living. 'Zeineb,' said the leader of the band--and as he spoke
he took the eldest sister by the hand, and his voice was soft, low, and
melancholy--'I am Cothrob, king of the subterranean world, and supreme
chief of Ginnistan. I and my brethren are of those who, created out of
the pure elementary fire, disdained, even at the command of Omnipotence,
to do homage to a clod of earth, because it was called Man. Thou mayest
have heard of us as cruel, unrelenting, and persecuting. It is false. We
are by nature kind and generous; only vengeful when insulted, only cruel
when affronted. We are true to those who trust us; and we have heard the
invocations of thy father, the sage Mithrasp, who wisely worships not
alone the Origin of Good, but that which is called the Source of Evil.
You and your sisters are on the eve of death; but let each give to us
one hair from your fair tresses, in token of fealty, and we will carry
you many miles from hence to a place of safety, where you may bid
defiance to Zohauk and his ministers.' The fear of instant death, saith
the poet, is like the rod of the prophet Haroun, which devoured all
other rods when transformed into snakes before the King of Pharaoh; and
the daughters of the Persian sage were less apt than others to be
afraid of the addresses of a spirit. They gave the tribute which Cothrob
demanded, and in an instant the sisters were transported to an enchanted
castle on the mountains of Tugrut, in Kurdistan, and were never again
seen by mortal eye. But in process of time seven youths, distinguished
in the war and in the chase, appeared in the environs of the castle of
the demons. They were darker, taller, fiercer, and more resolute than
any of the scattered inhabitants of the valleys of Kurdistan; and they
took to themselves wives, and became fathers of the seven tribes of the
Kurdmans, whose valour is known throughout the universe."

The Christian knight heard with wonder the wild tale, of which Kurdistan
still possesses the traces, and, after a moment's thought, replied,
"Verily, Sir Knight, you have spoken well--your genealogy may be dreaded
and hated, but it cannot be contemned. Neither do I any longer wonder
at your obstinacy in a false faith, since, doubtless, it is part of the
fiendish disposition which hath descended from your ancestors, those
infernal huntsmen, as you have described them, to love falsehood rather
than truth; and I no longer marvel that your spirits become high and
e