IV. The Ice Dragon, or Do as You Are Told
This is the tale of the wonders that befell on the evening of theeleventh of December, when they did what they were told not to do. Youmay think that you know all the unpleasant things that could possiblyhappen to you if you are disobedient, but there are some things whicheven you do not know, and they did not know them either.
Their names were George and Jane.
There were no fireworks that year on Guy Fawkes' Day, because the heirto the throne was not well. He was cutting his first tooth, and that isa very anxious time for any person--even for a Royal one. He was reallyvery poorly, so that fireworks would have been in the worst possibletaste, even at Land's End or in the Isle of Man, whilst in Forest Hill,which was the home of Jane and George, anything of the kind was quiteout of the question. Even the Crystal Palace, empty-headed as it is,felt that this was no time for Catherine-wheels.
But when the Prince had cut his tooth, rejoicings were not onlyadmissible but correct, and the eleventh of December was proclaimedfirework day. All the people were most anxious to show their loyalty,and to enjoy themselves at the same time. So there were fireworks andtorchlight processions, and set pieces at the Crystal Palace, with"Blessings on our Prince" and "Long Live our Royal Darling" indifferent-colored fires; and the most private of boarding schools had ahalf holiday; and even the children of plumbers and authors had tuppenceeach given them to spend as they liked.
George and Jane had sixpence each--and they spent the whole amount on agolden rain, which would not light for ever so long, and when it didlight went out almost at once, so they had to look at the fireworks inthe gardens next door, and at the ones at the Crystal Palace, which werevery glorious indeed.
All their relations had colds in their heads, so Jane and George wereallowed to go out into the garden alone to let off their firework. Janehad put on her fur cape and her thick gloves, and her hood with thesilver fox fur on it that was made out of Mother's old muff; and Georgehad his overcoat with the three capes, and his comforter, and Father'ssealskin traveling cap with the pieces that come down over your ears.
It was dark in the garden, but the fireworks all about made it seem verygay, and though the children were cold they were quite sure that theywere enjoying themselves.
They got up on the fence at the end of the garden to see better; andthen they saw, very far away, where the edge of the dark world is, ashining line of straight, beautiful lights arranged in a row, as if theywere the spears carried by a fairy army.
"Oh, how pretty," said Jane. "I wonder what they are. It looks as if thefairies were planting little shining baby poplar trees and watering themwith liquid light."
"Liquid fiddlestick!" said George. He had been to school, so he knewthat these were only the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. And hesaid so.
"But what is the Rory Bory what's-its-name?" asked Jane. "Who lights it,and what's it there for?"
George had to own that he had not learned that.
"But I know," said he, "that it has something to do with the Great Bear,and the Dipper, and the Plough, and Charles's Wain."
"And what are they?" asked Jane.
"Oh, they're the surnames of some of the star families. There goes ajolly rocket," answered George, and Jane felt as if she almostunderstood about the star families.
The fairy spears of light twinkled and gleamed: They were much prettierthan the big, blaring, blazing bonfire that was smoking and flaming andspluttering in the next-door-but-one garden--prettier even than thecolored fires at the Crystal Palace.
"I wish we could see them nearer," Jane said. "I wonder if the starfamilies are nice families--the kind that Mother would like us to go totea with, if we were little stars?"
"They aren't that sort of families at all, Silly," said her brother,kindly trying to explain. "I only said 'families' because a kid like youwouldn't have understood if I'd said constel ... and, besides, I'veforgotten the end of the word. Anyway, the stars are all up in the sky,so you can't go to tea with them."
"No," said Jane. "I said if we were little stars."
"But we aren't," said George.
"No," said Jane, with a sigh. "I know that. I'm not so stupid as youthink, George. But the Tory Bories are somewhere at the edge. Couldn'twe go and see them?"
"Considering you're eight, you haven't much sense." George kicked hisboots against the fencing to warm his toes. "It's half the world away."
"It looks very near," said Jane, hunching up her shoulders to keep herneck warm.
