Then mass begun, but in the midst of it, the priest said out aloud, 'Oh I
forgot,' and turning round to us began to wag his grey head and white
beard, throwing his head right back, and sinking his chin on his breast
alternately; and when we saw him do this, we presently began also to
knock our heads against the wall, keeping time with him and with each
other, till the priest said, 'Peter! it's dragon-time now,' whereat the
roof flew off, and a great yellow dragon came down on the chapel-floor
with a flop, and danced about clumsily, wriggling his fat tail, and
saying to a sort of tune, 'O the Devil, the Devil, the Devil, O the
Devil,' so I went up to him, and put my hand on his breast, meaning to
slay him, and so awoke, and found myself standing up with my hand on the
breast of an armed knight; the door lay flat on the ground, and under it
lay Hector, our dog, whining and dying.

For eight hours I had been asleep; on awaking, the blood rushed up into
my face, I heard my mother's low mysterious song behind me, and knew not
what harm might happen to her and me, if that knight's coming made her
cease in it; so I struck him with my left hand, where his face was bare
under his mail-coif, and getting my sword in my light hand, drove its
point under his hawberk, so that it came out behind, and he fell, turned
over on his face, and died.

Then, because my mother still went on working and singing, I said no
word, but let him lie there, and put the door up again, and found Hector
dead.

I then sat down again and polished my sword with a piece of leather after
I had wiped the blood from it; and in an hour my mother arose from her
work, and raising me from where I was sitting, kissed my brow, saying,
'Well done, Lionel, you have slain our greatest foe, and now the people