"Why, you've been seven hours over that sum," she said, "and you haven't done it yet. Look here, this is what is written on the tablet of the statue by the lower gate. It has figures in it. Perhaps it is the answer to the sum." She held out to him a big white magnolia leaf. And she had scratched on it with the pin of her pearl brooch, and it had turned brown where she had scratched it, as magnolia leaves will do. Nigel read: AFTER NINE DAYS T ii. 24. D ii. 27 Ans. P.S.--And the griffin is artificial. R. He clapped his hands softly. "Dear Princess," he said, "I know that's the right answer. It says R too, you see. But I'll just prove it." So he hastily worked the sum backward in decimals and equations and conic sections, and all the rules he could think of. And it came right every time. "So now we must wait," said he. And they waited. And every day the Princess came to see Nigel and brought him food cooked by the dragon, and he lived in his cave, and talked to her when she was there, and thought about her when she was not, and they were both as happy as the longest day in summer. Then at last came The Day. Nigel and the Princess laid their plans. "You're sure he won't hurt you, my only treasure?" said Nigel. "Quite," said the Princess. "I only wish I were half as sure that he wouldn't hurt you." "My Princess," he said tenderly, "two great powers are on our side: the power of Love and the power of Arithmetic. Those two are stronger than anything else in the world." So when the tide began to go down, Nigel and the Princess ran out on to the sands, and there, in full sight of the terrace where the dragon kept watch, Nigel took his Princess in his arms and kissed her. The griffin was busy sweeping the stairs of the Lone Tower, but the dragon saw, and he gave a cry of rage--and it was like twenty engines all letting off steam at the top of their voices inside Cannon Street Station. And the two lovers stood looking up at the dragon. He was dreadful to look at. His head was white with age--and his beard had grown so long that he caught his claws in it as he walked. His wings were white with the salt that had settled on them from the spray of the sea. His tail was long and thick and jointed and white, and had little legs to it, any number of them--far too many--so that it looked like a very large fat silkworm; and his claws were as long as lessons and as sharp as bayonets. "Good-bye, love!" cried Nigel, and ran out across the yellow sand toward the sea. He had one end of a cord tied to his arm.