"I can't believe anything quite so horrible as that has happened, Sidney," cried the Queen. "It has only delivered her into that wretch's power--which is quite horrible enough! But there's hope still. The Baron says Prince Mirliflor is quite near here--and he's sending him to rescue her. And a real prince like dear Mirliflor _ought_ to be a match for that miserable Rubenfresser and his dragon too!" "If he could get at them he might be," said the King lugubriously; "but that's just what he can't do!" * * * * * On finding herself borne swiftly through the air by a dragon, Edna had done what was the correct thing to do in the circumstances--she had promptly fainted. She opened her eyes to find that she had been deposited uninjured, on a truss of straw in a Courtyard. On her right was the massive front of Castle Drachenstolz; before her were its lofty walls and the grim towers that flanked its heavy gate; to the left were the stables, from the windows of which some of the black carriage horses looked out, their wrinkled lips exposing their long yellow teeth in ghastly grins. Some distance away the owner of the Castle was caressing the dragon, which lay with its huge wings compactly folded, giving its unconscious imitation of a tremendously powerful dynamo. On perceiving that she had returned to consciousness the Count came towards her, followed by the ex-Astrologer Royal, who was smirking and rubbing his hands. "I couldn't do without you," began the Count by way of explanation, "so as I couldn't come myself I sent Tuetzi for you." Edna resolved to bear herself with all the dignity of a Queen's daughter. She sat up and felt for her _pince-nez_, and, discovering that it was intact, she adjusted it on her nose. "Considering," she said, "that all is at an end between us, you had no right whatever to send your dragon to bring me here. It was a thing that no _gentleman_ would have done!" "Wouldn't that great and learned gentleman you told me of--the one whose name I always forget--have done it?" he inquired. "Nietzsche," said Edna, instructively superior even in such a crisis; "most certainly not. Even if he had _owned_ a dragon!" "You told me he did," he insisted; "a great meta-something dragon that talked and said, 'Thou shalt not.' But if he wouldn't send _his_ dragon for anybody, he would approve of my sending mine for _you_, because I was doing as he advised, and acting exactly as I thought fit." She realised the hopelessness of reasoning with him. "You thought fit to act most improperly," she said severely, "and you will gain nothing _by_ it, you know!" "Oh, yes I shall," he said, "or I shouldn't have done it." "You are quite mistaken," she assured him, "if you are imagining I shall ever consent to renew our engagement now I know what you _are_." "I'm what you wanted me to be," he said, "a Superman." "You're not, you're an--an Ogre. I couldn't possibly bring myself to become an Ogress!"