stle, the boy gave him a push from behind,
and he met death on the sharp rocks below. Then the boy took his
master's book of magic and found a recipe to make one grow. He made
the mixture and swallowed it, and straightway began to grow big and
tall. This greatly delighted him, until he found he was getting much
bigger than the average man and rapidly becoming a giant. So he sought
for a way to arrest the action of the magical draft; but before he
could find it he had grown to enormous proportions, and was bigger than
the biggest giant. There was nothing in the book of magic to make one
grow smaller, so he was obliged to remain as he was--the largest man in
the Enchanted Island.

All this had happened in a single night. The morning after his
master's murder the page announced himself lord of the castle; and,
seeing his enormous size, none dared deny his right to rule. On
account of his bushy hair, which was fiery red in color, and the bushy
red beard that covered his face when he became older, people came to
call him the Red One. And after his evil deeds and quarrelsome temper
had made him infamous throughout the island, people began to call him
the Red Rogue of Dawna.

He had gathered around him a number of savage barbarians, as wicked and
quarrelsome as himself, and so none dared to interfere with him, or
even to meet him, if it were possible to avoid it.

This same Red Rogue it was who had drawn the good Baron Merd into a
quarrel and afterward slain the old knight and his followers, destroyed
his castle, and carried his little daughter Seseley and her girl
friends, Berna and Helda, into captivity, shutting them up in his own
gloomy castle.

The Red Rogue thought he had done a very clever thing, and had no fear
of the consequences until one of his men came running up to the castle
to announce that Prince Marvel and his companions were approaching to
rescue the Lady Seseley.

"How many of them are there?" demanded the Red Rogue.

"There are eight, altogether," answered the man, "but two of them are
girls."

"And they expect to force me to give up my captives?" asked the Red
One, laughing with a noise like the roar of a waterfall. "Why, I shall
make prisoners of every one of them!"

The man looked at his master fearfully, and replied:

"This Prince Marvel is very famous, and all people speak of his bravery
and power. It was he who conquered King Terribus of Spor, and that
mighty ruler is now his fri