"If I have not the strength to fulfil my task," he said to himself, "who will fulfil it? If my friends behold my distress, it is all up with me: they will not let me go through with my mission and I shall never find the Blue Bird!"
At this thought, the boy's heart leaped within his breast and all his generous nature rose in rebellion. It would never do to be, perhaps, within arm's length of happiness and not to try for it, at the risk of dying in the attempt, to try for it and hand it over at last to all mankind!
That settled it! Tyltyl resolved to sacrifice himself. Like a true hero, he brandished the heavy golden key and cried:
"I must open the door!"
He ran up to the great door, with Tylô panting by his side. The poor Dog was half-dead with fright, but his pride and his devotion to Tyltyl obliged him to smother his fears:
"I shall stay," he said to his master, "I'm not afraid! I shall stay with my little god!"
In the meantime, all the others had fled. Bread was crumbling to bits behind a pillar; Sugar was melting in a corner with Mytyl in his arms; Night and the Cat, both shaking with fury, kept to the far end of the hall.
A wonderful garden lay before him,
a dream-garden filled with flowers that shone like stars