t was a very
cold night.

[Illustration: GEOFFREY GOETH TO MEET THE DRAGON]

Was there a sound away off somewhere out-of-doors? No. He descended
heavily through the sleeping house. When the candle burned upright and
clear yellow, his gait was steady; but he started many times at
corners where its flame bobbed and flattened and shrunk to a blue,
sickly rag half torn from the wick. "Ouf! Mort d'aieul!" he would
mutter. "But I must count my wine to-night." And so he came down into
the wide cellars, and trod tiptoe among the big round tuns. With a
wooden mallet he tapped them, and shook his head to hear the hollow
humming that their emptiness gave forth. No oath came from him at all,
for the matter was too grievous. The darkness that filled everywhere
save just next to the candle, pressed harder and harder upon him. He
looked at the door which led from inside here out into the night, and
it was comfortable to know how thick were the panels and how stout the
bolts and hinges.

"I can hold my own against any man, and have jousted fairly in my
time," he thought to himself, and touched his sword. "But--um!" The
notion of meeting a fiery dragon in combat spoke loudly to the better
part of his valour. Suddenly a great rat crossed his foot. Ice and
fire went from his stomach all through him, and he sprang on a wooden
stool, and then found he was shaking. Soon he got down, with sweaty
hands.

"Am I getting a coward?" he asked aloud. He seized the mallet that had
fallen, and struck a good knock against the nearest hogshead. Ah--ha!
This one, at least, was full. He twisted the wooden stop and drank
what came, from the hollow of his hand. It was cowslip wine. Ragingly
he spluttered and gulped, and then kicked the bins with all his might.
While he was stooping to rub his toe, who should march in but Miss
Elaine, dressed and ready for young Geoffrey. But she caught sight of
her father in time, and stepped back into the passage in a flutter.
Good heavens! This would never do. Geoffrey might be knocking at the
cellar-door at any moment. Her papa must be got away at once.

"Papa! papa!" she cried, running in.

Sir Godfrey sprang into the air, throwing mallet and candle against
the wine-butts. Then he saw it was only his daughter.

"Wretched girl! you--you--if you don't want to become an orphan, never
tamper like that with my nerves again in your life. What are you come
here for? How dare you leave your bed at such an hour?"

"Oh