Many, many years ago, when the isle of Rhodes was still unconquered by the Turks, and belonged to the Christian Knights of St. John, a great crowd was gathered one morning in the streets of its capital, before the fortress where the knights and their Grand Master lived. A grave-looking man in the uniform of the Order (a long white frock, with a scarlet cross on the breast) had just issued from one of the gates, side by side with a herald bearing a trumpet. The herald blew three long blasts, and the grave man cried aloud, "Thus saith Helion de Villeneuve, the most noble Grand Master of the Order of St. John: Forasmuch as five knights of the Order have fallen in combat with the dragon [serpent] that dwelleth by the Mount of St. George, this adventure is henceforth forbidden to all who wear the red cross, and he who shall presume to disobey this command shall be disgraced and banished as a rebel." The faces of the crowd grew blank with dismay as they listened; for this serpent was the pest of the whole island, and had already destroyed many of them. Their only hope lay in the Knights of St. John; and when they heard that even these famous warriors were forbidden to fight for them, they gave themselves up for lost, and went sadly home to tell the bad news to their wives and children. Amid the throng there were not a few of the knights themselves who seemed quite as ill pleased as the rest, for these dangerous adventures were just what they delighted in, and every man of them secretly hoped to have the glory of delivering the island from the monster that was laying it waste. But the Grand Master's commands were positive, and what could they do? Biting their lips in stifled rage, the brave men turned slowly away--all but _one_. That one was a tall, noble-looking knight from Sicily, Dieudonné[2] de Gozon by name. He had proved his courage in many a hard battle with the Turks, and was held to be one of the bravest of the Order; and one might see by his set lips and stern eyes that _he_ had no thought of giving up the dragon adventure even now. [2] God-given. Long after all the rest had gone he stood motionless in the midst of the empty market-place, with his arms folded upon his broad breast, buried in thought. At length a sudden light broke over his downcast face, and he moved away with a brisk step, as if he saw his way through the difficulty at last. The next morning De Gozon was nowhere to be found, and some of his comrades said that he had got leave from the Grand Master to go home to Sicily for a while, and no one thought any more about him. But had they seen what he was doing in the mean time, it would have puzzled them a good deal. The first thing he did on getting home was to make a complete figure of the dragon-serpent with wood and canvas, and to paint it as life-like as he could--scales, forked tongue, fiery eyes, and all. Not much to be done _that_ way, you will say, toward killing the monster; but wait a little.