"How now, you rogue?" roared Dragonfel above the storm. "Where have you been, and what has kept you? Why have you not returned as you went? Answer, villain, or it will go hard with you! I will have you strung up by the finger-tips till your toes barely touch the ground and beaten by a thousand and one whips!" "Oh, master, kind master," gasped the Red Spirit, trying to catch his breath, "wonderful things have I seen, and wonderful things have I to tell you. So incredible are they that you may not believe me, yet I do assure you most positively that what I am about to relate is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I would never have believed them myself had I not seen them with my own eyes." "Omit all this long, unnecessary preamble," growled Dragonfel, in great disgust, "and get down to hard facts. What have you discovered?" "The Brownie prince is to wed the fairy queen!" Dragonfel's face went from scarlet to white, then from white to scarlet, then back to white, and then to scarlet again, just like the flashing of a vari-colored electric sign. "How do you know?" he asked, trying to control his temper. "Who told you?" "No one," said the trembling Red Spirit. "I saw him place an engagement-ring on her finger." "Well," declared Dragonfel, in a tone of the utmost brutality, "if they are planning to get married all I've got to say is they've got another guess coming!" "Who will prevent the marriage, kind master?" "I will prevent it!" irascibly shouted the enchanter, and he clapped his hands together in an imperious way. "What ho, without there! Here's a pretty kettle of fish! Come hither instantly!" Grouthead, Mandrake, Boundingbore, Wolfinger, Snoutpimple, and others were out in an ante-room, and they almost tumbled over each other in their frantic haste to answer the peremptory summons. [Illustration] "Put on your storm-cloaks immediately," ordered Dragonfel. "I want you to come with me to Vulcan's." "It's a terrible night to be out, kind master," ventured Grouthead, with a shudder. There came a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder more terrifying than any that had gone before. "What's the matter with the night?" snapped Dragonfel. "I don't see anything wrong with it. I call this particularly pleasant weather." "Yes, it's all right now," Grouthead hastened to say. So in their long, flowing cloaks they all sloshed out in the wind and rain, while the hearts of those who followed after the enchanter quaked and quailed as they plunged on through the pitch-black darkness of the night. The wind howled and shrieked with increasing fury, the lightning grew sharper, and the peals of thunder more deafening, so that their eyes were nearly blinded, and their ear-drums rang. Now not so very far from Dragonfel's palace Vulcan whom they had set forth to see had his cavern.