hen the brake is hard on.

"Oh, Harry," said Effie, "I wonder when he will eat us!" The dragon was
flying across woods and fields with great flaps of his wings that
carried him a quarter of a mile at each flap.

[Illustration: "He rose into the air, rattling like a third-class
carriage." _See page 50._]

Harry and Effie could see the country below, hedges and rivers and
churches and farmhouses flowing away from under them, much faster than
you see them running away from the sides of the fastest express train.

And still the dragon flew on. The children saw other dragons in the air
as they went, but the dragon who was as big as the dining room never
stopped to speak to any of them, but just flew on quite steadily.

"He knows where he wants to go," said Harry. "Oh, if he would only drop
us before he gets there!"

But the dragon held on tight, and he flew and flew and flew until at
last, when the children were quite giddy, he settled down, with a
rattling of all his scales, on the top of a mountain. And he lay there
on his great green scaly side, panting, and very much out of breath,
because he had come such a long way. But his claws were fast in Effie's
sash and the little point at the back of Harry's Eton jacket.

Then Effie took out the knife Harry had given her on her birthday. It
had cost only sixpence to begin with, and she had had it a month, and it
never could sharpen anything but slate-pencils; but somehow she managed
to make that knife cut her sash in front, and crept out of it, leaving
the dragon with only a green silk bow in one of his claws. That knife
would never have cut Harry's jacket-tail off, though, and when Effie had
tried for some time she saw that this was so and gave it up. But with
her help Harry managed to wriggle quietly out of his sleeves, so that
the dragon had only an Eton jacket in his other claw. Then the children
crept on tiptoe to a crack in the rocks and got in. It was much too
narrow for the dragon to get in also, so they stayed in there and waited
to make faces at the dragon when he felt rested enough to sit up and
begin to think about eating them. He was very angry, indeed, when they
made faces at him, and blew out fire and smoke at them, but they ran
farther into the cave so that he could not reach them, and when he was
tired of blowing he went away.

But they were afraid to come out of the cave, so they went farther in,
and presently the cave opened out and grew bigger, and th