In Brief Authority, F. Anstey [latest novels to read .txt] 📗

to foresee, and for a time she exhibited about as much calmness and self-possession as a hen at a fox-raid. "Heaven preserve us!" she wailed. "If we were but safe at Clairdelune! What can we do?"

"Hide," said Daphne, trembling. "Quick! In the undergrowth!"

"It would spy us out from above," groaned the Fairy. "No, we must run for the Pavilion and shelter there."

Daphne seized her hand and they ran together, but they had not gone far before the Court Godmother suddenly collapsed. "My old legs fail me!" she said, "I can go no further! Run on, child, while you can!"

"And leave you!" cried Daphne. "No, I shan't do that! But oh, can't you do anything to save us! Think!"

The Fairy rose to her feet, shaking all over. "I knew a spell once," she mumbled. "I never tried it—but if I could only remember it now, it might—But I can't—I'm too old—too old! That all my plans should have come to this!"

The dragon was forging along at a tremendous pace. It would soon be near enough to single out its prey—and still the old Fairy stood there, racking her memory in vain.

Close upon noon Mirliflor had thrown away his hoe and torn off his apron for ever. In a few minutes more he would be with his love—and yet his heart was oppressed by a certain fear that had been haunting him all the morning. The Fairy would re-transform him—but could he be sure of the effect on Daphne? What if he lost, as Mirliflor, the love that Giroflé had won? He was so absorbed in these disquieting reflections, as he alternately hastened and checked his pace down the broad walks, that he scarcely noticed a faint outcry, and sounds as though firearms were being discharged, which seemed to come from the Palace behind him. Perhaps, he thought, a revolt had broken out, but, if so, it did not concern him. His Daphne was in no danger in those grounds beyond the wall. He passed through the gate, and presently came to the astrolabe, and then the stone bench, both hallowed now by the sweetest associations. And yet it might be that those associations would be his last with her! It was almost a relief, on reaching the yew walk, to find it deserted. He went to the Pavilion, and there he elicited from Daphne's elderly duenna, who was rather hard of hearing, that, as her young mistress was certainly not indoors, he would probably find her in the grounds.

He searched all the yew walks in vain, and then, with a new and growing uneasiness, turned towards the avenue, but he had got no farther than a small pool in a marble basin when he heard a strange and dreadful noise above him. He glanced upwards, and saw the bulk of a huge dragon sailing high above the tree-tops. It was making swiftly for the valley; one of its claws held a pendent form in fluttering drapery, and he knew too well that the captive could only be she for whom he had been searching. He had saved her once from the malice of her enemies—this time he was powerless! He raved and cursed in impotent rage and despair while a sudden gust swept the pool and sent it surging over the brim, and a slender cypress that stood hard by rustled and shivered as though in terror. And as he stood there, he suddenly saw the old Court Chamberlain before him, holding in one hand his silken cap and in the other a sword and belt.

"Sire, Sire!" he stammered, "that accursed beast! It is bearing her off to Drachenstolz! But you may save her yet!"

"Show me how to get there!" said Mirliflor fiercely. "If I can't save her I can at least die with her. But those two devils shall pay for it first!"

"Follow me," said the Baron, giving him the sword and, followed by Mirliflor, he ran at a very creditable speed for his years in the direction of the Palace.

A little before noon that morning the Royal Family had collected on one of the terraces. King Sidney was pacing up and down engaged in private and apparently important conversation with the Crown Prince. The Court as usual kept a respectful distance and chattered and gossiped in whispers. The Princess Royal and Princess Ruby were sitting at a jade table playing the game that resembled Halma, while the Queen was confiding her maternal anxieties to the Court Chamberlain's sympathetic ear.

"To tell you the truth, Baron," she confessed, "I've not been at all happy lately about Princess Edna. She says nothing, but I can see she's fretting over Prince Mirliflor's silence. I hear he hasn't been seen at Clairdelune lately—taken his dismissal so much to heart that he can't appear in public, I suppose. But surely if he meant to try again he would have done so before this!"

The worthy Baron was too faithful a servant to refrain from saying something to reassure his Royal mistress, though a salutary recollection of Mirliflor's warning made him careful not to say too much.

"I can assure your Majesty from my own personal knowledge," he replied, "that his Royal Highness has by no means given up his intention of renewing his addresses to the Princess Edna."

"Then why doesn't he? There's nothing to prevent him—now."

"That, Madam," said the Baron importantly, "I am not at liberty to explain" (as a matter of fact he had no idea why Mirliflor was conducting his courtship in so eccentric a manner), "but I may say I have reason to know that at this very moment he may be nearer the Palace than is generally supposed."

"Really?" cried the Queen. "I must go and tell dear Edna that. It will cheer her up."

"I must beg of your Majesty to treat it as strictly confidential for the present," said the Baron hastily. "His Royal Highness prefers to take the Princess by surprise."

"What a dear romantic person he is!" said Queen Selina. "Then, of course, he must be humoured and I'll say nothing. But I'm so glad you told me, Baron. It's taken such a load off my mind!"

"Well," the King was telling Clarence, "those are old Goldenbergenland's terms. If you'll marry his daughter, Princess Popanza, he'll let us have all the gold we want; if you refuse, he won't even advance us a ducat. Couldn't you see your way to—to meeting him, my boy?"

