things that
one does not, and had perforce to content herself with seeing sailing
by huge golden-laden galleons with treasure for Madrid, and the merry
skull-and-cross-bones of the pirateers, and the tiny nautilus setting
out to sea, and ships of heroes trafficking in romance or of princes
seeking for enchanted isles.

It was not by chains that the dragon kept her there, but by one of the
spells of old. To one to whom the facilities of the daily Press had
for so long been accorded spells would have palled--you would have
said--and galleons after a time and all things out-of-date. After a
time. But whether the centuries passed her or whether the years or
whether no time at all, she did not know. If anything indicated the
passing of time it was the rhythm of elfin horns blowing upon the
heights. If the centuries went by her the spell that bound her gave
her also perennial youth, and kept alight for ever the lantern by her
side, and saved from decay the marble palace facing the mystical sea.
And if no time went by her there at all, her single moment on those
marvellous coasts was turned as it were to a crystal reflecting a
thousand scenes. If it was all a dream, it was a dream that knew no
morning and no fading away. The tide roamed on and whispered of mastery
and of myth, while near that captive lady, asleep in his marble tank
the golden dragon dreamed: and a little way out from the coast all
that the dragon dreamed showed faintly in the mist that lay over the
sea. He never dreamed of any rescuing knight. So long as he dreamed,
it was twilight; but when he came up nimbly out of his tank night fell
and starlight glistened on the dripping, golden scales.

There he and his captive either defeated Time or never encountered him
at all; while, in the world we know, raged Roncesvalles or battles yet
to be--I know not to what part of the shore of Romance he bore her.
Perhaps she became one of those princesses of whom fable loves to
tell, but let it suffice that there she lived by the sea: and kings
ruled, and Demons ruled, and kings came again, and many cities
returned to their native dust, and still she abided there, and still
her marble palace passed not away nor the power that there was in the
dragon's spell.

And only once did there ever come to her a message from the world that
of old she knew. It came in a pearly ship across the mystical sea; it
was from an old school-friend that she had had in Putney, merely a
note, n