The next thing was to buy two fierce hounds, for whom the killing of a wolf or the pulling down of a full-grown deer (or of an armed man for that matter) was a mere joke. Then he mounted his war-horse, called his dogs, and went right up to the pictured figure of the monster. But at the first glimpse of this hideous creature, uglier and stranger than anything they had ever seen before, the hounds ran yelling away, and the good steed reared so that he all but threw his rider. This, however, was just what De Gozon expected, and he was not a whit disheartened. He tried again and again, and yet again, until horse and hounds were able to face the horrible figure without flinching. Then he trained his dogs to throw themselves under it, and fasten their teeth in its sides, where the flesh was soft and unprotected by scales; and the dogs learned their lesson readily enough--so readily, indeed, that once or twice they all but tore the figure to pieces. Then the knight thought it time to begin his work, and sailed back to Rhodes again. The moment he landed, off he set for the Mount of St. George, accompanied only by the two esquires who served him. As he neared the fatal spot, the hills around seemed to grow darker and steeper, and a cloud came over the sun, and the gloomy gorge through which his path began to wind looked blacker and drearier than ever. It was as if he were going down alive into the grave. No sight, no sound, of life; the whole place seemed smitten with a curse. Now, too, he began to see fearful tokens of the monster's presence: here the skull of a horse, there the half-devoured skeleton of a bullock, yonder a heap of rusty armor, mingled with the crushed bones of some good knight who had gone forth upon the same quest as himself, and never come back. Suddenly he turned a sharp corner, and right before him yawned the black mouth of the dismal cavern in which the destroyer had made its den. Just across the valley, under an overhanging rock, stood a little chapel, now silent and deserted, for those who used to pray there had fled in terror, and the poor old priest who tended it had been devoured by the serpent long ago. Kneeling before the moss-grown altar, the brave man prayed to God to strengthen him in the battle, and help him to destroy the enemy of the land. Just then his horse started, and sent forth a neigh like a trumpet blast. Out of the darkness of the cavern a huge flat head was rearing itself, with its forked tongue quivering, and its sunken eyes glittering fiercely at the sight of prey. "Now, my friends," said De Gozon to his esquires, "draw back, and let me try this fight alone. If it be God's will that I should conquer, He can strengthen my single arm to do the work; if I am to die, better that one life be lost than three."