"They're close to the North Pole," said George. "Look here--I don't carea straw about the Aurora Borealis, but I shouldn't mind discovering theNorth Pole: It's awfully difficult and dangerous, and then you come homeand write a book about it with a lot of pictures, and everybody says howbrave you are."
Jane got off the fence.
"Oh, George, _let's_," she said. "We shall never have such a chanceagain--all alone by ourselves--and quite late, too."
"I'd go right enough if it wasn't for you," George answered gloomily,"but you know they always say I lead you into mischief--and if we wentto the North Pole we should get our boots wet, as likely as not, andyou remember what they said about not going on the grass."
"They said the _lawn_," said Jane. "We're not going on the _lawn_. Oh,George, do, do let's. It doesn't look so _very_ far--we could be backbefore they had time to get dreadfully angry."
"All right," said George, "but mind, I don't want to go."
So off they went. They got over the fence, which was very cold and whiteand shiny because it was beginning to freeze, and on the other side ofthe fence was somebody else's garden, so they got out of that as quicklyas they could, and beyond that was a field where there was another bigbonfire, with people standing around it who looked quite dark-skinned.
"It's like Indians," said George, and wanted to stop and look, but Janepulled him on, and they passed by the bonfire and got through a gap inthe hedge into another field--a dark one; and far away, beyond quite anumber of other dark fields, the Northern Lights shone and sparkled andtwinkled.
Now, during the winter the Arctic regions come much farther south thanthey are marked on the map. Very few people know this, though you wouldthink they could tell it by the ice in the jugs of a morning. And justwhen George and Jane were starting for the North Pole, the Arcticregions had come down very nearly as far as Forest Hill, so that, as thechildren walked on, it grew colder and colder, and presently they sawthat the fields were covered with snow, and there were great icicleshanging from all the hedges and gates. And the Northern Lights stillseemed some way off.
They were crossing a very rough, snowy field when Jane first noticed theanimals. There were white rabbits and white hares and all sorts andsizes of white birds, and some larger creatures in the shadows of thehedges that Jane was sure were wolves and bears.
"Polar bears and Arctic wolves, of course I mean," she said, for she didnot want George to think her stupid again.
There was a great hedge at the end of this field, all covered with snowand icicles; but the children found a place where there was a hole, andas no bears or wolves seemed to be just in that part of the hedge, theycrept through and scrambled out of the frozen ditch on the other side.And then they stood still and held their breath with wonder.
For in front of them, running straight and smooth right away to theNorthern Lights, lay a great wide road of pure dark ice, and on eachside were tall trees all sparkling with white frost, and from the boughsof the trees hung strings of stars threaded on fine moonbeams, andshining so brightly that it was like a beautiful fairy daylight. Janesaid so; but George said it was like the electric lights at the Earl'sCourt Exhibition.
The rows of trees went as straight as ruled lines away--away andaway--and at the other end of them shone the Aurora Borealis.
There was a signpost of silvery snow, and on it in letters of pure icethe children read: THIS WAY TO THE NORTH POLE.
Then George said: "Way or no way, I kno
w a slide when I see one--so heregoes." And he took a run on the frozen snow, and Jane took a run whenshe saw him do it, and the next moment they were sliding away, each withfeet half a yard apart, along the great slide that leads to the NorthPole.
This great slide is made for the convenience of the Polar bears, who,during the winter months, get their food from the Army and NavyStores--and it is the most perfect slide in the world. If you have nevercome across it, it is because you have never let off fireworks on theeleventh of December, and have never been thoroughly naughty anddisobedient. But do not be these things in the hope of finding the greatslide--because you might find something quite different, and then youwill be sorry.
The great slide is like common slides in that when once you have startedyou have to go on to the end--unless you fall down--and then it hurtsjust as much as the smaller kind on ponds. The great slide runsdownhill all the way, so that you keep on going faster and faster andfaster. George and Jane went so fast that they had not time to noticethe scenery. They only saw the long lines of frosted trees and thestarry lamps, and on each side, rushing back as they slid on, a verybroad, white world and a very large, black night; and overhead as wellas in the trees the stars were bright like silver lamps, and far aheadshone and trembled and sparkled the line of fairy spears. Jane saidthat, and George said: "I can see the Northern Lights quite plain."
