turned to the shelves behind him and took down at random a book bound in red-and-gold. "Here, let us begin with this," he said. "It may not be the best of all our Chronicles, but if the warlike King can be induced to read it through, it may serve to hold his wrath for a space."
"Who will go with the volume into the enemy's camp?" asked the Lord Mayor dubiously.
"We must send our best reader," said the Librarian. "Red Rex must hear the tale read aloud, the better to hold his unaccustomed attention."
"Surely, you are the best reader, Sir Librarian," urged the Lord Mayor generously. "How we all admire your style and diction!"
Crash! The rainbow window above their heads was shivered into a thousand pieces.
The Lord Mayor turned pale. "We must make haste!" he urged, pushing the Librarian gently by the elbow.
"Nay," said the Librarian coolly, releasing himself. "There is one who reads far better than I. It is a young boy, the son of a poor widow living on the High Street. Harold is his name, and he reads as sweetly as a nightingale sings. Let us send for him at the same time when our messenger goes to King Victor."
"Let it be done immediately!" commanded the Lord Mayor.
This happened on a Saturday, when the boys were not at school. But on account of the bombardment of the city, the Lord Mayor had already given orders that every child should remain in his own home that morning. So Harold was with his mother when the messenger from the Lord Mayor knocked on the door of the little cottage in the High Street, and Robert and Richard did not know anything about it.
"Come with me!" said the messenger to Harold. "You are needed for important service."
"Oh, where is he going?" cried the poor, trembling mother, holding back her boy by the shoulders.
"He is to come directly to the library," said the messenger. "The Librarian has a task for him."
"Ah! The Librarian!" The mother sighed with relief, and let her hands fall from the shoulders of Harold. "To that good man of peace I can trust my son, even amid this wicked bombardment."
When Harold came to the library with the messenger, they found the beautiful portal of the building quite destroyed, and the windows lying in pitiful shattered fragments. They entered under a rain of missiles, and discovered the Leading Citizens gathered in a pale group in the center of the hall, under a heavy oak table.
"My boy!" said the Librarian, with as much dignity as possible under the circumstances. "We have sent for you, believing that you only can save our beautiful library, our books, our city, our people, from immediate destruction. Will you risk your life for all these, Harold?"
Harold looked at him bravely. "I do not know what you mean, sir," he said, "but gladly would I risk my life to save the precious books alone. Tell me what I am to do, and I will do it as well as a boy can."
"Well spoken, my brave lad!" cried the Librarian. "You are to do this"; and he thrust into the hand of Harold a red-and-gold volume. "Even as the boy David of old conquered the Philistine with a child's toy, so you may perhaps conquer this Philistine with a story-book. Go to the savage King yonder, with a flag of truce; and if you can win his ear, beg to read him this, which is of an importance. If you read as well as I have heard you do ere now, I think he will pause in his work of destruction, at least until the story's end."
Harold took the book, wondering. "I will try my best, sir," he promised simply.
III. RED REX
A committee of the First Citizens led Harold to the city gate. He wished to say good-bye to his mother, and to Richard and Robert; but there was no time. Presently a watchman raised a white flag above the wall. Thereafter the noise of the besiegers ceased.
"A truce, ho!"
"What message from the besieged?"
"One comes to parley with your King."
"Let him come forth, under the flag of truce. He will be safe."
Bearing the white flag in one hand and the gorgeous book in the other, Harold stepped outside the gate. The foreign soldiers stared to see so young a messenger, and some of them would have laughed. But Harold held up his head proudly and showed them that he was not afraid, nor was he to be laughed at.
"I am the messenger. Pray bring me to the King," he said with dignity.
A guard of fierce-looking soldiers took him in charge and marched him across the trampled sward, between the ranks of the army, until they came to a little hillock. And there Harold found himself standing in front of a huge man with bristling red hair and beard, having a mighty arm bound with iron. His eyes were wild and bloodshot. He sat upon the hillock as if it were a throne, and held a wicked-looking sword across his great knees, frowning terribly.
"Well, who are you, and what do you want with me?" growled the Red King. "A queer envoy this! A mere boy!"
"The City Fathers have sent me to read you something, please Your Majesty," said Harold, trying to look brave, though his knees were quaking at the awful appearance of the War-Lord.
"Is it a war message?" asked Red Rex, eyeing the red-and-gold book suspiciously.
"You must hear and judge," answered Harold.
"Very well," grumbled the Red King. "But waste no time. Begin and have done as quickly as may be."
Harold began to read from the red-and-gold book; but he had not gone far when Red Rex interrupted him.
"Why, it is a tale!" he roared. "Thunder and lightning! Do they think this is a child's party? Go home with your story-book to your nursery and leave me to deal with your city in warrior fashion."
"I come from no nursery!" protested Harold, squaring his shoulders. "I am no molly-coddle. No boy can beat me at any game. I am instructed to read you this, and I must do so, unless you break the truce and do me harm."
"Who ever heard the like of this!" thundered Red Rex. "Here am I making real war, and this boy interrupts me to read a tale! What a waste of time! I read nothing, boy. War dispatches are all I have taste for. Does this concern war?"
"It has everything to do with this war," said Harold truthfully. "It is very important, and they say I read rather well."
"When did you learn to read rather well?" questioned the Red King sulkily. "I never learned to read well, myself, and I am thrice your age. I never have had time. At your years I was already a soldier. Fighting was the only sport I cared for. Reading is girls' business."
"A lot of good things are girls' business, and boys' business, too," said Harold loyally. "But please hear me read about the fight, Your Majesty."
"About a fight; – it is a long time since I heard a story about a fight, written in ink," said the Red King musingly. "But I have myself seen many fights, written in red blood."
"This is a story different from any you ever read," said Harold. "It is a story no one ever heard read before, outside Kisington. Will Your Majesty permit that I begin?"
Red Rex hummed and hawed, hesitated and frowned. But he was a curious King, as well as a savage one, and his curiosity triumphed. "What ho!" he shouted to his guard at last. "Let there be a truce until I give word to resume the fighting. I have that which claims my attention. Boy, I will hear the story. Plant the flag of truce upon this hillock and sit down here at my feet. Now!" He unfastened his belt and sword, took off his heavy helmet and made himself comfortable, while his men lolled about in the grass near by. Harold seated himself at the feet of the Red King, as he was bidden; and opening the red-and-gold book began to read in his best manner the story of The Dragon of Hushby.
IV. THE DRAGON OF HUSHBY, PART I
Long, long ago, in the days when even stranger things befell than we see nowadays, travelers brought news to the little town of Kisington-by-the-Sea. They said that the terrible Dragon of Hushby had wakened again from his fifty years' nap; had crept out of his cave in the mountain, and was terrifying the country as he had done in the grandfathers' times. Already he had destroyed ten horses; had eaten one hundred head of cattle, six fair maidens, and twelve plump little children.