seeming royal ladies
persuaded the six Champions to accompany them to their pavilion, where
they announced that a right royal banquet was prepared to do them
honour.

The Champions departed, unsuspicious of ill; but day after day passed by
and they did not return. The troops, by degrees, began to complain that
they were left without their leaders; when Saint George, inquiring into
the matter, right wisely supposed that it might be some cunning device
of the Enchanter Osmond.

On inquiring of his slave, the Giant Orcus, he found that this was
indeed too true, and that the Knights were kept in servile bonds in the
magic pavilion. Addressing his warriors, he told them of the discovery
he had made, when, with loud shouts, they vowed to follow wherever he
might lead.

Thus trusting in the noble Champion, they neither feared the
necromancer's charms, the flaming dragons, the fierce drakes, the
flashing lurid lights, or the legions of hideous monsters armed with
burning falchions, which surrounded them as they marched towards the
enchanted pavilion.

Far more dangerous were the sounds of sweet music which struck upon
their ears, and the enchanting sights which their eyes beheld, as they
surrounded the magic tent; but Saint George, recollecting the honour of
his knighthood, let drive at the tent with his sword, so furiously, that
he cut it into a thousand pieces; when there was exposed to view the
fell Enchanter Osmond, sitting on a rock of iron, feeding hideous
spirits, who obeyed his will, with drops of blood.

The Champion and his soldiers rushed upon him so furiously that, seizing
him unawares, they carried him off, and bound him with chains to the
root of a blasted oak, whence neither his own art nor all the spirits he
once commanded could release him.

Saint George then set at liberty the six captive Knights, when the
lovely princesses, turning into their proper shapes of six hideous
spirits, flew off with loud shrieks and hisses through the air.

The necromancer then shrieking forth that all his magic arts and devices
had come to nought, tore out his eyes, bit his tongue in two, because
that it had so often uttered curses, cut off his hands, which had held
his silver wand, the cause of so much evil; and finally ended his
existence by devouring his own inside, dying thus a warning to all
magicians for future ages.

This adventure being happily terminated, the Christian army advanced
towards Egypt and Persia;