"Nothing doing!" said Clarence very decidedly. "Why, Hansmeinigel was telling me the other day she's humpbacked, with a squint or something. I couldn't take it on—even if," he added gloomily, "there weren't other reasons to prevent me."

"Then," said his father, "I don't know how we're to get a fresh supply of gold—the mine's stopped working, and the confounded Council won't do anything for us."

"What's the matter with selling a few jewels?" suggested Clarence, as his eye fell on the Halma board in passing, "they must be worth a lot."

"Not here. Too common. The people think they're of no value except to kings and queens. Nothing but gold will go down in these parts. So you see, my boy, that unless you can bring yourself to——"

"I say, Guv'nor," interrupted Clarence, who seemed to welcome a distraction just then. "Look over there. That beggar Rubenfresser has let loose that poisonous dragon of his! Infernal cheek!"

"He was expressly told to keep it under control," said the King. "Most irregular!"

"It's not only loose," said Clarence, "but it's coming straight over here."

Ruby had seen it too, and sprang up delighted. "Look!" she cried, "there's darling Tützi! He's got away from his horrid master—and now he's coming to live with us! I must get some cake for him!" and she darted into the Palace.

"I'll go and tell those sentry-johnnies to take a pot at it," said Clarence, as he went down to a lower terrace, where the Palace sentinels were on duty. By the time he returned with them Tützi was almost overhead, his great wings beating with a resonant leathery clang as he flew round in ever descending circles, stretching his scaled neck and horny head in deliberate quest, until he was so low that the sunlit chalcedony slabs shed a reflected glare on his great burnished belly. "Now blaze away at it, can't you!" shouted Clarence to the sentinels, who appeared to have some difficulty in loading their antiquated pieces. "You mustn't shoot Tützi!" cried Ruby, running out at that moment with a heavily gilded slice of gingerhead, "he's only come for some cake!"

"Don't encourage the thing!" said the King, dragging her back. "Get away, you brute! Go home, Sir!"

As he spoke the monster made a sudden downward swoop at Edna, and, with a deftness that was quite extraordinary, hooked one of its steely claws in her girdle and soared rapidly aloft with her. It was fortunate that the belt, which was of stout jewel-studded leather, was able to sustain her weight.

"Stop firing, you fools!" yelled Clarence, as the sentinels opened a wild fusillade. "You'll only hit her!"

And, even if their bullets could have pierced the dragon's plated hide, it was soon out of range.

"It's carrying her off to that wretch!" screamed the distracted Queen. "Is there nothing we can do?"

"One thing, your Majesty," said the Baron eagerly. "Offer the Princess in marriage to anyone who will rescue her. It's the usual course!"

"To—to anyone?" repeated Queen Selina in despair. "Oh, Baron—must we?"

"You can safely do so, Madam," he whispered. "Mirliflor will be the man—and I know where to find him." And with this he rushed off first to his own chamber, then to the Crown Prince's apartments, and finally to the gardens in search of Giroflé.

"Sidney," said the Queen, "tell the heralds to proclaim that we will give our poor darling to anyone who succeeds in delivering her.... Don't argue about it—do as I tell you!" which King Sidney did.

As for the Court, they were too paralysed by so unexpected a calamity to be of the least assistance. The ladies-in-waiting were all in floods of tears, distressed, not only by the awful fate that had overtaken "Princess Four-eyes," but by the painful reflection that any one of them might be the dragon's next victim.

"This couldn't have happened except in a place like this!" declared the Queen, now on the verge of hysteria. "And why it should have been permitted to happen to US!—It wouldn't have, Sidney, if you had only had the sense to insist on that thing being destroyed! But you didn't—and this is the result!"

"My love," said the King, "you forget. The poor girl herself insisted on its being spared. It—it's most unfortunate!"

And it certainly was.

CHAPTER XVII THE REWARD OF VALOUR

If the Fairy Vogelflug could only have known that it was Edna and not Daphne who was really in danger from the dragon, she would have been comparatively calm. But since she did not know this, she was, as has been already stated, entirely unnerved for a time.

Fortunately—or at least she thought it fortunate then,—just before the creature was near enough to detect them, the long-forgotten words that formed the spell recurred to her memory. It was a spell that was admirably adapted to enable any fugitive to escape discovery, but she had never had occasion to use it before, and to perform it required an amount of mental concentration from which, in ordinary circumstances, she would have shrunk. Now she must act at once or they would both perish, and so she gabbled the necessary incantations, till, though the effort took a great deal out of her, she eventually succeeded in changing Daphne into a tall and slender cypress, and herself into a circular pool in a marble basin—a double transformation which was calculated to deceive the most observant and intelligent dragon. But, changed as she was, Daphne remained perfectly conscious of her own identity and aware of all that was happening. At first she was much impressed by the Court Godmother's ingenuity and presence of mind, but as time went on, and the dragon, instead of searching for them, seemed to have swerved away towards the Palace, she began to wonder whether there had been any real need for such excessive precautions.

And then Giroflé appeared, and she gathered from his despair what must have happened to the ill-fated Edna, and that he was under the erroneous impression that she herself was the victim. Surely now the moment had come for the Fairy to reverse the spell—but, except that the surface of the pool was becoming violently disturbed, she made no sign. Daphne tried by rustling all her branches to attract his attention and assure him of her safety, but naturally failed. Even when the Court Chamberlain arrived and Giroflé had rushed away with him, she was forced to stay behind as an apparent cypress, while the Fairy still retained the semblance of a more and more