Eric’s son, Cecil’s grandson, Balder, the far from Beautiful, save that of him above the neck, lay helpless on the floor. He thought of Cornwall, his land where peace had reigned for so many years, and knew that he and he alone stood between the simple, happy folk and death and disaster. Because there was nothing to say he said nothing. But he waited realizing that though he had lost the key, none of the spirit men would know that till the candle was placed in the window.
His bride, the so beautiful Marylyn, last of the Toad-folk, with the arms and hands of a Venus and feet of a batrachian, lay resting, waiting, drowsing on the bed. At last she must have slept for one fair arm dropped off the bed and rested, hand on floor. Then Balder knew that perhaps fate had delivered her into his power. Very carefully he rolled over and once again over on his body, a trick he had learned on the meadow grass. Now his face was but a few inches from the devil-lady’s wrist. He arched his neck, that strong bull-like neck and opened his mouth; then he suddenly took that wrist and fastened on it with jaws that for many years, once fastened, had never let go.
The toad woman screamed with pain.
Jerking, he pulled her off the bed.
She beat him on the face with her free hand, but he simply held her tighter, shaking her arm as a terrier would shake a rat. Her blood covered his face but lie held her tight. She pulled him over the floor trying to reach the candle and with it in her free hand, the window; but though once and again twice, she almost reached it, each time, with, a powerful, almost convulsive movement, he pulled her back to the floor. At last she fainted from loss of blood and pain. That was what he was waiting for. Opening his mouth he jerked upward and secured a new hold on her upper arm. She woke only to scream and faint again. Now, exerting all his strength, he reached her neck and clamped his jaws on it, just below her chin. Almost losing consciousness, he thought:
“All I have to do now is to hold fast.”
Tighter and tighter he held her! Closer and closer his jaws closed on that white tower of loveliness and at last he knew that he lay fastened to his dead bride. He opened his jaws, worked his mouth down the silken cord, covered now with blood, and finally came to the golden key. He closed on that with his mouth and, satisfied with the knowledge that his land was safe, he fell asleep.
The next morning, urged to do so by Breda the nurse, Russel the forester with a few men-at-arms broke open the door. There on the floor lay a giant toad, its body already puffed with putrefaction, one arm torn and broken and the neck horribly mangled. Beside the dead toad lay Balder, Prince of Cornwall, with the golden key in his mouth, his face and body red with dried blood. They woke him.
“Cornwall is safe,” he said with a smile, and went to sleep again.
Breda fastened the key around his neck with her apron string and Russel picked him up and carried him to his room. There they washed him and nursed him and in due time he was able to tell them the story of that night battle. And later on Breda told the story to Eric, Overlord of Cornwall, who had come back in haste, suspecting treachery when he found that Wales was at peace.
Eric listened patiently till the end of the tale.
“My son did very well,” he said gladly. “Considering that he had neither arms or legs to fight with, he did very well.”
“He has a strong jaw,” said Breda the nurse.