“But couldn’t it be someone from the village who eats the goat?” asked the governor. “Everyone knows the way. Has no one ever really seen the dragon actually take the goat?”
“I don’t know, your Excellency,” replied the hunter.
Meanwhile the young man with the goat had caught up with them.
“Hey there, young man!” called Count Gerol in his usual stentorian tones. “How much do you want for that goat?”
“I can’t sell it, sir,” he replied.
“Not even for ten crowns?”
“Well, I could go and get another one, I suppose . . .” he weakened. “For ten crowns . . .”
“What do you want the goat for?” Andronico inquired. “Not to eat, I trust?”
“You’ll see in due course,” replied Gerol evasively.
One of the hunters put the goat over his shoulders, the young man from Palissano set off back to the village (obviously to get another animal for the dragon) and the whole group moved off again.
After another hour’s journey they finally arrived. The valley suddenly opened out into a vast rugged amphitheater, the Burel, surrounded by crumbling walls of orange-colored earth and rock. Right in the center, on top of a cone-shaped heap of debris, was a black opening: the dragon’s cave.
“That’s it,” said Longo. They stopped quite near it, on a gravelly terrace which offered an excellent observation point, about thirty feet above the level of the cave and almost directly in front of it. The terrace had the added advantage of not being accessible from below because it stood at the top of an almost vertical wall. Maria could watch from there in absolute safety.
They were all quiet, listening hard, but they could hear nothing except the endless silence of the mountains, broken by the occasional swish of gravel. Here and there lumps of earth would give way suddenly, streams of pebbles would pour down the mountainside and die down again gradually. The whole countryside seemed to be in a state of constant dilapidation: these were mountains abandoned by their creator, being allowed to fall quietly to pieces.
“What if the dragon doesn’t come out today?” inquired Quinto Andronico.
“I’ve got the goat,” answered Gerol. “You seem to forget that.”
Then they understood: the animal would act as bait to entice the dragon out of its lair.
They began their preparations: two hunters struggled up to a height of about twenty yards above the entrance to the cave, to be able to hurl down stones if necessary. Another placed the goat on the gravelly expanse outside its cave. Others were posted at either side, well protected by large stones, with the culverins and guns. Andronico stayed where he was, intending to remain a spectator.
Maria was silent; her former boldness had vanished altogether. Although she wouldn’t admit it, she would have given anything to be able to go back. She looked around at the walls of rock, at the scars of the old landslides and the debris of the recent ones, at the pillars of red earth which looked to her as though they might collapse any minute. Her husband, Count Gerol, the two naturalists and the hunters seemed negligible protection in the face of such solitude.
When the dead goat had been placed in front of the cave, they began to wait. It was shortly after ten o’clock and the sun now filtered into every crevice of the Burel, filling it with its immense heat. Waves of heat were reflected back from one side to the other. The hunters organized a rough canopy with the carriage covers for the governor and his wife, to shield them from the sun; Maria drank avidly.
“Watch out!” shouted Count Gerol suddenly from his vantage point on a rock down on the scree, where he stood with a rifle in his hand and an iron club hanging from his hip.
A shudder went through the company, and they held their breath as a live creature emerged from the mouth of the cave. “The dragon! The dragon!” shouted several of the hunters, though whether in joy or terror it was not clear.
The creature moved into the light with the hesitant sway of a snake. So here it was, this legendary monster whose voice made a whole village quake.
“Oh, how horrible!” exclaimed Maria with evident relief, having expected something far worse.
“Come on, courage!” shouted one of the hunters jokingly. Everyone recovered their self-assurance.
“It looks like a small Ceratosaurus!” said Professor Inghirami, now sufficiently confident to turn to the problems of science.
The monster wasn’t really very terrible, in fact, little more than six feet long, with a head like a crocodile’s only shorter, a long lizard-like neck, a rather swollen thorax, a short tail and floppy sort of crest along its back. But its awkward movements, its clayey parchment color (with the occasional green streak here and there) and the general apparent flabbiness of its body were even more reassuring than its small dimensions. The general impression was one of extreme age. If it was a dragon, it was a decrepit dragon, possibly moribund.
“Take that!” scoffed one of the hunters who had climbed above the mouth of the cave. And he threw a stone down toward the animal.
It hit the dragon exactly on the skull. There was a hollow “toc,” like the sound of something hitting a gourd. Maria felt a movement of revulsion.
The blow had been hard but not sufficient. The reptile was still for a few moments, as though stunned, and then began to shake its head and neck from side to side as if in pain. It opened and closed its jaws to reveal a set of sharp teeth, but it made no sound. Then it moved across the gravel toward the goat.
“Made you giddy, did they, eh?” cackled Count Gerol, suddenly abandoning his arrogant pose. He seemed eager and excited in anticipation of the massacre.
A shot from the culverin, from a distance of about thirty yards, missed its mark. The explosion tore the stagnant air; the rock faces howled with the echo, setting in motion innumerable diminutive landslides.
There was a second shot almost immediately. The bullet hit
