St. David verily imagining himſelf to be that knight of the north, couragiouſly aſſayed to pull it forth but no ſooner was his hand on the hilt, but his ſenſes were oppreſt with a omniferous ſleep, that it was impoſſible for him to awake till the inchantment was finiſhed, which afterwards was performed by St. George whoſe exploits we now come to relate.
Seven times had the world's bright eye run his annual courſe thro' the twelve signs of the Zodiac, ſince St. George was confined in that naſty Perſian priſon by the treachery of the king of Morocco, when by chance ſtumbling upon a bar of iron, he made ſuch uſe of it, that with continual labour he digged himſelf passage thro' the ground; till, in the dead time of the night, he aſcended juſt in the middle of the Sultan court: time and place thus favouring his deſigns, he ceaſed not to lend his aſſiſting arms, to work out the reſt: for, hearing ſome grooms in the Sultan's ſtable preparing their horſes to go on hunting the next day he took the bar of iron and killed them all: which being done, he took the ſtrongeſt gelding, and richest compariſons, wherewith he bravely furniſhed himſelf, then, with chalk upon a black marble pillar, he thus wrote
Sultan, farewel, for GEORGE is fled,
Thy ſteed is loſt, thy grooms are dead.
So ſetting forward towards the gate, he thus salutes the porter, 'Porter, open the gates with ſpeed for George of England is eſcaped out of priſon, and hath murdered all the Sultan's grooms, which has alarmed the whole court.' The porter, ignorant of what had happened, opened the gate for St. George who, with a nimble pace, never reſted till he came within the confines of Greece, beyond the reach of the Perſian horſemen, who in vain purſued after. But now hunger again oppreſſed him as ſharp as impriſonment did before, ſo that ſeveral days his horſe and he fared alike, being forced to eat the graſs of the field
