Red fire, green fire, then rockets again.

The whole of the plain was lit by more fireworks than Philip had ever seen, even at the Crystal Palace.

By their light he saw a procession come out of the fort, cross to a pillar that stood solitary on the plain, and tie to it a white figure.
'The Princess, I suppose,' said Philip; 'well, _she's_ all right anyway.' Then the procession went back to the fort, and then the dragon awoke.
Philip could see the great creature stretching itself and shaking its vast head as a dog does when it comes out of the water.
'I expect it doesn't like the fireworks,' said Philip.

And he was quite right.
And now the dragon saw the Princess who had been placed at a convenient spot about half-way between the ruins and Philip's tower.
It threw up its snout and uttered a devastating howl, and Philip felt with a thrill of horror that, clockwork or no clockwork, the brute was alive, and desperately dangerous.
And now it had perceived that it was bound.

With great heavings and throes, with snortings and bellowings, with scratchings and tearings of its great claws and lashings of its terrible tail, it writhed and fought to be free, and the light of thousands of fireworks illuminated the gigantic struggle.
Then what Philip had known would happen, did happen.