Now the tale tells how the cave narrowed and again turned sharply,
so that Jurgen came as through a corridor into quite another sort of
underground chamber. Yet this also was a discomfortable place.
Here suspended from the roof of the vault was a kettle of quivering
red flames. These lighted a very old and villainous looking man in
full armor, girded with a sword, and crowned royally: he sat erect
upon a throne, motionless, with staring eyes that saw nothing. Back
of him Jurgen noted many warriors seated in rows, and all staring at
Jurgen with wide-open eyes that saw nothing. The red flaming of the
kettle was reflected in all these eyes, and to observe this was not
pleasant.
Jurgen waited non-committally. Nothing happened. Then Jurgen saw
that at this unengaging monarch's feet were three chests. The lids
had been ripped from two of them, and these were filled with silver
coins. Upon the middle chest, immediately before the king, sat a
woman, with her face resting against the knees of the glaring,
withered, motionless, old rascal.
"And this is a young woman. Obviously! Observe the glint of that
thick coil of hair! the rich curve of the neck! Oh, clearly, a
tidbit fit to fight for, against any moderate odds!"
So ran the thoughts of Jurgen. Bold as a dragon now, he stepped
forward and lifted the girl's head.
Her eyes were closed. She was, even so, the most beautiful creature
Jurgen had ever imagined.
"She does not breathe. And yet, unless memory fails me, this is
certainly a living woman in my arms. Evidently this is a sleep
induced by necromancy. Well, it is not for nothing I have read so
many fairy tales. There are orthodoxies to be observed in the
awakening of every enchanted princess. And Lisa, wherever she may
be, poor dear! is nowhere in this neighborhood, because I hear
nobody talking. So I may consider myself at liberty to do the
traditional thing by this princess. Indeed, it is the only fair
thing for me to do, and justice demands it."
In consequence, Jurgen kissed the girl. Her lips parted and
softened, and they assumed a not unpleasant sort of submissive
ardor. Her eyes, enormous when seen thus closely, had languorously
opened, had viewed him without wonder, and then the lids had fallen,
about half-way, just as, Jurgen remembered, the eyelids of a woman
ought to do when she is being kissed properly. She clung a little,
and now she shivered a little, but not with cold: Jurgen perfectly
remembered that ecstatic shudder convulsing a woman's body:
everything, in fine, was quite as it should be. So Jurgen put an end
to the kiss, which, as you may surmise, was a tolerably lengthy
affair.
His heart was pounding as though determined to burst from his body,
and he could feel the blood tingling at his finger-tips. He wondered
what in the world had come over him, who was too old for such
emotions.
Yet, truly, this was the loveliest girl that Jurgen had ever
imagined. Fair was she to look on, with her shining gray eyes and
small smiling lips, a fairer person might no man boast of having
seen. And she regarded Jurgen graciously, with her cheeks flushed by
that red flickering overhead, and she was very lovely to observe.
She was clothed in a robe of flame-colored silk, and about her neck
was a collar of red gold. When she spoke her voice was music.
"I knew that you would come," the girl said, happily.
"I am very glad that I came," observed Jurgen.
"But time presses."
"Time sets an admirable example, my dear Princess--"
"Oh, messire, but do you not perceive that you have brought life
into this horrible place! You have given of this life to me, in the
most direct and speedy fashion. But life is very contagious. Already
it is spreading by infection."
And Jurgen regarded the old king, as the girl indicated. The
withered ruffian stayed motionless: but from his nostrils came slow
augmenting jets of vapor, as though he were beginning to breathe in
a chill place. This was odd, because the cave was not cold.
"And all the others too are snorting smoke," says Jurgen. "Upon my
word I think this is a delightful place to be leaving."
First, though, he unfastened the king's sword-belt, and girded
himself therewith, sword, dagger and all. "Now I have arms befitting
my fine shirt," says Jurgen.
Then the girl showed him a sort of passage way, by which they
ascended forty-nine steps roughly hewn in stone, and so came to
daylight. At the top of the stairway was an iron trapdoor, and this
door at the girl's instruction Jurgen lowered. There was no way of
fastening the door from without.
"But Thragnar is not to be stopped by bolts or padlocks," the girl
said. "Instead, we must straightway mark this door with a cross,
since that is a symbol which Thragnar cannot pass."
Jurgen's hand had gone instinctively to his throat. Now he shrugged.
"My dear young lady, I no longer carry the cross. I must fight
Thragnar with other weapons."
"Two sticks will serve, laid crosswise--"
Jurgen submitted that nothing would be easier than to lift the
trapdoor, and thus dislodge the sticks. "They will tumble apart
without anyone having to touch them, and then what becomes of your
crucifix?"
"Why, how quickly you think of everything!" she said, admiringly.
"Here is a strip from my sleeve, then. We will tie the twigs
together."
Jurgen did this, and laid upon the trapdoor a recognizable crucifix.
"Still, when anyone raises the trapdoor whatever lies upon it will
fall off. Without disparaging the potency of your charm, I cannot
but observe that in this case it is peculiarly difficult to handle.
Magician or no, I would put heartier faith in a stout padlock."
So the girl tore another strip, from the hem of her gown, and then
another from her right sleeve, and with these they fastened their
cross to the surface of the trapdoor, in such a fashion that the
twigs could not be dislodged from beneath. They mounted the fine
steed whose bridle was marked with a coronet, the girl riding
pillion, and they turned westward, since the girl said this was
best.
For, as she now told Jurgen, she was Guenevere, the daughter of
Gogyrvan, King of Glathion and the Red Islands. So Jurgen told her
he was the Duke of Logreus, because he felt it was not appropriate
for a pawnbroker to be rescuing princesses: and he swore, too, that
he would restore her safely to her father, whatever Thragnar might
attempt. And all the story of her nefarious capture and imprisonment
by King Thragnar did Dame Guenevere relate to Jurgen, as they rode
together through the pleasant May morning.
She considered the Troll King could not well molest them. "For now
you have his charmed sword, Caliburn, the only weapon with which
Thragnar can be slain. Besides, the sign of the cross he cannot
pass. He beholds and trembles."
"My dear Princess, he has but to push up the trapdoor from beneath,
and the cross, being tied to the trapdoor, is promptly moved out of
his way. Failing this expedient, he can always come out of the cave
by the other opening, through which I entered. If this Thragnar has
any intelligence at all and a reasonable amount of tenacity, he will
presently be at hand."
"Even so, he can do no harm unless we accept a present from him. The
difficulty is that he will come in disguise."
"Why, then, we will accept gifts from nobody."
"There is, moreover, a sign by which you may distinguish Thragnar.
For if you deny what he says, he will promptly concede you are in
the right. This was the curse put upon him by Miramon Lluagor, for a
detection and a hindrance."
"By that unhuman trait," says Jurgen, "Thragnar ought to be very
easy to distinguish."
10.