpents, who tried to coil round him; but as fast as they attacked him,
he strangled them.

Then the serpents turned into twenty black vultures with fiery beaks,
and they tried to pick out his eyes; but with his trusty blade he kept
them off, and one by one he killed them all, and then found himself
surrounded by forty dark-haired and dark-eyed lovely maidens, who would
have thrown their arms around him, but that he, fearing their intentions
were evil, kept them off; when, looking on the ground, he saw the White
Cat panting, and heard her bid him "strike."

He waited no longer, but struck at them and cut off their heads, and
then saw that the ground was covered with burning coal, which would have
scorched the White Cat and killed her, had not the gallant knight raised
her in his arms. He then placed her on his shield, and as soon as she
touched the cross she was seen to change into a beautiful maiden, and
all the statues round the lakes left their positions and approached her.

As soon as she could recover herself sufficiently to speak, she
addressed the knight as follows--

"Gallant sir, I am Mizpah, only daughter of Mudi Ben Raschid, who was
governor of this province for many years under the Moorish king,
Almandazar the Superb. My mother was daughter of Alcharan, governor of
Mazagan, and she was a good wife and kind mother. But my father
discovering that she had forsaken the faith of her fathers, and had
embraced the religion of the Cross, so worried her to return to her
childhood's faith that she died broken-hearted. Then he married again,
and his second wife, my stepmother, was a very wicked woman. She knew
that I was a Christian at heart, and that my lover was also a Christian;
so one day, when my father was holding a banquet, she said to him,
'Mudi Ben Raschid, the crescent of the Holy Prophet is waning in thy
family--thy daughter is a renegade!'

"Then he was very much annoyed, and exclaimed that he would