hed out fire and smoke. With his
long tail he swished right and left among the forest trees and these
snapped and broke like little twigs.

The wizard, still mumbling from his book, handed Batcha a bridle.

"Throw this around his neck!" he commanded.

Batcha took the bridle but was too terrified to act. The wizard spoke
again and Batcha made one uncertain step in the dragon's direction.
He lifted his arm to throw the bridle over the dragon's head, when the
dragon suddenly turned on him, swooped under him, and before Batcha
knew what was happening he found himself on the dragon's back and he
felt himself being lifted up, up, up, above the tops of the forest trees,
above the very mountains themselves.

[Illustration: _On, on, they went, whizzing through the stars of
heaven_]

For a moment the sky was so dark that only the fire, spurting from the
dragon's eyes and mouth, lighted them on their way.

The dragon lashed this way and that in fury, he belched forth great
floods of boiling water, he hissed, he roared, until Batcha, clinging to
his back, was half dead with fright.

Then gradually his anger cooled. He ceased belching forth boiling water,
he stopped breathing fire, his hisses grew less terrifying.

"Thank God!" Batcha gasped. "Perhaps now he'll sink to earth and let me
go."

But the dragon was not yet finished with punishing Batcha for breaking
his oath. He rose still higher until the mountains of the earth looked
like tiny ant-hills, still up until even these had disappeared. On, on
they went, whizzing through the stars of heaven.

At last the dragon stopped flying and hung motionless in the firmament.
To Batcha this was even more terrifying than moving.

"What shall I do? What shall I do?" he wept in agony. "If I jump down to
earth I'll kill myself and I can't fly on up to heaven! Oh, dragon,
have mercy on me! Fly back to earth and let me go and I swear before God
that never again until death will I offend you!"

Batcha's pleading would have moved a stone to pity but the dragon, with
an angry shake of his tail, only hardened his heart.

Suddenly Batcha heard the sweet voice of the skylark that was mounting
to heaven.

"Skylark!" he called. "Dear skylark, bird that God loves, help me, for I
am in great trouble! Fly up to heaven and tell God Almighty that Batcha,
the shepherd, is hung in midair on a dragon's back. Tell Him that Batcha
praises Him forever and begs Him to deliver him."

The skylark