in to escape his powerful attack.

The prisoner had followed the combat first with anxiety, then with joy.
While the falcon held the rat in his claws and struck him with his beak
again and again, she called the squire to her, and bade him free her from
her chains. This was no distasteful task for George, indeed it gave him
so much pleasure that he was in no hurry to finish.

When at last all her bonds were loosened, she stood very erect, and
lifted her arms, and each moment seemed to make her more lovely and more
beautiful. Then she grasped the circle of emeralds, about which the
enchanter had wound her golden hair, and waving it high in the air,
cried: "Falcon, return to the shape you were before. Misdral, hear thy
sentence!"

Wendelin assumed immediately his knightly guise, which seemed very clumsy
to him after having been a falcon. The rat lengthened itself and expanded
until it was once more the giant covered with pumicestone; it walked no
longer erect, however, but crawled along the ground at the feet of the
beautiful woman, whimpering and howling like a whipped cur. She then said
to it: "At last I possess the emerald circlet, in which resides your
power over me. I can destroy you, but my name is Clementine and so I will
grant you mercy. I will only banish you to your rocks. There you shall
remain until the last hour of the last day. Papaluka, Papaluka,--Emerald,
perform thy duty!"

The giant of pumice-stone immediately glowed like molten iron. Once he
raised his clenched fist towards Wendelin, and then plunged into the lake
where the hissing and foaming waters closed over him. The lady and the
knight were left alone together. When she asked him what reward he
desired, he could only answer that he wished to have her for his wife,
and to take her to his home in Germany; but she blushed and answered
sadly: "I may not leave this country, and it is not permitted to me to
become the wife of any mortal man. But I know how heroes should be
rewarded, and I offer you my lips to kiss."

He knelt down before her and she took his head between her slim hands and
pressed her mouth against his.

George, the squire, saw this, sighed deeply, and wondered: "Why was my
father only a miller? What favours are granted to a knight like that! But
I hope the kiss won't be the end of it all; for, unless she is a miserly
fairy, there ought to be much more substantial pay for his services in
store for him."

But Clementine bestowed ev