The Book of Dragons
Then the Prime Minister solemnly put Solomon's seal on the mouth of the
bottle, and the bottle was put in the Treasury, which was the strongest
building in the town, and was made of solid copper, with walls as thick
as Waterloo Bridge.
The bottle was set down among the sacks of gold, and the junior
secretary to the junior clerk of the last Lord of the Treasury was
appointed to sit up all night with it and see if anything happened. The
junior secretary had never seen a dragon, and, what was more, he did not
believe the Prince had ever seen a dragon either. The Prince had never
been a really truthful boy, and it would have been just like him to
bring home a bottle with nothing in it and then to pretend that there
was a dragon inside. So the junior secretary did not at all mind being
left. They gave him the key, and when everyone in the town had gone back
to bed he let in some of the junior secretaries from other Government
departments, and they had a jolly game of hide-and-seek among the sacks
of gold, and played marbles with the diamonds and rubies and pearls in
the big ivory chests.
They enjoyed themselves very much, but by-and-by the copper treasury
began to get warmer and warmer, and suddenly the junior secretary cried
out, "Look at the bottle!"
The bottle sealed with Solomon's seal had swollen to three times its
proper size and seemed to be nearly red hot, and the air got warmer and
warmer and the bottle bigger and bigger, till all the junior secretaries
agreed that the place was too hot to hold them, and out they went,
tumbling over each other in their haste, and just as the last got out
and locked the door the bottle burst, and out came the dragon, very
fiery, and swelling more and more every minute, and he began to eat the
sacks of gold and crunch up the pearls and diamonds and rubies as if
they were sugar.
By breakfasttime he had devoured the whole of the Prince's treasures,
and when the Prince came along the street at about eleven, he met the
dragon coming out of the broken door of the Treasury, with molten gold
still dripping from his jaws. Then the Prince turned and ran for his
life, and as he ran toward the dragonproof tower the little white
Princess saw him coming, and she ran down and unlocked the door and let
him in, and slammed the dragonproof door in the fiery face of the
dragon, who sat down and whined outside, because he wanted the Prince
very much indeed.
The Princess took Prince Tiresome into the best room, and laid the
cloth, and gave him cream and eggs and white grapes and honey and bread,
with many other things, yellow and white and good to eat, and she served
him just as kindly as she would have done if he had been anyone else
instead of the bad Prince who had taken away her kingdom and kept it for
himself--because she was a true Princess and had a heart of gold.
When he had eaten and drunk, he begged the Princess to show him how to
lock and unlock the door. The nurse was asleep, so there was no one to
tell the Princess not to, and she did.
"You turn the key like this," she said, "and the door keeps shut. But
turn it nine times around the wrong way, and the door flies open."
And so it did. And the moment it opened, the Prince pushed the white
Princess out of her tower, just as he had pushed her out of her kingdom,
and shut the door. For he wanted to have the tower all for himself. And
there she was, in the street, and on the other side of the way the
dragon was sitting whining, but he did not try to eat her,
because--though the old nurse did not know it--dragons cannot eat white
Princesses with hearts of gold.
The Princess could not walk through the streets of the town in her
milky-silky gown with the daisies on it, and with no hat and no gloves,
so she turned the other way, and ran out across the meadows, toward the
wood. She had never been out of her tower before, and the soft grass
under her feet felt like grass of Paradise.
She ran right into the thickest part of the wood, because she did not
know what her heart was made of, and she was afraid of the dragon, and
there in a dell she came on Elfin and his five and seventy fine pigs. He
was playing his flute, and around him the pigs were dancing cheerfully
on their hind legs.
"Oh, dear," said the Princess, "do take care of me. I am so frightened."
"I will," said Elfin, putting his arms around her. "Now you are quite
safe. What were you frightened of?"
"The dragon," she said.
"So it's gotten out of the silver bottle," said Elfin. "I hope it's
eaten the Prince."
"No," said Sabrinetta. "But why?"
He told her of the mean trick that the Prince had played on him.
"And he promised me half his kingdom and the hand of his cousin the
Princess," said Elfin.
"Oh, dear, what a shame!" said Sabrinetta, trying to get out of his
arms. "How dare he?"
"What's the matter?" he asked, holding her tighter. "It _was_ a shame,
or at least _I_ thought so. But now he may keep his kingdom, half and
whole, if I may keep what I have."
"What's that?" asked the Princess.
"Why, you--my pretty, my dear," said Elfin, "and as for the Princess,
his cousin--forgive me, dearest heart, but when I asked for her I hadn't
seen the real Princess, the _only_ Princess, _my_ Princess."
"Do you mean me?" said Sabrinetta.
"Who else?" he asked.
"Yes, but five minutes ago you hadn't seen me!"
"Five minutes ago I was a pig keeper--now I've held you in my arms I'm a
Prince, though I should have to keep pigs to the end of my days."
"But you haven't asked _me_," said the Princess.
"You asked me to take care of you," said Elfin, "and I will--all my life
long."
So that was settled, and they began to talk of really important things,
such as the dragon and the Prince, and all the time Elfin did not know
that this was the Princess, but he knew that she had a heart of gold,
and he told her so, many times.
