The Orthodox Rescue of Guenevere  
Now the tale tells how the cave narrowed and again turned sharply, so that Jurgen came as through a corridor into quite another sort of underground chamber. Yet this also was a discomfortable place.
 
Here suspended from the roof of the vault was a kettle of quivering red flames. These lighted a very old and villainous looking man in full armor, girded with a sword, and crowned royally: he sat erect upon a throne, motionless, with staring eyes that saw nothing. Back of him Jurgen noted many warriors seated in rows, and all staring at Jurgen with wide-open eyes that saw nothing. The red flaming of the kettle was reflected in all these eyes, and to observe this was not pleasant.
 
Jurgen waited non-committally. Nothing happened. Then Jurgen saw that at this unengaging monarch's feet were three chests. The lids had been ripped from two of them, and these were filled with silver coins. Upon the middle chest, immediately before the king, sat a woman, with her face resting against the knees of the glaring, withered, motionless, old rascal.
 
"And this is a young woman. Obviously! Observe the glint of that thick coil of hair! the rich curve of the neck! Oh, clearly, a tidbit fit to fight for, against any moderate odds!"
 
So ran the thoughts of Jurgen. Bold as a dragon now, he stepped forward and lifted the girl's head.
 
Her eyes were closed. She was, even so, the most beautiful creature
Jurgen had ever imagined.
 
"She does not breathe. And yet, unless memory fails me, this is certainly a living woman in my arms. Evidently this is a sleep induced by necromancy. Well, it is not for nothing I have read so many fairy tales. There are orthodoxies to be observed in the awakening of every enchanted princess. And Lisa, wherever she may be, poor dear! is nowhere in this neighborhood, because I hear nobody talking. So I may consider myself at liberty to do the traditional thing by this princess. Indeed, it is the only fair thing for me to do, and justice demands it."
 
In consequence, Jurgen kissed the girl. Her lips parted and softened, and they assumed a not unpleasant sort of submissive ardor. Her eyes, enormous when seen thus closely, had languorously opened, had viewed him without wonder, and then the lids had fallen, about half-way, just as, Jurgen remembered, the eyelids of a woman ought to do when she is being kissed properly. She clung a little, and now she shivered a little, but not with cold: Jurgen perfectly remembered that ecstatic shudder convulsing a woman's body: everything, in fine, was quite as it should be. So Jurgen put an end to the kiss, which, as you may surmise, was a tolerably lengthy affair.
 
His heart was pounding as though determined to burst from his body, and he could feel the blood tingling at his finger-tips. He wondered what in the world had come over him, who was too old for such emotions.
 
Yet, truly, this was the loveliest girl that Jurgen had ever imagined. Fair was she to look on, with her shining gray eyes and small smiling lips, a fairer person might no man boast of having seen. And she regarded Jurgen graciously, with her cheeks flushed by that red flickering overhead, and she was very lovely to observe. She was clothed in a robe of flame-colored silk, and about her neck was a collar of red gold. When she spoke her voice was music.
 
"I knew that you would come," the girl said, happily.
 
"I am very glad that I came," observed Jurgen.
 
"But time presses."
 
"Time sets an admirable example, my dear Princess—"
 
"Oh, messire, but do you not perceive that you have brought life into this horrible place! You have given of this life to me, in the most direct and speedy fashion. But life is very contagious. Already it is spreading by infection."
 
And Jurgen regarded the old king, as the girl indicated. The withered ruffian stayed motionless: but from his nostrils came slow augmentin............