The Book of Dragons by E. Nesbit Page A

his Princess in his arms and kissed her. The griffin was busy sweeping thestairs of the Lone Tower, but the dragon saw, and he gave a cry of rage—and it was like twenty engines all letting off steam at the top of their voices inside Cannon Street Station.
    And the two lovers stood looking up at the dragon. He was dreadful to look at. His head was white with age—and his beard had grown so long that he caught his claws in it as he walked. His wings were white with the salt that had settled on them from the spray of the sea. His tail was long and thick and jointed and white, and had little legs to it, any number of them—far too many—so that it looked like a very large fat silkworm; and his claws were as long as lessons, and as sharp as bayonets.
    “Good-bye, love!” cried Nigel, and ran out across the yellow sand towards the sea. He had one end of a cord tied to his arm.
    The dragon was clambering down the face of the cliff, and next moment he was crawling and writhing and sprawling and wriggling across the beach after Nigel, making great holes in the sand with his heavy feet—and the very end of his tail, where there were no legs, made, as it dragged, a mark in the sand such as you make when you launch a boat; and he breathed fire till the wet sand hissed again, and the water of the little rock pools got quite frightened, and all went off in steam.
    And still Nigel held on and the dragon after him.
    The Princess could see nothing for the steam, and shestood crying bitterly, but still holding on tight with her right hand to the other end of the cord which Nigel had told her to hold; while with her left she held the ship’s chronometer, and looked at it through her tears as he had bidden her look, so as to know when to pull the rope.
    On went Nigel over the sand, and on went the dragon after him. And the tide was low, and sleepy little waves lapped the sand’s edge.
    Now at the lip of the water Nigel paused and looked back, and the dragon made a bound, beginning a scream of rage that was like all the engines of all the railways in England. But it never uttered the second half of that scream, for now it knew suddenly that it was sleepy—it turned to hurry back to dry land, because sleeping near whirlpools is so unsafe. But before it reached the shore sleep caught it and turned it to stone. And Nigel, seeing this, ran shoreward for his life—and the tide began to flow in, and the time of the whirlpool’s sleep was nearly over, and he stumbled and he waded and he swam, and the Princess pulled for dear life at the cord in her hand, and pulled him up on to the dry shelf of rock just as the great sea dashed in and made itself once more into the girdle of Nine Whirlpools all round the island.
    But the dragon was asleep under the whirlpools, and whenhe woke up from being asleep he found he was drowned, so there was an end of him.
    “Now, there’s only the griffin,” said Nigel. And the Princess said:
    “Yes—only—” And she kissed Nigel and went back to sew the last leaf of the last lily on the bosom of her wedding gown. And she thought and thought of what was written on the stone about the griffin being artificial—and next day she said to Nigel:
    “You know a griffin is half a lion and half an eagle, and the other two halves when they’ve joined make the leo-griff. But I’ve never seen
him
. Yet I have an idea.”
    So they talked it over and arranged everything.
    Then when the griffin fell asleep that afternoon at tea-time, Nigel went softly behind him and trod on his tail, and at the same time the Princess cried: “Look out! There’s a lion behind you.”
    And the griffin, waking suddenly from his dreams, twisted his large neck round to look for the lion, and saw a lion’s flank, and fastened its eagle beak in it. For the griffin had been artificially made by the King-enchanter, and the two halves had never really got used to each other. So now the eagle half of the griffin, who was still rather sleepy,