Wendelin had been changed into a falcon, and the
rat struggled in vain to escape his powerful attack.
The prisoner had followed the combat first with anxiety, then with joy.
While the falcon held the rat in his claws and struck him with his beak
again and again, she called the squire to her, and bade him free her from
her chains. This was no distasteful task for George, indeed it gave him
so much pleasure that he was in no hurry to finish.
When at last all her bonds were loosened, she stood very erect, and
lifted her arms, and each moment seemed to make her more lovely and more
beautiful. Then she grasped the circle of emeralds, about which the
enchanter had wound her golden hair, and waving it high in the air,
cried: "Falcon, return to the shape you were before. Misdral, hear thy
sentence!"
Wendelin assumed immediately his knightly guise, which seemed very clumsy
to him after having been a falcon. The rat lengthened itself and
expanded until it was once more the giant covered with pumicestone; it
walked no longer erect, however, but crawled along the ground at the feet
of the beautiful woman, whimpering and howling like a whipped cur.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25