But the struggle was too much for the gallant Remora.

The flat, cruel head moved slower; the steam from his thousand wounds grew fiercer; and he gently breathed his last just as the Firedrake, too, fell over and lay exhausted.

With one final roar, like the breath of a thousand furnaces, the Firedrake expired.
The prince, watching from the hill-top, could scarcely believe that these two _awful scourges of Nature_, which had so long devastated his country, were actually dead.

But when he had looked on for half-an-hour, and only a river ran where the Remora had been, while the body of the Firedrake lay stark and cold, he hurried to the spot.
Drawing the sword of sharpness, he hacked off, at two blows, the iron head and the tail of the Firedrake.

They were a weary weight to carry; but in a few strides of the shoes of swiftness he was at his castle, where he threw down his burden, and nearly fainted with excitement and fatigue.
{The Prince in front of the Firedrake: p78.jpg} But the castle clock struck half-past seven; dinner was at eight, and the poor prince crawled on hands and knees to the garret.