I wish you could have heard those crows cheer.
But Elsie wouldn’t have the escort.
‘It’s very kind,’ she said, ‘but the dragon only eats crows, and I’m not a crow, thank goodness—I mean I’m not a crow—and if I’ve got to be brave I’d like to be brave, and none of you to get eaten. If only some one will come with me to show me the way and then run back as hard as he can when we get near the dragon. Please!’
[p199]
‘If only one goes I shall be the one,’ said the King. And he and Elsie went through the great gates side by side. She held the end of his wing, which was the nearest they could get to hand in hand.
The crowd outside waited in breathless silence. Elsie and the King went on through the winding paths of the People’s Park. And by the winding paths they came at last to the Dragon. He lay very peacefully on a great stone slab, his enormous bat-like wings spread out on the grass and his goldy-green scales glittering in the pretty pink sunset light.
‘Go back!’ said Elsie.
‘No,’ said the King.
‘If you don’t,’ said Elsie, ‘I won’t go on. Seeing a crow might rouse him to fury, or give him an appetite, or something. Do—do go!’
So he went, but not far. He hid behind a tree, and from its shelter he watched.
Elsie drew a long breath. Her heart was thumping under the black frock. ‘Suppose,’ she thought, ‘he takes me for a crow!’ But she thought how yellow her hair was, and decided that the dragon would be certain to notice that.