At these words the guards pulled themselves together and exchanged looks. They began to swagger.
"Ah, is it so?" growled the Captain. "You are a friend of the wizard himself. We must let the King know of this. Yes, you shall enter. Here! Take him captive! Off with him to the prison."
"To prison!" cried John in amazement. "For what ill deed, I pray?"
But already the guards were pressing forward upon him. At the sight of their threatening looks Brutus ran in front of John and began to growl warningly, crouching ready to spring upon the first who should lay hands on the boy. The wolf bristled and showed his fangs. And the bear, rising on his hind legs, growled and blinked his little red eyes so terribly that the men fell back. John was protected by powerful friends. The other animals shrank close to him, and the raven began to scream.
[Illustration: John was protected by powerful friends.]
"Have a care!" warned John. "My friends are armed with sharp teeth and claws, and they will not readily let a stranger touch me."
"He is a wizard!" muttered the soldiers; but they shrank back, afraid to touch him.
"Why do you treat me thus?" asked John wistfully.
"Because you say you are a friend to that vile magician of the woods, by whose arts the Prince was wounded, they say, and who yet holds him at death's door." So spoke the Captain of the guards. "The Prince still lives. But when he passes, the King has decreed that the wizard shall die the death. You come in time to share it, if you be his pupil!"
"Oh, hasten, hasten!" cried John, clasping his hands. "Please take me to him! Perhaps I may yet save the good old man. If it is not too late, perhaps I can also save the Prince."