only to deliver the captive
of the nixies.

But seeing this huge dishevelled head, frowning and bearded, watching
him from under his tunnel, George believed himself to be menaced by a
mighty danger and he felt for the sword at his side forgetting that he
had broken it against the breast of the woman with the green eyes. In
the meantime King Loc examined him curiously.

"Bah," said he to himself, "it is only a child!" And indeed he was only
an ignorant child, and it was because of his great ignorance that he had
escaped from the deadly and delicious kisses of the Queen of the Nixies.
Aristotle with all his wisdom might not have done so well.

"What do you want, fathead?" George cried, seeing himself defenceless,
"why harm me if I have never harmed you?"

"Little one," King Loc replied in a voice at once jovial and testy, "you
do not know whether or not you have harmed me, for you are ignorant of
effects and causes and reflections, and all philosophy in general. But
we'll not talk of that. If you don't mind leaving your tunnel, come this
way."

George at once crept into the cavern, slipped down the length of the
wall, and as soon as he had reached the bottom he said to his deliverer:

"You are a good little man; I shall love you for ever; but do you know
where Honey-Bee of Clarides is?"

"I know a great many things," retorted the dwarf, "and especially that I
don't like people who ask questions."

Hearing this George paused in great confusion and followed his guide in
silence through the dense black air where the octopuses and crustaceans
writhed. King Loc said mockingly:

"This is not a carriage road, young prince."

"Sir," George replied, "the road to liberty is always beautiful, and I
fear not to be led astray when I follow my benefactor."

Little King Loc bit his lips. On reaching the gallery of porphyry
he pointed out to the youth a flight of steps cut in the rock by the
dwarfs, by which they ascend to earth.

"This is your way," he said, "farewell."

"Do not bid me farewell," George replied, "say I shall see you again.
After what you have done my life is yours."

"What I have done," King Loc replied, "I have not done for your sake,
but for another's. It will be better for us never to meet again, for we
can never be friends."

"I would not have believed that my deliverance could have caused me such
pain," George said simply and gravely, "and yet it does. Farewell."

"A pleasant journey," cried Ki