"The mistake," said Elfin, "was in not having a dragonproof bottle. I
see that now."
"Oh, is that all?" said the Princess. "I can easily get you one of
those--because everything in my tower is dragonproof. We ought to do
something to settle the dragon and save the little children."
So she started off to get the bottle, but she would not let Elfin come
with her.
"If what you say is true," she said, "if you are sure that I have a
heart of gold, the dragon won't hurt me, and somebody must stay with the
pigs."
Elfin was quite sure, so he let her go.
She found the door of her tower open. The dragon had waited patiently
for the Prince, and the moment he opened the door and came out--though
he was only out for an instant to post a letter to his Prime Minister
saying where he was and asking them to send the fire brigade to deal
with the fiery dragon--the dragon ate him. Then the dragon went back to
the wood, because it was getting near his time to grow small for the
night.
So Sabrinetta went in and kissed her nurse and made her a cup of tea and
explained what was going to happen, and that she had a heart of gold, so
the dragon couldn't eat her; and the nurse saw that of course the
Princess was quite safe, and kissed her and let her go.
She took the dragonproof bottle, made of burnished brass, and ran back
to the wood, and to the dell, where Elfin was sitting among his sleek
black pigs, waiting for her.
"I thought you were never coming back," he said. "You have been away a
year, at least."
The Princess sat down beside him among the pigs, and they held each
other's hands till it was dark, and then the dragon came crawling over
the moss, scorching it as he came, and getting smaller as he crawled,
and curled up under the root of the tree.
"Now then," said Elfin, "you hold the bottle." Then he poked and prodded
the dragon with bits of stick till it crawled into the dragonproof
bottle. But there was no stopper.
"Never mind," said Elfin. "I'll put my finger in for a stopper."
"No, let me," said the Princess. But of course Elfin would not let her.
He stuffed his finger into the top of the bottle, and the Princess cried
out: "The sea--the sea--run for the cliffs!" And off they went, with the
five and seventy pigs trotting steadily after them in a long black
procession.
The bottle got hotter and hotter in Elfin's hands, because the dragon
inside was puffing fire and smoke with all his might--hotter and hotter
and hotter--but Elfin held on till they came to the cliff edge, and
there was the dark blue sea, and the whirlpool going around and around.
Elfin lifted the bottle high above his head and hurled it out between
the stars and the sea, and it fell in the middle of the whirlpool.
"We've saved the country," said the Princess. "You've saved the little
children. Give me your hands."
"I can't," said Elfin. "I shall never be able to take your dear hands
again. My hands are burnt off."
And so they were: There were only black cinders where his hands ought to
have been. The Princess kissed them, and cried over them, and tore
pieces of her silky-milky gown to tie them up with, and the two went
back to the tower and told the nurse all about everything. And the pigs
sat outside and waited.
"He is the bravest man in the world," said Sabrinetta. "He has saved the
country and the little children; but, oh, his hands--his poor, dear,
darling hands!"
Here the door of the room opened, and the oldest of the five and seventy
pigs came in. It went up to Elfin and rubbed itself against him with
little loving grunts.
"See the dear creature," said the nurse, wiping away a tear. "It knows,
it knows!"
Sabrinetta stroked the pig, because Elfin had no hands for stroking or
for anything else.
"The only cure for a dragon burn," said the old nurse, "is pig's fat,
and well that faithful creature knows it----"
"I wouldn't for a kingdom," cried Elfin, stroking the pig as best he
could with his elbow.
"Is there no other cure?" asked the Princess.
Here another pig put its black nose in at the door, and then another and
another, till the room was full of pigs, a surging mass of rounded
blackness, pushing and struggling to get at Elfin, and grunting softly
in the language of true affection.
"There is one other," said the nurse. "The dear, affectionate
beasts--they all want to die for you."
"What is the other cure?" said Sabrinetta anxiously.
"If a man is burnt by a dragon," said the nurse, "and a certain number
of people are willing to die for him, it is enough if each should kiss
the burn and wish it well in the depths of his loving heart."
"The number! The number!" cried Sabrinetta.
"Seventy-seven," said the nurse.
"We have only seventy-five pigs," said the Princess, "and with me that's
seventy-six!"
"It must be seventy-seven--and I really can't die for him, so nothing
can be done," said the nurse, sadly. "He must have cork hands."
"I knew about the seventy-seven loving people," said Elfin. "But I never
thought my dear pigs loved me so much as all this, and my dear too--and,
of course, that only makes it more impossible. There's one other charm
that cures dragon burns, though; but I'd rather be burnt black all over
than marry anyone but you, my dear, my pretty."
"Why, who must you marry to cure your dragon burns?" asked Sabrinetta.
"A Princess. That's how St. George cured his burns."
"There now! Think of that!" said the nurse. "And I never heard tell of
that cure, old as I am."
But Sabrinetta threw her arms round Elfin's neck, and held him as though
she would never let him go.
"Then it's all right, my dear, brave, precious Elfin," she cried, "for I
am a Princess, and you shall be my Prince. Come along, Nurse--don't wait
to put on your bonnet. We'll go and be married this very moment."