It is very pleasant to slide and slide and slide on clear, darkice--especially if you feel you are really going somewhere, and moreespecially if that somewhere is the North Pole. The children's feet madeno noise on the ice, and they went on and on in a beautiful whitesilence. But suddenly the silence was shattered and a cry rang out overthe snow.
"Hey! You there! Stop!"
"Tumble for your life!" cried George, and he fell down at once, becauseit is the only way to stop. Jane fell on top of him--and then theycrawled on hands and knees to the snow at the edge of the slide--andthere was a sportsman, dressed in a peaked cap and a frozen moustache,like the one you see in the pictures about Ice-Peter, and he had a gunin his hand.
"You don't happen to have any bullets about you?" said he.
"No," George said, truthfully. "I had five of father's revolvercartridges, but they were taken away the day Nurse turned out my pocketsto see if I had taken the knob of the bathroom door by mistake."
"Quite so," said the sportsman, "these accidents will occur. You don'tcarry firearms, then, I presume?"
"I haven't any fire_arms_," said George, "but I have a fire_work_. It'sonly a squib one of the boys gave me, if that's any good." And he beganto feel among the string and peppermints, and buttons and tops and nibsand chalk and foreign postage stamps in his knickerbocker pockets.
"One could but try," the sportsman replied, and he held out his hand.
But Jane pulled at her brother's jacket-tail and whispered, "Ask himwhat he wants it for."
So then the sportsman had to confess that he wanted the firework to killthe white grouse with; and, when they came to look, there was the whitegrouse himself, sitting in the snow, looking quite pale and careworn,and waiting anxiously for the matter to be decided one way or the other.
George put all the things back in his pockets, and said, "No, I shan't.The reason for shooting him stopped yesterday--I heard Father say so--soit wouldn't be fair, anyhow. I'm very sorry; but I can't--so there!"
The sportsman said nothing, only he shook his fist at Jane, and then hegot on the slide and tried to go toward the Crystal Palace--which wasnot easy, because that way is uphill. So they left him trying, and wenton.
Before they started, the white grouse thanked them in a few pleasant,well-chosen words, and then they took a sideways slanting run andstarted off again on the great slide, and so away toward the North Poleand the twinkling, beautiful lights.
The great slide went on and on, and the lights did not seem to come muchnearer, and the white silence wrapped around them as they slid along thewide, icy path. Then once again the silence was broken to bits bysomeone calling: "Hey! You there! Stop!"
"Tumble for your life!" cried George, and tumbled as before, stopping inthe only possible way, and Jane stopped on top of him, and they crawledto the edge and came suddenly on a butterfly collector, who was lookingfor specimens with a pair of blue glasses and a blue net and a blue bookwith colored plates.
"Excuse me," said the collector, "but have you such a thing as a needleabout you--a very long needle?"
"I have a needle _book_," replied Jane, politely, "but there aren't anyneedles in it now. George took them all to do the things with pieces ofcork--in the 'Boy's Own Scientific Experimenter' and 'The YoungMechanic.' He did not do the things, but he did for the needles."
"Curiously enough," said the collector, "I too wish to use the needle inconnection with cork."
"I have a hatpin in my hood," said Jane. "I fastened the fur with itwhen it caught in the nail on the greenhouse door. It is very long andsharp--would that do?"
"One could but try," said the collector, and Jane began to feel for thepin. But George pinched her arm and whispered, "Ask what he wants itfor." Then the collector had to own that he wanted the pin to stickthrough the great Arctic moth, "a magnificent specimen," he added,"which I am most anxious to preserve."
And there, sure enough, in the collector's butterfly net sat the greatArctic moth, listening attentively to the conversation.
"Oh, I couldn't!" cried Jane. And while George was explaining to thecollector that they would really rather not, Jane opened the blue foldsof the butterfly net, and asked the moth quietly if it would please stepoutside for a moment. And it did.
When the collector saw that the moth was free, he seemed less angry thangrieved.
