“When I entered the I a knew by the terrifying sound that the monster was trying to frighten me. Leaving my horse, I advanced cautiously. As the woods grew darker, I saw flashes of lightning and knew that the eyes of the dragon emitted these flames. Finally I was near enough to see the creature, and you may judge of my amazement when I tell you that it was a worm, many ells long, but instead of feet like a millipede it had arms and hands, and each hand grasped a weapon, sharp as a dagger and poisoned with deadly dragon’s doom. He had three heads, and I may remark here that a three-headed monster is not new to me, I having killed several of them in Gorkiland; but only one head of this monster had a face; the other two being smooth of features, save for mouths that dripped blood and spittal. It showed no signs of fear but rushed at me, and for over an hour I had need of all my skill in defending myself from its weapons. I used, as is my wont in such battles, my two-handed sword and finally succeeded in cutting off one of the heads. The monster howled dismally and ran into its cave.
“I rushed after it and was not surprised to find that its home was a large cavern well lighted by the baleful glare from the monster’s eyes. The headless stump oozed a white blood which shone on the floor of the cave. The fighting was now most terrible and difficult, because I was constantly stumbling over the bones of maidens he had previously ravaged and devoured. After a long and bitter struggle I snipped off another head, and now the monster retreated into a smaller cave. Chained to the wall of this cavern was the poor little girl who had been stolen from her parents and would have been destroyed, body and soul, at the next full moon, had I not come when, in desperation, your brave King sent for me.
“The dragon now assumed the shape of an old magician and, breathing harshly, asked me to leave in peace, offering to share the beauty of the maiden with me if I did as he requested. Naturally, I scorned such a dastardly suggestion and, calling on him to defend himself, rushed on him with dagger in hand. Seeing that he was doomed by the power of my magic, he metamorphosed himself into a bubble of air and vanished down the maiden’s throat.
“I have brought her back, but the monster is still within her, waiting for a chance to issue forth and destroy all you good people of Wales. If she marries this man, the monster will sally forth on the bridal night and tear the poor bridegroom to pieces. If she remains here, the whole village is in danger. The world is safe only as long as the demon realizes that I am close at hand to strangle him at his first appearance.”
The audience shivered and seemed stunned by my tale.
“What are your plans?” the king asked, pale and shaken. “And why should you undergo such a risk to save the life of one man or all the simple folk of this village?”
“I propose to take this unfortunate damsel with me to Cornwall. During the journey I shall watch her closely. If the monster comes out of her, I will at once kill him and return her to her parents and her betrothed. If the fiend still sulks in her midgut by the time I reach Cornwall, I shall give her rare medicine I know of and thus, gradually, the fiend will die. I am a lone man, without wife or children, and it is better for me to take this great risk than to have all these good people die in one night of slaughter, horrible even to imagine. I know a lot about such demons and their course of action, and thus it is better for me to keep the damsel near me till he is utterly destroyed.”
“Oh, kind sir!” cried the mother. “How can we thank you? You are too good to us. No other man would have done all these wondrous things just for strangers. I will feel so safe with my daughter in your care!”
And the aged one came to me on his knees and humbly handed me a gold chain and thanked me for saving him from a horrible tearing at the hands of this deformed beast from Hell.
It was now late in the afternoon, yet, as the day was warm, I insisted that I depart at once for Cornwall; so I mounted my charger with the damsel pillioned before me. Tied to the back of my saddle was a bundle of presents — jewels and fine silken goods-from the king and his knights. I wore all my armor save my helmet, which had tied to the saddle, and in its place I wore my helmet, I a little velvet cap.
We said kind farewells to all of these Welsh people.
King Cadwyn rode down the narrow path beside me.
“Art sure, dear sibling,” he asked, as he turned to leave me, “art sure the damsel hath a devil in her?”
“Certainly,” I replied very seriously.
“Then she be a true woman,” he answered, “for all women I have ever known are thus inhabited.”
With this he winked at me, and trotted back to where his knights awaited him.
Ruth and I fared on through the summer afternoon. More and more, as the sun lowered in the kindly sky, she leaned heavily against me; and now and then she sighed as she looked at me with those deep blue eyes and asked, “Dost see aught of the monster peering from my mouth?”
“Nay,” I replied, holding her closer so that she be not frightened.
“Yet I fear me that it cometh out. Drive it back, my heart!” and so I did with kisses.
How stubborn that devil was! How hard to drive back!
Finally she gasped. “No other man,” she whispered, “would have done it as you did.”
“No other man!” I echoed.
And once again I drove the devil back from her mouth.
8. The Bride Well
As Paul Spencer pointed out in our last issue, DAVID H. KELLER was a staunch admirer of the works of James Branch Cabell, and while there is a touch of Cabell in all of the Tales From Cornwall, it comes out most clearly in the Cecil, Overlord sequences, of which this is the fourth.
It was not till we had arrived within the boundaries of my beloved Cornwall that I realized my appearing before my subjects with a Welsh lady might not be either understood or accepted by those sturdy knights who had been so faithful during the early months of my reign. It was all well enough to rescue the so lovely Ruth and even spend long minutes driving the devil back into her body with long, lingering kisses; but to brazenly bring the same lady back to my domains might cause political disturbances of a direst nature. Yet, at the same time, there was Ruth, on the horse in front of me; and, from certain clinging habits she had spontaneously developed, I had every reason to believe she intended to remain within the curve of my left arm, waist-bound, for the rest of her life.
“I am Overlord of Cornwall,” at last I made bold to say, “and much of my support comes from nobles with marriageable daughters. As long as I remain a bachelor, these nobles will remain my friends, but if they saw you and found you were from Wales, jealous dissensions would at once arise. So we shall stop at the next chapman’s and buy masculine apparel for you, and you can go to my castle as a page.”
“Shall I be your page,” Ruth asked.
“Oh, I presume so. At least I will have no other, and you can run my errands for me, and bind on my armor when I go giant-hunting.”
“That will be nice. I think I shall look well in boy’s clothes.
I used to wear them when I was much younger. Will you give me a boy’s name?”
We talked it over and decided to call her Percy. Later in the day we met an itinerant who was selling clothing to those who could buy, and I made a shrewd trade with him, so when Ruth came from behind the bushes she looked like a young lad, not yet shaven. The peddler took her clothes and some silver and left us.