“This is Sir Agravaine the Dolorous,” said the king to the damsel. “Will you take him as your champion?”
Agravaine held his breath. But all was well. The damsel bowed.
“Then, Sir Agravaine,” said the king, “perhaps you had better have your charger sent round at once. I imagine that the matter is pressing—time and—er—dragons wait for no man.”
Ten minutes later Agravaine, still dazed, was jogging along to the hills, with the damsel by his side.
It was some time before either of them spoke. The damsel seemed preoccupied, and Agravaine’s mind was a welter of confused thoughts, the most prominent of which and the one to which he kept returning being the startling reflection that he, who had pined for romance so long, had got it now in full measure.
A dragon! Fiery withal. Was he absolutely certain that he was capable of handling an argument with a fiery dragon? He would have given much for a little previous experience of this sort of thing. It was too late now, but he wished he had had the forethought to get Merlin to put up a magic prescription for him, rendering him immune to dragon-bites. But did dragons bite? Or did they whack at you with their tails? Or just blow fire?
There were a dozen such points that he would have liked to have settled before starting. It was silly to start out on a venture of this sort without special knowledge. He had half a mind to plead a forgotten engagement and go straight back.
Then he looked at the damsel, and his mind was made up. What did death matter if he could serve her?
He coughed. She came out of her reverie with a start.
“This dragon, now?” said Agravaine.
For a moment the damsel did not reply. “A fearsome worm, Sir Knight,” she said at length. “It raveneth by day and by night. It breathes fire from its nostrils.”
“Does it!” said Agravaine. “Does it! You couldn’t give some idea what it looks like, what kind of size it is?”
“Its body is as thick as ten stout trees, and its head touches the clouds.”
“Does it!” said Agravaine thoughtfully. “Does it!”
“Oh, Sir Knight, I pray you have a care.”
“I will,” said Agravaine. And he had seldom said anything more fervently. The future looked about as bad as it could be. Any hopes he may have entertained that this dragon might turn out to be comparatively small and inoffensive were dissipated. This was plainly no debilitated wreck of a dragon, its growth stunted by excessive-fire-breathing. A body as thick as ten stout trees! He would not even have the melancholy satisfaction of giving the creature indigestion. For all the impression he was likely to make on that vast interior, he might as well be a salted almond.
As they were speaking, a dim mass on the skyline began to take shape.
“Behold!” said the damsel. “My father’s castle.” And presently they were riding across the drawbridge and through the great gate, which shut behind them with a clang.
As they dismounted a man came out through a door at the farther end of the courtyard.
“Father,” said Yvonne, “this is the gallant knight Sir Agravaine, who has come to—” It seemed to Agravaine that she hesitated for a moment.
“To tackle our dragon?” said the father. “Excellent. Come right in.”
Earl Dorm of the Hills was a small, elderly man, with what Agravaine considered a distinctly furtive air about him. His eyes were too close together, and he was over-lavish with a weak, cunning smile. Even Agravaine, who was in the mood to like the whole family, if possible, for Yvonne’s sake, could not help feeling that appearances were against this particular exhibit. He might have a heart of gold beneath the outward aspect of a confidence-trick expert whose hobby was dog-stealing, but there was no doubt that his exterior did not inspire a genial glow of confidence.
“Very good of you to come,” said the earl.
“It’s a pleasure,” said Agravaine. “I have been hearing all about the dragon.”
“A great scourge,” agreed his host. “We must have a long talk about it after dinner.”
It was the custom in those days in the stately homes of England for the whole strength of the company to take their meals together. The guests sat at the upper table, the ladies in a gallery above them, while the usual drove of men-at-arms, archers, malapert rogues, varlets, scurvy knaves, scullions, and plug-uglies attached to all medieval households, squashed in near the door, wherever they could find room.
The retinue of Earl Dorm was not strong numerically—the household being, to judge from appearances, one that had seen better days; but it struck Agravaine that what it lacked in numbers it made up in toughness. Among all those at the bottom of the room there was not one whom it would have been agreeable to meet alone in a dark alley. Of all those foreheads not one achieved a height of more than one point nought four inches. A sinister collection, indeed, and one which, Agravaine felt, should have been capable of handling without his assistance any dragon that ever came into the world to stimulate the asbestos industry.
He was roused from his reflections by the voice of his host.
“I hope you are not tired after your journey, Sir Agravaine? My little girl did not bore you, I trust? We are very quiet folk here. Country mice. But we must try to make your visit interesting.”
Agravaine felt that the dragon might be counted upon to do that. He said as much.
“Ah, yes, the dragon,” said Earl Dorm, “I was forgetting the dragon. I want to have a long talk with you about that dragon. Not now. Later on.”
His eye caught Agravaine’s, and he smiled that weak, cunning smile of his. And for the first time the knight was conscious of a
