The Book of Dragons

"All right," said Elfin, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm better off than you are, anyhow."

"What do you mean?" spluttered the Prince.

"Why, you've only got a kingdom (and a dragon), but I've got clean hands (and five and seventy fine black pigs)."

So Elfin sat down again by his fire, and the Prince went home and told his Parliament how clever and brave he had been, and though he woke them up on purpose to tell them, they were not angry, but said: "You are indeed brave and clever." For they knew what happened to people with whom the Prince was not pleased.

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."