Still there were trees growing thickly together, and retarding and making difficult one's advance. But, just when he was growing discouraged, they began to thin out, and he came into more open spaces. Finally he reached a tiny lake that shone like a turquoise in a bowl-like formation at the base of a steep hill. [Illustration] A path ran up the hillside, and this evidently had been much in use, for the grass was worn and trodden by many feet. On a ledge there was an old, decaying, leafless tree, and on one of its gaunt, top-branches that jutted over the lake a pair of intrepid eagles had built their nest. Florimel looked up and spied the young eaglets who were just old enough to essay flight, selfishly trying to crowd each other out of their airy structure of sticks and straws. Far overhead their parents described invisible circles in the sky, emitting as they did so harsh shrieks of pride. While he gazed upward, thinking meanwhile that it was a strange abode for eagles to choose, in place of the customary mountain-crag, he was suddenly startled by the savage roar of beasts. Quick as a flash he turned, and saw a wild, fierce, snarling pack--a confused, horrifying vision of lions, tigers, and leopards--their red tongues lolling from their watering mouths--their nostrils dilated at the scent of human blood--flying with leaps and bounds to rend and tear him apart and devour him. Desperately he seized an arrow from the quiver, and placing it in the bow pointed it at them and pulled back the cord. But the cord snapped in twain, and the arrow fell harmlessly to the ground. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV THE HUMAN OCTOPUS STARTS UPON A MISSION [Illustration] Across the minor sea whose blue, sparkling waters kissed the fair shores of Queen Titania's fairy kingdom, about a hundred leagues as flies the crow, there was another country where lived the notorious enchanter Dragonfel. A fairy messenger on a winged steed had conveyed information that Dragonfel intended to make trouble. But this was nothing new for Dragonfel. As a matter of fact, he was always trying to make trouble for everybody. Trouble was his specialty. Dragonfel was not a nice man, and, if you had known him, you would not have liked him. He cheated when he played croquet, and he was always claiming wickets that he never made. He did not go to Sunday School, either. If he had gone, he would not have put a penny in the plate for the heathen. That was the kind of man he was. Yet he was the possessor of fabulous riches, and he never would have missed what he might have given away had he been charitably inclined, which he was not in the least. No one else in the whole world was as wealthy as he. He owned a combination mine in which were diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and other precious gems galore, some of them as big as cobblestones. [Illustration]