The Book of Wonder

by Lord Dunsany

  THE HOARD OF THE GIBBELINS

  The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man. Theirevil tower is joined to Terra Cognita, to the lands we know, by abridge. Their hoard is beyond reason; avarice has no use for it; theyhave a separate cellar for emeralds and a separate cellar forsapphires; they have filled a hole with gold and dig it up when theyneed it. And the only use that is known for their ridiculous wealth isto attract to their larder a continual supply of food. In times offamine they have even been known to scatter rubies abroad, a littletrail of them to some city of Man, and sure enough their larders wouldsoon be full again.

  Their tower stands on the other side of that river known to Homer--_horhoos okeanoio_, as he called it--which surrounds the world. And wherethe river is narrow and fordable the tower was built by the Gibbelins'gluttonous sires, for they liked to see burglars rowing easily totheir steps. Some nourishment that common soil has not the huge treesdrained there with their colossal roots from both banks of the river.

  There the Gibbelins lived and discreditably fed.

  Alderic, Knight of the Order of the City and the Assault, hereditaryGuardian of the King's Peace of Mind, a man not unremembered amongmakers of myth, pondered so long upon the Gibbelins' hoard that by nowhe deemed it his. Alas that I should say of so perilous a venture,undertaken at dead of night by a valorous man, that its motive wassheer avarice! Yet upon avarice only the Gibbelins relied to keep theirlarders full, and once in every hundred years sent spies into the citiesof men to see how avarice did, and always the spies returned again tothe tower saying that all was well.

  It may be thought that, as the years went on and men came by fearfulends on that tower's wall, fewer and fewer would come to theGibbelins' table: but the Gibbelins found otherwise.

  Not in the folly and frivolity of his youth did Alderic come to thetower, but he studied carefully for several years the manner in whichburglars met their doom when they went in search of the treasure thathe considered his. _In every case they had entered by the door_.

  He consulted those who gave advice on this quest; he noted everydetail and cheerfully paid their fees, and determined to do nothingthat they advised, for what were their clients now? No more thanexamples of the savoury art, and mere half-forgotten memories of ameal; and many, perhaps, no longer even that.

  These were the requisites for the quest that these men used to advise:a horse, a boat, mail armour, and at least three men-at-arms. Somesaid, "Blow the horn at the tower door"; others said, "Do not touchit."

  Alderic thus decided: he would take no horse down to the river's edge,he would not row along it in a boat, and he would go alone and by wayof the Forest Unpassable.

  How pass, you may say, the unpassable? This was his plan: there was adragon he knew of who if peasants' prayers are heeded deserved to die,not alone because of the number of maidens he cruelly slew, butbecause he was bad for the crops; he ravaged the very land and was thebane of a dukedom.

  Now Alderic determined to go up against him. So he took horse andspear and pricked till he met the dragon, and the dragon came outagainst him breathing bitter smoke. And to him Alderic shouted, "Hathfoul dragon ever slain true knight?" And well the dragon knew thatthis had never been, and he hung his head and was silent, for he wasglutted with blood. "Then," said the knight, "if thou would'st evertaste maiden's blood again thou shalt be my trusty steed, and if not,by this spear there shall befall thee all that the troubadours tell ofthe dooms of thy breed."

  And the dragon did not open his ravening mouth, nor rush upon theknight, breathing out fire; for well he knew the fate of those thatdid these things, but he consented to the terms imposed, and swore tothe knight to become his trusty steed.

  It was on a saddle upon this dragon's back that Alderic afterwardssailed above the unpassable forest, even above the tops of thosemeasureless trees, children of wonder. But first he pondered thatsubtle plan of his which was more profound than merely to avoid allthat had been done before; and he commanded a blacksmith, and theblacksmith made him a pickaxe.

  Now there was great rejoicing at the rumour of Alderic's quest, forall folk knew that he was a cautious man, and they deemed that hewould succeed and enrich the world, and they rubbed their hands in thecities at the thought of largesse; and there was joy among all men inAlderic's country, except perchance among the lenders of money, whofeared they would soon be paid. And there was rejoicing also becausemen hoped that when the Gibbelins were robbed of their hoard, theywould shatter their high-built bridge and break the golden chains thatbound them to the world, and drift back, they and their tower, to themoon, from which they had come and to which they rightly belonged.There was little love for the Gibbelins, though all men envied theirhoard.

  So they all cheered, that day when he mounted his dragon, as though hewas already a conqueror, and what pleased them more than the good thatthey hoped he would do to the world was that he scattered gold as herode away; for he would not need it, he said, if he found theGibbelins' hoard, and he would not need it more if he smoked on theGibbelins' table.

  When they heard that he had rejected the advice of those that gave it,some said that the knight was mad, and others said he was greater thanthose what gave the advice, but none appreciated the worth of hisplan.

  He reasoned thus: for centuries men had been well advised and had goneby the cleverest way, while the Gibbelins came to expect them to comeby boat and to look for them at the door whenever their larder wasempty, even as a man looketh for a snipe in a marsh; but how, saidAlderic, if a snipe should sit in the top of a tree, and would menfind him there? Assuredly never! So Alderic decided to swim the riverand not to go by the door, but to pick his way into the tower throughthe stone. Moreover, it was in his mind to work below the level of theocean, the river (as Homer knew) that girdles the world, so that assoon as he made a hole in the wall the water should pour in,confounding the Gibbelins, and flooding the cellars, rumoured to betwenty feet in depth, and therein he would dive for emeralds as adiver dives for pearls.

  And on the day that I tell of he galloped away from his homescattering largesse of gold, as I have said, and passed through manykingdoms, the dragon snapping at maidens as he went, but being unableto eat them because of the bit in his mouth, and earning no gentlerreward than a spurthrust where he was softest. And so they came to theswart arboreal precipice of the unpassable forest. The dragon rose atit with a rattle of wings. Many a farmer near the edge of the worldsaw him up there where yet the twilight lingered, a faint, black,wavering line; and mistaking him for a row of geese going inland fromthe ocean, went into their houses cheerily rubbing their hands andsaying that winter was coming, and that we should soon have snow. Sooneven there the twilight faded away, and when they descended at theedge of the world it was night and the moon was shining. Ocean, theancient river, narrow and shallow there, flowed by and made no murmur.Whether the Gibbelins banqueted or whether they watched by the door,they also made no murmur. And Alderic dismounted and took his armouroff, and saying one prayer to his lady, swam with his pickaxe. He didnot part from his sword, for fear that he meet with a Gibbelin. Landedthe other side, he began to work at once, and all went well with him.Nothing put out its head from any window, and all were lighted so thatnothing within could see him in the dark. The blows of his pickaxewere dulled in the deep walls. All night he worked, no sound came tomolest him, and at dawn the last rock swerved and tumbled inwards, andthe river poured in after. Then Alderic took a stone, and went to thebottom step, and hurled the stone at the door; he heard the echoesroll into the tower, then he ran back and dived through the hole inthe wall.

  He was in the emerald-cellar. There was no light in the lofty vaultabove him, but, diving through twenty feet of water, he felt the floorall rough with emeralds, and open coffers full of them. By a faint rayof the moon he saw that the water was green with them, and, easilyfilling a satchel, he rose again to the surface; and there were theGibbelins waist-deep in the water, with torches in their hands! And,without s
aying a word, _or even smiling_, they neatly hanged him onthe outer wall--and the tale is one of those that have not a happyending.