"Well, well," said he, "here's a whole Arctic expedition thrown away! Ishall have to go home and fit out another. And that means a lot ofwriting to the papers and things. You seem to be a singularlythoughtless little girl."
So they went on, leaving him too, trying to go uphill towards theCrystal Palace.
When the great white Arctic moth had returned thanks in a suitablespeech, George and Jane took a sideways slanting run and started slidingagain, between the star-lamps along the great slide toward the NorthPole. They went faster and faster, and the lights ahead grew brighterand brighter--so that they could not keep their eyes open, but had toblink and wink as they went--and then suddenly the great slide ended inan immense heap of snow, and George and Jane shot right into it becausethey could not stop themselves, and the snow was soft, so that they wentin up to their very ears.
When they had picked themselves out and thumped each other on the backto get rid of the snow, they shaded their eyes and looked, and there,right in front of them, was the wonder of wonders--the NorthPole--towering high and white and glistening, like an ice-lighthouse,and it was quite, quite close, so that you had to put your head as farback as it would go, and farther, before you could see the high top ofit. It was made entirely of ice. You will hear grown-up people talk agreat deal of nonsense about the North Pole, and when you are grown up,it is even possible that you may talk nonsense about it yourself (themost unlikely things do happen) but deep down in your heart you mustalways remember that the North Pole is made of clear ice, and could notpossibly, if you come to think of it, be made of anything else.
All around the Pole, making a bright ring about it, were hundreds oflittle fires, and the flames of them did not flicker and twist, but wentup blue and green and rosy and straight like the stalks of dream lilies.
Jane said so, but George said they were as straight as ramrods.
And these flames were the Aurora Borealis, which the children had seenas far away as Forest Hill.
The ground was quite flat, and covered with smooth, hard snow, whichshone and sparkled like the top of a birthday cake that has been iced athome. The ones done at the shops do not shine and sparkle, because theymix flour with the icing sugar.
"It is like a dream," said Jane.
And George said, "It _is_ the North Pole. J
ust think of the fuss peoplealways make about getting here--and it was no trouble at all, really."
"I daresay lots of people have gotten here," said Jane, dismally. "It'snot the getting _here_--I see that--it's the getting back again.Perhaps no one will ever know that _we_ have been here, and the robinswill cover us with leaves and--"
"Nonsense," said George. "There aren't any robins, and there aren't anyleaves. It's just the North Pole, that's all, and I've found it; and nowI shall try to climb up and plant the British flag on the top--myhandkerchief will do; and if it really _is_ the North Pole, my pocketcompass Uncle James gave me will spin around and around, and then Ishall know. Come on."
So Jane came on; and when they got close to the clear, tall, beautifulflames they saw that there was a great, queer-shaped lump of ice allaround the bottom of the Pole--clear, smooth, shining ice, that wasdeep, beautiful Prussian blue, like icebergs, in the thick parts, andall sorts of wonderful, glimmery, shimmery, changing colors in the thinparts, like the cut-glass chandelier in Grandmamma's house in London.
"It is a very curious shape," said Jane. "It's almost like"--she movedback a step to get a better view of it--"it's almost like a dragon."
"It's much more like the lampposts on the Thames Embankment," saidGeorge, who had noticed a curly thing like a tail that went twisting upthe North Pole.
"Oh, George," cried Jane, "it _is_ a dragon; I can see its wings.Whatever shall we do?"
And, sure enough, it _was_ a dragon--a great, shining, winged, scaly,clawy, big-mouthed dragon--made of pure ice. It must have gone to sleepcurled around the hole where the warm steam used to come up from themiddle of the earth, and then when the earth got colder, and the columnof steam froze and was turned into the North Pole, the dragon must havegot frozen in his sleep--frozen too hard to move--and there he stayed.And though he was very terrible he was very beautiful too.
Jane said so, but George said, "Oh, don't bother; I'm thinking how toget onto the Pole and try the compass without waking the brute."
