e for the good
of mankind and in the name of my lady Honey-Bee."

With sword drawn and his heart big with valour he dashed across the
crystal dwellings. The white ladies fled and swooned before him like the
silver ripples of a lake. Their queen alone beheld his approach without
a tremor; she turned on him the icy glance of her green eyes.

"Break the enchantment which binds me," he cried, running towards her.
"Open to me the road to earth. I wish to fight in the light of the
sun like a cavalier. I wish to return to where one loves, to where one
suffers, to where one struggles! Give back to me the life that is real
and the light that is real. Give mc back my prowess! If not, I will kill
you, you wicked woman!"

With a smile she shook her head as if to refuse. Beautiful she was and
serene. With all the strength that was in him George struck her; but his
sword broke against her glittering breast.

"Child!" she said, and she commanded that he be cast into a dungeon
which formed a kind of crystal tunnel under her palace, and about which
sharks roamed with wide-stretched monstrous jaws armed with triple rows
of pointed teeth. At every touch it seemed as if they must crush the
frail glass wall, which made it impossible to sleep in this strange
prison.

The extremity of this under-sea tunnel rested on a bed of rock which
formed the vaulting of the most distant and unexplored cavern in the
empire of the dwarfs.

And this is what the two little men saw in a single hour and quite as
accurately as if they had followed George all the days of his life.
The venerable Nur, having described the dungeon scene in all its tragic
gloom, addressed the King in much the same way as the Savoyards speak to
the little children when they show their magic lanterns.

"King Loc," he said, "I have shown you all you wished to see, and now
that you know all I can add nothing more. It's nothing to me whether
you liked what you saw; it is enough to know that what you saw was the
truth. Science neither cares to please nor to displease. She is inhuman.
It is not science but poetry that charms and consoles. And that is why
poetry is more necessary than science. Go, King Loc, and get them to
sing you a song."

And without uttering a word King Loc left the well.

XVIII

In which King Loc undertakes a terrible journey

Having left the well of wisdom, King Loc went to his treasure house and
out of a casket, of which he alone had the key,