the spider's teaching,
and clapped his hand across his mouth to keep from shouting out his joy,
so that the dwarfs could hear. Now once more like a madman rushing at
the walls, he tore down all the dusty webs, and twisted them together in
long strands. These strands he braided in thick ropes and tied them,
knotting them and twisting and doubling once again. All the while he
kept bewailing the stupid way in which he wasted time. 'Three days ago I
might have quit this den,' he sighed, 'had I but used the means that lay
at hand. Full well I knew that heaven always finds a way to help the man
who helps himself. No creature lives too mean to be of service, and
even dungeon walls must harbour help for him who boldly grasps the first
thing that he sees and makes it serve him.'

"So fast and furiously he worked that, long before the moonbeam faded,
his cobweb rope was strong enough to bear his weight, and long enough to
reach twice over to the slatted window overhead. By many trials he at
last succeeded in throwing it around a spike that barred the window,
and, climbing up, he forced the slats apart and clambered through. Then
tying the rope's end to the window, he slid down all the dizzy cliffside
in which the dwarfs had dug the dungeon, and dropped into the stream
that ran below.

"Lo, when he looked around him it was dawn. Midsummer morn it was, and,
plunging through the wood, he heard the lark's song rise, and reached
the palace gate just as it opened to the blare of trumpets for the
king's train to ride forth. When Ederyn saw the royal cavalcade, he
shrunk back into the wayside bushes, so ill-befitting did it seem that
he should come before the king in tattered garments, with blood upon his
hands where the sharp rocks had cut, and with foul dungeon stains.

"But that the king might know he'd ever proven faithful, he sank upon
his knees and bared his breast at his approach. There all the pledges
glistened in the sunlight, in rainbow hues. There Pain had dropped her
heart's blood in a glittering ruby, and Honour set her seal upon him in
a golden star. A diamond gleamed where Sorrow's tear had fallen, and
amethysts glowed now with purple splendour to mark his patient meeting
with Defeat. But mostly were the pledges little pearls for little duties
faithfully performed; and there they shone, and, as the people gazed,
they saw the jewels take the shape of letters, so that the king read out
before them all, '_Semper fidelis_.'