So Sabrinetta went in and kissed her nurse and made her a cup of tea and explained what was going to happen, and that she had a heart of gold, so the dragon couldn't eat her; and the nurse saw that of course the Princess was quite safe, and kissed her and let her go. She took the dragonproof bottle, made of burnished brass, and ran back to the wood, and to the dell, where Elfin was sitting among his sleek black pigs, waiting for her. "I thought you were never coming back," he said. "You have been away a year, at least." The Princess sat down beside him among the pigs, and they held each other's hands till it was dark, and then the dragon came crawling over the moss, scorching it as he came, and getting smaller as he crawled, and curled up under the root of the tree. "Now then," said Elfin, "you hold the bottle." Then he poked and prodded the dragon with bits of stick till it crawled into the dragonproof bottle. But there was no stopper. "Never mind," said Elfin. "I'll put my finger in for a stopper." "No, let me," said the Princess. But of course Elfin would not let her. He stuffed his finger into the top of the bottle, and the Princess cried out: "The sea--the sea--run for the cliffs!" And off they went, with the five and seventy pigs trotting steadily after them in a long black procession. The bottle got hotter and hotter in Elfin's hands, because the dragon inside was puffing fire and smoke with all his might--hotter and hotter and hotter--but Elfin held on till they came to the cliff edge, and there was the dark blue sea, and the whirlpool going around and around. Elfin lifted the bottle high above his head and hurled it out between the stars and the sea, and it fell in the middle of the whirlpool. "We've saved the country," said the Princess. "You've saved the little children. Give me your hands." "I can't," said Elfin. "I shall never be able to take your dear hands again. My hands are burnt off." And so they were: There were only black cinders where his hands ought to have been. The Princess kissed them, and cried over them, and tore pieces of her silky-milky gown to tie them up with, and the two went back to the tower and told the nurse all about everything. And the pigs sat outside and waited. "He is the bravest man in the world," said Sabrinetta. "He has saved the country and the little children; but, oh, his hands--his poor, dear, darling hands!" Here the door of the room opened, and the oldest of the five and seventy pigs came in. It went up to Elfin and rubbed itself against him with little loving grunts. "See the dear creature," said the nurse, wiping away a tear. "It knows, it knows!" Sabrinetta stroked the pig, because Elfin had no hands for stroking or for anything else. "The only cure for a dragon burn," said the old nurse, "is pig's fat, and well that faithful creature knows it----" "I wouldn't for a kingdom," cried Elfin, stroking the pig as best he could with his elbow.