“What means this?” he roared. “How came that fellow to be out of prison? Ho, guards, take him back at once!”
“No!” said the little Princess bravely. “I believe in him, and he shall have justice in my realm!”
“Do you dare defy me?” cried the Chancellor. “Guards, do your duty! I am Regent here.”
A handful of soldiers strode toward the grenadier. With a smile on his lips and in his eyes, the grenadier struck the hippodrac one smart tap with the magic wand.
The creature bounced, and instantly began to increase in size; suddenly it snorted fiercely and reared on its hind legs; once again it screamed even such a scream as it had uttered when the grenadier enchanted it in the ruined castle. People began to fly pell-mell in every direction. Only Mirabel, who was a lass of spirit, stood her ground.
When the hippodrac had reached its full size, the soldier cried “Stop!” Then, for a moment, the monster and the man gazed directly into each other’s eyes. The soldier still smiled.
The hippodrac had understood.
Uttering now the angriest cry of all, the creature darted forward, and seized the Lord Chancellor by the scruff of his ugly neck. Then opening wide its giant wings, it leaped up on all four legs, and flying down the vast hall, crashed through a great window and out into the freedom of the cloudless sky. So terrified was it by its experiences, that it flew back to its lair in the forests of the sun, and never bothered anybody any more.
On the way home, while flying at a great height, it got bored with carrying the Lord Chancellor and let him drop. No one has since heard of this personage. No one ever will.
When the excitement subsided, the citizens hailed the grenadier as the preserver of their country and offered him the treasure which the Chancellor had stolen away. But the grenadier had already found a treasure much more to his liking—the Princess Mirabel. The handsome young couple were married with great pomp and ceremony on New Year’s day.