The last dragon

THEY all returned to the dragon’s apartment, and presently Crubby disappeared through his little door, very quick and business-like, saying he’d be back in a moment to plan the campaign; and the poor dragon walked up and down, his paws clasped behind his back, his head bent and his brow knitted in thought.

Grandma allowed him to pace for a few moments and then stopped him. “If we’re going to help you, we’ve got to know something about this enchanted princess of yours. Who is she and how did she become enchanted?”

The dragon paused and heaved a great sigh. “Oh, my scales and my claws,” he said, plaintively, “it’s a long story, but I suppose you’ll just have to know it. It seems a shame, though, that I have to be such a poor host, throwing my guests into trouble and excitement as soon as they step into my house.”

Grandma spoke up sharply. “Don’t be absurd! We’re looking for excitement.”

“Ah, but you don’t know Dallahan. He’s much more than excitement. He’s almost certain death.”

“Come, come,” said Grandma, “don’t talk like that. There’s nothing certain about anything. Now, stop imagining things and tell us about this princess.”

Down in a great chair the dragon sat, wrapping his great tail around him like a cloak, and Grandma, the children and the dogs surrounded him.

“Well, you see,” began the dragon slowly, “Silver Toes came to me quite unexpectedly. In fact, she was left on my doorstep.”

“Oh, just a tiny baby?” cried Janet Jane. “Was she in a basket?”

“No. She was too big for a basket. She was just sixteen when she was left here, and she’s been just sixteen ever since.”

“How could that be?” asked Johnathan.

“Enchanted princesses never grow any older until the enchantment is broken. Then they pick up the years from just where they left off, and go right on, the same as other folks.”

“Oh, that ought to be fun,” thrilled Janet Jane. “Suppose we could get enchanted on Christmas day and stay right there as long as we wanted to stay?”

“Stop supposing and interrupting, and let the dragon go on with his story,” ordered Grandma. “Every moment is precious.”

The dragon sighed and continued. “It was a very stormy night, and very cold. The wind was shrieking through the cave, and the river was up very high. I thought any moment it would leap its banks and flow into my apartment. I was lying down, thinking about the future, as usual, when I heard something above the noises of the storm. It sounded to me like the flapping of great wings, and I thought maybe it was the big black crow who lives on the battlements of Count Ganneymeade’s castle, come to pay me a visit, but when I called his name there was no answer, and the noise had stopped. I thought that was strange, so I wandered out to the entrance of my cave, and there I found the Princess Silver Toes, lying on the doorstep, in a red dress all encrusted with moonstones. She was dripping wet and her white face was covered with her golden hair. I lifted her up and carried her into my apartment and put her on a couch. Her red slippers were dripping wet, also, so I took them off and it was then I discovered that she had silver toes.”

“Really, really silver?” asked Janet Jane.

“Oh, yes indeed, really silver. Then I knew who she was. She was the daughter of a rich old king named Egbert, who had a river of liquid silver running through his courtyard.”

“If it was running through his courtyard it must have been quick silver, wasn’t it?” asked Johnathan, receiving a scowl from Grams.

“Perhaps,” replied the dragon. “I only know it was a river of real silver, filled with silver fish, silver frogs, silver pollywogs and silver turtles. In fact, anything that dipped into that river became silver at once, so King Egbert had warned his daughter not to go near it. But one summer afternoon, a very, very hot summer afternoon, the princess longed to go wading in the river—it looked oh, very cool—all silver you know—and so when no one was watching, she sat down on the bank and took off her slippers and unloosened her long hair. Gaily she dipped and dabbled her little pink toes in the silver stream. Oh, how good the soft silver felt, running between her toes, and the princess was cooled instantly, but when she tried to wriggle her feet, she found she couldn’t. Drawing them out in alarm, she saw that her toes had been changed to silver.

“She was very much frightened then, for she had disobeyed her father who was so strict and stern, and she knew she would be severely punished. Quickly she put on her red slippers, attempting to hide the silver toes, and she bound up her long hair under her cap. However, she found that silver toes made her limp painfully, and this was very unfortunate for she used to almost fly across the marble floors of the castle. And that night there was a ball given in her honor, and when she tried to dance with a young prince, she could only hop like a frog, and of course every one noticed, and the old king was very angry.

“When he discovered how she had disobeyed him, he put her in a tall silver tower and hid her away from the world. It was not his intention to keep her there very long, he loved her too much for that, but a day or two after he had imprisoned her, he was thrown from his horse in the hunt, and was instantly killed. Then his castle was destroyed by his enemies and his household was scattered and Silver Toes was forgotten in her tall tower of silver. A green cockatoo used to bring her food from the forest—pomegranates, purple figs, and wild yellow honey in little baskets of leaves.

“So she lived in sorrow for a year and three days, and then an evil witch came by the tower and heard Silver Toes weeping. This old witch was an enchantress and just looking for something to enchant, just as some people are always looking for a quarrel, and so she turned herself into a fat, black bumblebee and flew up to the top of the silver tower and through the narrow window. She alighted on Silver Toes’ hand and stung her between the thumb and first finger, and enchanted her, first changing her into a thistledown seed so that she could carry her to the ground.

