It was like a thunderbolt. Every one stopped cheering and stood with mouth open and head turned towards the person who had spoken. And the person who had spoken was the smartly dressed lady in the motor veil, whom Philip had seen among the ruins.
"A trespa.s.ser! a trespa.s.ser!" cried the crowd; "to prison with it!" and angry, threatening voices began to arise.
"I"m no more a trespa.s.ser than he is," said the voice, "and if I say I am the Deliverer, you can"t stop me. I can kill dragons or do anything _he_ can do."
"Silence, trespa.s.ser," said Mr. Noah, with cold dignity. "You should have spoken earlier. At present Sir Philip occupies the position of candidate to the post of King-Deliverer. There is no other position open to you except that of Destroyer."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Silence, trespa.s.ser," said Mr. Noah, with cold dignity.]
"But suppose the boy doesn"t do it?" said the voice behind the veil.
"True," said Mr. Noah. "You may if you choose, occupy for the present the position of Pretender-in-Chief to the Claimancy of the Deliverership, an office now and here created expressly for you. The position of Claimant to the Destroyership is also," he added reflectively, "open to you."
"Then if he doesn"t do it," said the veiled lady, "I can be the Deliverer."
"You can try," said Mr. Noah. "There are a special set of tasks to be performed if the claimant to the Deliverership be a woman."
"What are they?" said the veiled lady.
"If Sir Philip fails you will be duly instructed in the deeds required of a Deliverer who is a woman. And now, my friends, let us retire and leave Sir Philip to deal with the dragon. We shall watch anxiously from yonder ramparts," he added encouragingly.
"But isn"t any one to help me?" said Philip, deeply uneasy.
"It is not usual," said Mr. Noah, "for champions to require a.s.sistance with dragons."
"I should think not indeed," said the veiled lady; "but you"re not going the usual way about it at all. Where"s the princess, I should like to know?"
"There isn"t any princess," said Mr. Noah.
"Then it won"t be a proper dragon-killing," she said, with an angry shaking of skirts; "that"s all I can say."
"I wish it _was_ all," said Mr. Noah to himself.
"If there isn"t a princess it isn"t fair," said the veiled one; "and I shall consider it"s my turn to be Deliverer."
"Be silent, woman," said Mr. Noah.
"Woman, indeed," said the lady. "I ought to have a proper t.i.tle."
"Your t.i.tle is the Pretender to the----"
"I know," she interrupted; "but you forget you"re speaking to a lady.
You can call me the Pretenderette."
Mr. Noah turned coldly from her and pressed two Roman candles and a box of matches into Philip"s hand.
"When you have arranged your plans and are quite sure that you will be able to kill the dragon, light one of these. We will then have a princess in readiness, and on observing your signal will tie her to a tree, or, since this is a district where trees are rare and buildings frequent, to a pillar. She will be perfectly safe if you make your plans correctly. And in any case you must not attempt to deal with the dragon without first lighting the Roman candle."
"And the dragon will see it and go away."
"Exactly," said Mr. Noah. "Or perhaps he will see it and not go away.
Time alone will show. The task that is without difficulties can never really appeal to a hero. You will find weapons, cords, nets, shields and various first aids to the young dragon-catcher in the vaults below this tower. Good evening, Sir Philip," he ended warmly. "We wish you every success."
And with that the whole crowd began to go away.
"_I_ know who you ought to have for princess," the Pretenderette said as they went. And Mr. Noah said:
"Silence in court."
"This isn"t a court," said the Pretenderette aggravatingly.
"Wherever justice is, is a court," said Mr. Noah, "and I accuse you of contempt of it. Guards, arrest this person and take her to prison at once."
There was a scuffling and a shrieking and then the voices withdrew gradually, the angry voice of even the Pretenderette growing fainter and fainter till it died away altogether.
Philip was left alone.
His first act was to go up to the top of the tower and look out to see if he could see the dragon. He looked east and north and south and west, and he saw the ramparts of the fort where Mr. Noah and the others were now safely bestowed. He saw also other towers and cities in the distance, and he saw the ruins where he had met Mr. Perrin.
And among those ruins something was moving. Something long and jointed and green. It could be nothing but the dragon.
"Oh, Crikey!" said Philip to himself; "whatever shall I do? Perhaps I"d better see what weapons there are."
So he ran down the stairs and down and down till he came to the vaults of the castle, and there he found everything a dragon-killer could possibly need, even to a little red book called the _Young Dragon-Catcher"s Vade Mec.u.m, or a Complete Guide to the Good Sport of Dragon-Slaying_; and a pair of excellent field-gla.s.ses.
The top of the tower seemed the safest place. It was there that he tried to read the book. The words were very long and most difficultly spelt.
But he did manage to make out that all dragons sleep for one hour after sunset. Then he heard a loud rattling sound from the ruin, and he knew it was the dragon who was making that sound, so he looked through the field-gla.s.ses, frowning with anxiety to see what the dragon was doing.
And as he looked he started and almost dropped the gla.s.ses, and the frown cleared away from his forehead and he gave a sigh that was almost a sob and almost a laugh, and then he said
"That old thing!"
Then he looked again, and this is what he saw. An enormous green dragon, very long and fierce-looking, that rattled as it moved, going in and out among the ruins, rubbing itself against the fallen pillars. And the reason Philip laughed and sighed was that he knew that dragon very well indeed. He had known it long ago. It was the clockwork lizard that had been given him the Christmas before last. And he remembered that he had put it into one of the cities he and Helen had built together. Only now, of course, it had grown big and had come alive like all the other images of live things he had put in his cities. But he saw that it was still a clockwork creature. And its key was sticking out of its side. And it was rubbing itself against the pillars so as to turn the key and wind itself up. But this was a slow business and the winding was not half done when the sun set. The dragon instantly lay down and went to sleep.
"Well," said Philip, "now I"ve got to think."
He did think, harder than he had ever done before. And when he had finished thinking he went down into the vault and got a long rope. Then he stood still a moment, wondering if he really were brave enough. And then he remembered "Rise up, Sir Philip," and he knew that a knight simply _mustn"t_ be afraid.
So he went out in the dusk towards the dragon.
He knew it would sleep for an hour. But all the same---- And the twilight was growing deeper and deeper. Still there was plenty of light to find the ruin, and also to find the dragon. There it lay--about ten or twelve yards of solid dark dragon-flesh. Its metal claws gleamed in the last of the daylight. Its great mouth was open, and its breathing, as it slept, was like the sound of the sea on a rough night.
"Rise up, Sir Philip," he said to himself, and walked along close to the dragon till he came to the middle part where the key was sticking out--which Mr. Perrin had thought was a piece of an old spear with which some one had once tried to kill the monster.
Philip fastened one end of his rope very securely to the key--how thankful he was that Helen had taught him to tie knots that were not granny-knots. The dragon lay quite still, and went on breathing like a stormy sea. Then the dragon-slayer fastened the other end of the rope to the main wall of the ruin which was very strong and firm, and then he went back to his tower as fast as he could and struck a match and lighted his Roman candle.
You see the idea? It was really rather a clever one. When the dragon woke it would find that it was held prisoner by the ropes. It would be furious and try to get free. And in its struggles it would be certain to get free, but this it could only do by detaching itself from its key.
When once the key was out the dragon would be unable to wind itself up any more, and would be as good as dead. Of course Sir Philip could cut off its head with the silver-hilted sword if Mr. Noah really wished it.