"Sure enough, it was a dragon." _See page 68._]
The dragon certainly was beautiful, with his deep, clear Prussianblueness, and his rainbow-colored glitter. And rising from within thecold coil of the frozen dragon the North Pole shot up like a pillar madeof one great diamond, and every now and then it cracked a little, fromsheer cold. The sound of the cracking was the only thing that broke thegreat white silence in the midst of which the dragon lay like anenormous jewel, and the straight flames went up all around him like thestalks of tall lilies.
And as the children stood there looking at the most wonderful sighttheir eyes had ever seen, there was a soft padding of feet and ahurry-scurry behind them, and from the outside darkness beyond theflame-stalks came a crowd of little brown creatures running, jumping,scrambling, tumbling head over heels and on all fours, and some evenwalking on their heads. They joined hands as they came near the firesand danced around in a ring.
"It's bears," said Jane. "I know it is. Oh, how I wish we hadn't come;and my boots are so wet."
The dancing-ring broke up suddenly, and the next moment hundreds offurry arms clutched at George and Jane, and they found themselves in themiddle of a great, soft, heaving crowd of little fat people in brown furdresses, and the white silence was quite gone.
"Bears, indeed," cried a shrill voice. "You'll wish we were bears beforeyou've done with us."
This sounded so dreadful that Jane began to cry. Up to now the childrenhad only seen the most beautiful and wondrous things, but now they beganto be sorry they had done what they were told not to, and the differencebetween "lawn" and "grass" did not seem so great as it had at ForestHill.
Directly Jane began to cry, all the brown people started back. No onecries in the Arctic regions for fear of being struck by the frost. Sothat these people had never seen anyone cry before.
"Don't cry for real," whispered George, "or you'll get chilblains inyour eyes. But pretend to howl--it frightens them."
So Jane went on pretending to howl, and the real crying stopped: Italways does when you begin to pretend. You try it.
Then, speaking very loud so as to be heard over the howls of Jane,George said: "Yah--who's afraid? We are George and Jane--who are you?"
"We are the sealskin dwarfs," said the brown people, twisting theirfurry bodies in and out of the crowd like the changing glass inkaleidoscopes. "We are very precious and expensive, for we are made,throughout, of the very best sealskin."
"And what are those fires for?" bellowed George--for Jane was cryinglouder and louder.
"Those," shouted the dwarfs, coming a step nearer, "are the fires wemake to thaw the dragon. He is frozen now--so he sleeps curled up aroundthe Pole--but when we have thawed him with our fires he will wake up andgo and eat everybody in the world except us."
"WHATEVER--DO--YOU--WANT--HIM--TO--DO--THAT--FOR?" yelled George.
"Oh--just for spite," bawled the dwarfs carelessly--as if they weresaying, "Just for fun."
Jane stopped crying to say: "You are heartless."
"No, we aren't," they said. "Our hearts are made of the finest sealskin,just like little fat sealskin purses--"
And they all came a step nearer. They were very fat and round. Theirbodies were like sealskin jackets on a very stout person; their headswere like sealskin muffs; their legs were like sealskin boas; and theirhands and feet were like sealskin tobacco pouches. And their faces werelike seals' faces, inasmuch as they, too, were covered with sealskin.
"Thank you so much for telling us," said George. "Good evening. (Keep onhowling, Jane!)"
But the dwarfs came a step nearer, muttering and whispering. Then themuttering stopped--and there was a silence so deep that Jane was afraidto howl in it. But it was a brown silence, and she had liked the whitesilence better.
Then the chief dwarf came quite close and said: "What's that on yourhead?"
And George felt it was all up--for he knew it was his father's sealskincap.
The dwarf did not wait for an answer. "It's made of one of us," hescreamed, "or else one of the seals, our poor relations. Boy, now yourfate is sealed!"
Looking at the wicked seal-faces all around them, George and Jane feltthat their fate was sealed indeed.
The dwarfs seized the children in their furry arms. George kicked, butit is no use kicking sealskin, and Jane howled, but the dwarfs weregetting used to that. They climbed up the dragon's side and dumped thechildren down on his icy spine, with their backs against the North Pole.You have no idea how cold it was--the kind of cold that makes you feelsmall and prickly inside your clothes, and makes you wish you had twentytimes as many clothes to feel small and prickly inside of.
