26 DBAGONS 



even less satisfying, being only the moisture which 

 trickled from the surface of the rock. Learned men have 

 certainly proved that it is possible to keep oneself alive 

 for many weeks without food, if a sufficient supply of 

 water be taken ; but I do not remember to have met with 

 any other case where any one lived for six months 

 upon such provender. When spring came round the 

 dragons thought it time to leave their abode ; unfolding 

 its wings, the first one flew up, and the second was 

 preparing to follow, when Victor, seizing" at once his 

 opportunity and the tail of the dragon, was carried by 

 the creature into the upper world. He found his way 

 back to Lucerne ; but a return to his ordinary food, of 

 which he had been for so long deprived, brought on an 

 illness, and in two months he died. His adventures were 

 embroidered upon an ecclesiastical vestment, which used 

 to be shown in the church of St. Leodegarus to any sight- 

 seers who might wish to see it. 



Near the church of St. Stephen in the city of Ehodes 

 there was a vast rock, and a cavern in it from which 

 issued a stream of water. 1 In this subterranean cave 

 there lived, in the year 1345, a terrible dragon, which 

 devastated the whole island ; not only did it devour sheep, 

 cattle, men, anything living, upon which it could seize, 

 but its breathing was so pestilential that the very 

 atmosphere was poisoned by it. Nobody could venture 

 to go near the part of the coast where it dwelt ; in fact 

 the Grand Master of the Knights strictly forbade any- 

 body belonging to the Order to attempt it, under this 

 severe penalty : First, he was to suffer the disgrace of 



1 The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights Hospi- 

 tallers, as they are sometimes called, were an Order founded in the 

 eleventh century, some time after the first crusade ; in the fourteenth 

 century they took the Island of Ehodes, in the Mediterranean, and 

 held it against the Turks. It was during their life in this island 

 that the events occurred which are now to be described. The 

 account is taken from a history of the Order, which is quoted word 

 for word by the author who has told us the story of the Lucerne 

 dragons. 