“When the old witch got back to her home on the other side of the green cockatoo’s forest, she changed Silver Toes into a princess again, and cast the spell of sleep upon her, standing her up in a corner. Then she opened an iron chest, all wrapped in cobwebs, and dressed the sleeping Silver Toes in a red robe encrusted with magic moonstones. And then she would put a green robe upon her encrusted with pink carnelians, and then a yellow robe encrusted with cat’s eye emeralds, and a robe of lilac encrusted with acquamarines.”

“What a quaint but charming idea,” said old-fashioned Janet Jane.

“Yes, it was,” agreed the dragon,—“and so she kept her as a beautiful plaything, just as you, Janet Jane, would keep your favorite doll, dressing her in wonderful clothes that the old witch had stolen from gipsies and pirates and silk merchants from the magic cities of the far, far East. You see, the old crone, being so ugly, wanted to surround herself with beautiful things, which was one of her good traits.”

“She strikes me as being very pathetic,” said Grandma.

“She was in a way,” said the dragon, “chiefly because she was so very, very lonesome. But to go on—bye and bye the old witch grew tired of having the princess there, merely to look at—she thought she would like to hear this beautiful girl sing, so she took away the spell of dumbness but not the spell of sleep, so that Silver Toes could sing beautiful ballads of the long, long ago, but would still be unconscious.”

“That’s like talking in your sleep, isn’t it?” asked Johnathan.

“Quite so,” replied the dragon, “quite so. Ballad after ballad the princess would sing to the witch as the old crone stooped over her steaming cauldrons, mixing her magic brews, and the old witch could turn her on and off, just like a mechanical toy.”

“More like a radio,” said Peter, but Grandma hushed him and motioned the dragon to go on. The dragon hurried along: “One day, the witch decided to take the princess out for an airing. She saw that the girl was becoming as pale as wax from standing all the time in a corner of the dark kitchen, breathing the fumes of the witch’s cauldron, so out they went, the old crone having first taken away the spell from Silver Toes’ legs so that she could walk.

“Into the thick, black forest they went, and it was so dark there that the brewing storm was not noticeable. They had not gone far before the storm broke. My, that was a corker! I’ll never forget it. It rained so hard that I thought it would put out the fire in the volcano, and the thunder and the lightning seemed to rip away the sky. Well, the old witch became confused and half-blinded by the rain, and so the princess saw her chance to escape and started to run.”

“Hurray!” shouted Peter, but Grandma put a firm hand over his mouth.

The dragon continued: “So the old witch became more confused than ever and began all sorts of strange sentences with all sorts of strange words: Mumblegum, Bubblebug, Itchibib, Snatcharib, Prancapup,—these words all being very good charm words, but none of them would work because of the wet weather, and the witch became frantic because she felt so helpless. The more frantic she became, the faster she tried to run and this made it all the more difficult for she ran six steps and slipped back seven which wasn’t getting very far, to be sure. At last, when the princess had disappeared completely from sight, the witch did control herself, and fastening bat wings to her heels, she flew after Silver Toes.”

“Oh, heavens!” cried Janet Jane, her eyes very round, “I hope she didn’t catch the princess again.”

“She almost did! It was the storm that saved Silver Toes, for just as the witch was about to catch up with her, a great fork of lightning struck a juniper tree and down it fell on the old crone’s head and crushed her to death. It was at that moment that I heard Silver Toes scream, and she dropped at the door of my cave.”

“Was she still enchanted?” asked Johnathan.

“Oh, yes. As soon as she opened her eyes she began to sing again, and she sang her whole history straight through from the time she had dipped her toes into the silver river, right up to the moment she fell down on my doorstep. And she sang it all in rhyme too.”

“My!” breathed Janet Jane, “she must have been very talented.”

“Oh, she was for a fact,” the dragon sighed deeply, “and how I grew to love that child in the beautiful red robe with the magic moonstones. I was very lonely, you see—my beautiful mother had just been killed, and—and”—here tears gathered in the dragon’s eyes—“and—and I had hoped to keep Silver Toes as a companion for my old age—but—but now she’s been stolen away from me—stolen—stolen—stolen away—and it’s all my fault for leaving her alone and running off into the future—” He jumped up and began to pace again—“Oh, my scaley tail, I must find her! I must! I must!” He really carried on most hysterically and childishly, slashing his tail about, wringing his paws, and ruffling his scales, until Grandma and the children had to get out of his way, and the uncontrolled fire leaped from his mouth.

Then Crubby returned, wearing a little coat of chain-mail, and it didn’t take more than one word from the tiny mite to make the dragon quiet down. The big beast seemed to collapse like a telescope and become smaller and extremely meek. “Yes, Crubby,” he said humbly, “what have you decided to do?”

“The first thing is to go to Allan the armorer and get your friends fitted. They can’t go into battle with a dragon, dressed only in their night gowns.”

“Real armor?” chirped Peter, “real, real armor?”

“Yes, yes,” snapped Crubby, “but hustle around now,—quick!” And he clapped his hands smartly together, and the children and the dogs hustled furiously, not really knowing why.

“Get on my back,” spoke the dragon, “and let’s be off to Allan the armorer.”

Grandma decided not to take her famous rocking chair along. It would only be in the way and might get lost, so grasping her mysterious knitting bag, she was the first to mount the dragon, the children and the dogs following her immediately. Crubby took his place behind the dragon’s ear, so that he could shout directions, Peter thought, and out of the cave they dashed, so quickly that it took everybody’s breath away.