The sealskin dwarfs tied George and Jane to the North Pole, and, as theyhad no ropes, they bound them with snow-wreaths, which are very strongwhen they are made in the proper way, and they heaped up the fires veryclose and said: "Now the dragon will get warm, and when he gets warm hewill wake, and when he wakes he will be hungry, and when he is hungry hewill begin to eat, and the first thing he will eat will be you."
The little, sharp, many-colored flames sprang up like the stalks ofdream lilies, but no heat came to the children, and they grew colder andcolder.
"We shan't be very nice when the dragon does eat us, that's onecomfort," said George. "We shall be turned into ice long before that."
Suddenly there was a flapping of wings, and the white grouse perched onthe dragon's head and said: "Can I be of any assistance?"
"The dwarfs seized the children." _See page 72._]
Now, by this time the children were so cold, so cold, so very, verycold, that they had forgotten everything but that, and they could saynothing else. So the white grouse said: "One moment. I am only toograteful for this opportunity of showing my sense of your manly conductabout the firework!"
And the next moment there was a soft whispering rustle of wingsoverhead, and then, fluttering slowly, softly down, came hundreds andthousands of little white fluffy feathers. They fell on Geor
ge and Janelike snowflakes, and, like flakes of fallen snow lying one aboveanother, they grew into a thicker and thicker covering, so thatpresently the children were buried under a heap of white feathers, andonly their faces peeped out.
"Oh, you dear, good, kind white grouse," said Jane, "but you'll be coldyourself, won't you, now you have given us all your pretty dearfeathers?"
The white grouse laughed, and his laugh was echoed by thousands of kind,soft bird voices.
"Did you think all those feathers came out of one breast? There arehundreds and hundreds of us here, and every one of us can spare a littletuft of soft breast feathers to help to keep two kind little heartswarm!"
Thus spoke the grouse, who certainly had very pretty manners.
So now the children snuggled under the feathers and were warm, and whenthe sealskin dwarfs tried to take the feathers away, the grouse and hisfriends flew in their faces with flappings and screams, and drove thedwarfs back. They are a cowardly folk.
The dragon had not moved yet--but then he might at any moment get warmenough to move, and though George and Jane were now warm they were notcomfortable nor easy in their minds. They tried to explain to thegrouse; but though he is polite, he is not clever, and he only said:"You've got a warm nest, and we'll see that no one takes it from you.What more can you possibly want?"
Just then came a new, strange, jerky fluttering of wings far softerthan the grouse's, and George and Jane cried out together: "Oh, _do_mind your wings in the fires!"
For they saw at once that it was the great white Arctic moth.
"What's the matter?" he asked, settling on the dragon's tail.
So they told him.
"Sealskin, are they?" said the moth. "Just you wait a minute!"
He flew off very crookedly, dodging the flames, and presently he cameback, and there were so many moths with him that it was as if a livesheet of white wingedness were suddenly drawn between the children andthe stars.
And then the doom of the bad sealskin dwarfs fell suddenly on them.
For the great sheet of winged whiteness broke up and fell as snow falls,and it fell upon the sealskin dwarfs; and every snowflake of it was alive, fluttering, hungry moth that buried its greedy nose deep in thesealskin fur.
Grown-up people will tell you that it is not moths but moths' childrenwho eat fur--but this is only when they are trying to deceive you. Whenthey are not thinking about you they say, "I fear the moths have got atmy ermine tippet," or, "Your poor Aunt Emma had a lovely sable cloak,but it was eaten by moths." And now there were more moths than have everbeen together in this world before, all settling on the sealskin dwarfs.
The dwarfs did not see their danger till it was too late. Then theycalled for camphor and bitter apple and oil of lavender and yellow soapand borax; and some of the dwarfs even started to get these things, butlong before any of them could get to the chemist's, all was over. Themoths ate and ate and ate till the sealskin dwarfs, being sealskinthroughout, even to the empty hearts of them, were eaten down to thevery life--and they fell one by one on the snow and so came to theirend. And all around the North Pole the snow was brown with their flatbare pelts.
