rince's apartments, and finally to
the gardens in search of Girofle.

"Sidney," said the Queen, "tell the heralds to proclaim that we will
give our poor darling to anyone who succeeds in delivering her.... Don't
argue about it--do as I tell you!" which King Sidney did.

As for the Court, they were too paralysed by so unexpected a calamity to
be of the least assistance. The ladies-in-waiting were all in floods of
tears, distressed, not only by the awful fate that had overtaken
"Princess Four-eyes," but by the painful reflection that any one of them
might be the dragon's next victim.

"This couldn't have happened except in a place like this!" declared the
Queen, now on the verge of hysteria. "And why it should have been
permitted to happen to US!--It _wouldn't_ have, Sidney, if you had only
had the sense to insist on that thing being destroyed! But you
didn't--and this is the result!"

"My love," said the King, "you forget. The poor girl herself insisted on
its being spared. It--it's most unfortunate!"

And it certainly was.

CHAPTER XVII

THE REWARD OF VALOUR

If the Fairy Vogelflug could only have known that it was Edna and not
Daphne who was really in danger from the dragon, she would have been
comparatively calm. But since she did not know this, she was, as has
been already stated, entirely unnerved for a time.

Fortunately--or at least she thought it fortunate then,--just before the
creature was near enough to detect them, the long-forgotten words that
formed the spell recurred to her memory. It was a spell that was
admirably adapted to enable any fugitive to escape discovery, but she
had never had occasion to use it before, and to perform it required an
amount of mental concentration from which, in ordinary circumstances,
she would have shrunk. Now she must act at once or they would both
perish, and so she gabbled the necessary incantations, till, though the
effort took a great deal out of her, she eventually succeeded in
changing Daphne into a tall and slender cypress, and herself into a
circular pool in a marble basin--a double transformation which was
calculated to deceive the most observant and intelligent dragon. But,
changed as she was, Daphne remained perfectly conscious of her own
identity and aware of all that was happening. At first she was much
impressed by the Court Godmother's ingenuity and presence of mind, but
as time went on, and the dragon, instead of searching for them, seemed
t