Then the little dog answered pettishly, “Pooh, what nonsense you talk! surely a great griffin can’t miss a little bone fit for me?” and nestling his nose under the watch-dog, he tried forthwith to bring up one of the bones.
On this the watch-dog grew angry, and, though with much reluctance, he seized the little dog by the nape of the neck and threw him off, but without hurting him. Suddenly the little dog changed into a monstrous serpent, bigger even than the griffin himself, and the watch-dog barked with all his might. The griffin rose in a great hurry, and the serpent sprang upon him ere he was well awake. I wish, dearest Nymphalin, you could have seen the battle between the griffin and the serpent,—how they coiled and twisted, and bit and darted their fiery tongues at each other. At length the serpent got uppermost, and was about to plunge his tongue into that part of the griffin which is unprotected by his scales, when the dog, seizing him by the tail, bit him so sharply that he could not help turning round to kill his new assailant, and the griffin, taking advantage of the opportunity, caught the serpent by the throat with both claws, and fairly strangled him. As soon as the griffin had recovered from the nervousness of the conflict, he heaped all manner of caresses on the dog for saving his life. The dog told him the whole story, and the griffin then explained that the dead snake was the king of the serpents, who had the power to change himself into any shape he pleased. “If he had tempted you,” said he, “to leave the treasure but for one moment, or to have given him any part of it, ay, but a single bone, he would have crushed you in an instant, and stung me to death ere I could have waked; but none, no, not the most venomous thing in creation, has power to hurt the honest!”
“That has always been my belief,” answered the dog; “and now, sir, you had better go to sleep again and leave the rest to me.”
“Nay,” answered the griffin, “I have no longer need of a servant; for now that the king of the serpents is dead, the rest will never molest me. It was only to satisfy his avarice that his subjects dared to brave the den of the griffin.”
Upon hearing this the dog was exceedingly delighted; and raising himself on his hind paws, he begged the griffin most movingly to let him return to earth, to visit his mistress the cat, and worry his rival the fox.
“You do not serve an ungrateful master,” answered the griffin. “You shall return, and I will teach you all the craft of our race, which is much craftier than the race of that pettifogger the fox, so that you may be able to cope with your rival.”
“Ah, excuse me,” said the dog, hastily, “I am equally obliged to you; but I fancy honesty is a match for cunning any day, and I think myself a great deal safer in being a dog of honour than if I knew all the tricks in the world.”
“Well,” said the griffin, a little piqued at the dog’s bluntness, “do as you please; I wish you all possible success.”
Then the griffin opened a secret door in the side of the cabin, and the dog saw a broad path that led at once into the wood. He thanked the griffin with all his heart, and ran wagging his tail into the open moonlight. “Ah, ah, master fox,” said he, “there’s no trap for an honest dog that has not two doors to it, cunning as you think yourself.”
With that he curled his tail gallantly over his left leg, and set off on a long trot to the cat’s house. When he was within sight of it, he stopped to refresh himself by a pool of water, and who should be there but our friend the magpie.