"Oh, thank you--thank you, darling Arctic moth," cried Jane. "You aregood--I do hope you haven't eaten enough to disagree with youafterward!"
Millions of moth voices answered, with laughter as soft as moth wings,"We should be a poor set of fellows if we couldn't over eat ourselvesonce in a while--to oblige a friend."
And off they all fluttered, and the white grouse flew off, and thesealskin dwarfs were all dead, and the fires went out, and George andJane were left alone in the dark with the dragon!
"Oh, dear," said Jane, "this is the worst of all!"
"We've no friends left to help us," said George. He never thought thatthe dragon himself might help them--but then that was an idea that wouldnever have occurred to any boy.
It grew colder and colder and colder, and even under the grouse feathersthe children shivered.
Then, when it was so cold that it could not manage to be any colderwithout breaking the thermometer, it stopped. And then the dragonuncurled himself from around the North Pole, and stretched his long, icylength over the snow, and said: "This is something like! How faint thosefires did make me feel!"
The fact was, the sealskin dwarfs had gone the wrong way to work: Thedragon had been frozen so long that now he was nothing but solid ice allthrough, and the fires only made him feel as if he were going to die.
But when the fires were out he felt quite well, and very hungry. Helooked around for something to eat. But he never noticed George andJane, because they were frozen to his back.
He moved slowly off, and the snow-wreaths that bound the children to thePole gave way with a snap, and there was the dragon, crawlingsouth--with Jane and George on his great, scaly, icy shining back. Ofcourse the dragon had to go south if he went anywhere, because when youget to the North Pole there is no other way to go. The dragon rattledand tinkled as he went, exactly like the cut-glass chandelier when youtouch it, as you are strictly forbidden to do. Of course there are amillion ways of going south from the North Pole--so you will own that itwas lucky for George and Jane when the dragon took the right way andsuddenly got his heavy feet on the great slide. Off he went, full speed,between the starry lamps, toward Forest Hill and the Crystal Palace.
"He's going to take us home," said Jane. "Oh, he is a good dragon. I_am_ glad!"
George was rather glad too, though neither of the children felt at allsure of their welcome, especially as their feet were wet, and they werebringing a strange dragon home with them.
They went very fast, because dragons can go uphill as easily as down.You would not understand why if I told you--because you are only in longdivision at present; yet if you want me to tell you, so that you canshow off to other children, I will. It is because dragons can get theirtails into the fourth dimension and hold on there, and when you can dothat everything else is easy.
The dragon went very fast, only stopping to eat the collector and thesportsman, who were still struggling to go up the slide--vainly, becausethey had no tails, and had never even heard of the fourth dimension.
When the dragon got to the end of the slide he crawled very slowlyacross the dark field beyond the field where there was a bonfire, nextto the next-door garden at Forest Hill.
* * * * *
He went slower and slower, and in the bonfire field he stoppedaltogether, and because the Arctic regions had not got down so far asthat, and because the bonfire was very hot, the dragon began to melt andmelt and melt--and before the children knew what he was doing they foundthemselves sitting in a large pool of water, and their boots were as wetas wet, and there was not a bit of dragon left!
So they went indoors.
Of course some grown-up or other noticed at once that the boots ofGeorge and Jane were wet and muddy, and that they had both been sittingdown in a very damp place, so they were sent to bed immediately.
It was long past their time, anyhow.
Now, if you are of an inquiring mind--not at all a nice thing in alittle child who reads fairy tales--you will want to know how it is thatsince the sealskin dwarfs have all been killed, and the fires all beenlet out, the Aurora Borealis shines, on cold nights, as brightly asever.
My dear, I do not know! I am not too proud to own that there are somethings I know nothing about--and this is one of them. But I do know thatwhoever has lighted those fires again, it is certainly not the sealskindwarfs. They were all eaten by moths--and motheaten things are of nouse, even to light fires!
THE ISLAND OF THE NINE WHIRLPOOLS]