If the king’s daughter had been pleased with the appearance of her deliverer, Jössl had every reason to be no less delighted with that of the lady to whom he was about to devote his life.
Full of hope and enthusiasm, he passed on through the midst of the people—regardless of their shouts, for he was thinking only of her—and the Three Black Dogs behind.
It was past the time when the dragon usually received his victim, and he was advancing rapidly towards the city walls, roaring horribly, and “swinging the scaly horrors of his folded tail.” The fury of the monster might have made a more practised arm tremble, but Jössl thought of his father’s desire that he should be a great man, and do brave deeds, and his courage only seemed to grow as the danger approached. He walked so straight towards the dragon, with a step so firm and so unlike the trembling gait of his usual victims, that it almost disconcerted him. When they had approached each other within a hundred paces, Jössl called to his dog Lightning, “At him, good dog!” At the first sound of his voice Lightning sprang to the attack, and with such celerity that the dragon had no time to decide how to meet his antagonist.
“Fetch him down, Springer!” cried Jössl next; and the second dog, following close on Lightning’s track, sprang upon the dragon’s neck, and held him to the ground.
“Finish him, Gulper!” shouted Jössl; and the third dog, panting for the order, was even with the others in a trice, and fixing his great fangs in the dragon’s flesh, snapped his spine like glass, and bounded back with delight to his master’s feet.
Jössl, only stopping to caress his dogs, drew his knife, and cut out the dragon’s tongue; and then returned to the city with his trophy, and the Three Black Dogs behind.
If the people had uttered jubilant shouts when he started, how much more now at his victorious return! The king and his daughter heard the shout in their palace, and came down to meet the conqueror.
“Behold my daughter!” said the old king: “take her; she is yours, and my kingdom with her! I owe all to you, and in return I give you all I have.”
“Nay, sire,” interposed Jössl; “that you give me permission to approach the princess is all I ask, and that she will deign to let me think that I may be one day found not unworthy of her hand. But as regards your kingdom, that is not for me. I am but a poor lad, and have never had any thing to command but my Three Black Dogs: how should I, then, order the affairs of a kingdom?”
The king and all the people, and the princess above all, were pleased with his modesty and grace; and they sounded his praises, and those of his Three Black Dogs too, and conducted them with him to the palace, where Jössl received a suit of embroidered clothes and the title of duke, and was seated next the princess.