Before four o'clock that afternoon the Prime Minister's head was a perfect bird's-nest of straws. But he met Billy at the appointed place, and there was a boat--and also Eliza. Billy carried his Lee-Metford. A wind blew from the shore, and the straws in the Prime Minister's hair rustled like a barley-field in August. 'Now,' said Billy the King, 'my Royal Majesty commands you to speak to the dragon as soon as it arrives, and to say that your King has abdicated----' 'But he hasn't,' said the Prime Minister in tears. 'But he _does now_--so you won't be telling a lie. I abdicate. But I give you my word of honour I'll turn King again as soon as I've tried my little plan. I shall be quite in time to meet my fate--and the dragon. Say "The King has abdicated. You'd better just look in at Allexanassa and get the Queen, and when you call again I'll have a nice fat King all ready for you."' The straws trembled, and Eliza sobbed. Billy went on; and he had never felt so truly regal as now, when he was preparing to risk his life in order to save his subjects from the monthly temptation to be mean and cowardly and sneakish. I think myself it was good of Billy. He might just have abdicated and let things slide. Some boys would have. The sea of greeny-black treacle heaved and swelled sulkily against the beach. The Prime Minister said: 'Very well; I'll do it. But I'd sooner die than see my King false to his word.' 'You won't have to choose between the two,' said Billy, very pale, but determined. 'Your King's not a hound, like--like some-people.' And then, far away on the very edge of the green treacly sea, they saw a squirming and a squelching and clouds of steam, and all sorts of exciting and unpleasant things happening very suddenly and all together. The Prime Minister covered his head with dry seaweed and said: 'That's Him.' 'That's _He_,' corrected Eliza the Queen and Billy the King in one breath. But the Prime Minister was long past any proper pride in his grammar. And then, cutting its way through the thick, sticky waves of the treacle sea, came the hot dragon, melting a way for himself as he came. And he got nearer and nearer and bigger and bigger, and at last he came close to the beach, snouting and snorting, and opened two great mouths in an expecting, hungry sort of way; and when he found he was not being fed the expression of the mouths changed to an angry and surprised question. And one mouth was a pig's mouth and one was a lizard's. Billy the King borrowed a pin from Eliza the Queen to stick into the Prime Minister, who was by this time nearly buried in the seaweed which he had been trying to arrange in his hair. 'Speak up, silly!' said His Majesty. The Prime Minister spoke up. 'Please, sir,' he said to the two-headed dragon, 'our King has abdicated, so we've nothing for you just now, but if you could just run over to Allexanassa and pick up their Queen, we'll have a nice fat King ready for you if you'll call on your way home.'