doubted the baker as well as the barber. "Perhaps one day, if he finds
he has asked too much, he will bring me the difference."

"Ha! ha!" laughed the barber. "A fool and his money are soon parted."

But as he took the coin from Curdie's hand he grasped it in affected
reconciliation and real satisfaction. In Curdie's, his was the cold
smooth leathery palm of a monkey. He looked up, almost expecting to see
him pop the money in his cheek; but he had not yet got so far as that,
though he was well on the road to it: then he would have no other
pocket.

"I'm glad that stone is gone, anyhow," said the baker. "It was the bane
of my life. I had no idea how easy it was to remove it. Give me your
pickaxe, young miner, and I will show you how a baker can make the
stones fly."

He caught the tool out of Curdie's hand, and flew at one of the
foundation stones of the gateway. But he jarred his arm terribly,
scarcely chipped the stone, dropped the mattock with a cry of pain, and
ran into his own shop. Curdie picked up his implement, and looking after
the baker, saw bread in the window, and followed him in. But the baker,
ashamed of himself, and thinking he was coming to laugh at him, popped
out of the back door, and when Curdie entered, the baker's wife came
from the bakehouse to serve him. Curdie requested to know the price of a
certain good-sized loaf.

Now the baker's wife had been watching what had passed since first her
husband ran out of the shop, and she liked the look of Curdie. Also she
was more honest than her husband. Casting a glance to the back door, she
replied,--

"That is not the best bread. I will sell you a loaf of what we bake for
ourselves." And when she had spoken she laid a finger on her lips. "Take
care of yourself in this place, my son," she added. "They do not love
strangers. I was once a stranger here, and I know what I say." Then
fancying she heard her husband,--"That is a strange animal you have,"
she said, in a louder voice.

"Yes," answered Curdie. "She is no beauty, but she is very good, and we
love each other. Don't we, Lina?"

Lina looked up and whined. Curdie threw her the half of his loaf, which
she ate while her master and the baker's wife talked a little. Then the
baker's wife gave them some water, and Curdie having paid for his loaf,
he and Lina went up the street together.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE DOGS OF GWYNTYSTORM.

The steep street led them straight up to a large market-place, with
butchers' shops, about which were many dogs. The moment they caught
sight of Lina, one and all they came rushing down upon her, giving her
no chance of explaining herself. When Curdie saw the dogs coming he
heaved up his mattock over his shoulder, and was ready, if they would
have it so. Seeing him thus prepared to defend his follower, a great
ugly bull-dog flew at him. With the first blow Curdie struck him through
the brain, and the brute fell dead at his feet. But he could not at once
recover his weapon, which stuck in the skull of his foe, and a huge
mastiff, seeing him thus hampered, flew at him next. Now Lina, who had
shown herself so brave upon the road thither, had grown shy upon
entering the city, and kept always at Curdie's heel. But it was her
turn now. The moment she saw her master in danger she seemed to go mad
with rage. As the mastiff jumped at Curdie's throat, Lina flew at his,
seized him with her tremendous jaws, gave one roaring grind, and he lay
beside the bull-dog with his neck broken. They were the best dogs in the
market, after the judgment of the butchers of Gwyntystorm. Down came
their masters, knife in hand.

Curdie drew himself up fearlessly, mattock on shoulder, and awaited
their coming, while at his heel his awful attendant showed not only her
outside fringe of icicle-teeth, but a double row of right serviceable
fangs she wore inside her mouth, and her green eyes flashed yellow as
gold. The butchers not liking the look either of them or of the dogs at
their feet, drew back, and began to remonstrate in the manner of
outraged men.

"Stranger," said the first, "that bull-dog is mine."

"Take him, then," said Curdie, indignant.

"You've killed him!"

"Yes--else he would have killed me."

"That's no business of mine."

"No?"

"No."

"That makes it the more mine, then."

"This sort of thing won't do, you know," said the other butcher.

"That's true," said Curdie.

"That's my mastiff," said the butcher.

"And as he ought to be," said Curdie.

"Your brute shall be burnt alive for it," said the butcher.

"Not yet," answered Curdie. "We have done no wrong. We were walking
quietly up your street, when your dogs flew at us. If you don't teach
your dogs how to treat strangers, you must take the consequences."

"They treat them quite properly," said the butcher. "What right has any
one to bring an abomination like that into our city? The horror is
enough to make an idiot of every child in the place."

"We are both subjects of the king, and my poor animal can't help her
looks. How would you like to be served like that because you were ugly?
She's not a bit fonder of her looks than you are--only what can she do
to change them?"

"I'll do to change them," said the fellow.

Thereupon the butchers brandished their long knives and advanced,
keeping their eyes upon Lina.

"Don't be afraid, Lina," cried Curdie. "I'll kill one--you kill the
other."

Lina gave a howl that might have terrified an army, and crouched ready
to spring. The butchers turned and ran.

By this time a great crowd had gathered behind the butchers, and in it a
number of boys returning from school, who began to stone the strangers.
It was a way they had with man or beast they did not expect to make
anything by. One of the stones struck Lina; she caught it in her teeth
and crunched it that it fell in gravel from her mouth. Some of the
foremost of the crowd saw this, and it terrified them. They drew back;
the rest took fright from their retreat; the panic spread; and at last
the crowd scattered in all directions. They ran, and cried out, and said
the devil and his dam were come to Gwyntystorm. So Curdie and Lina were
left standing unmolested in the market-place. But the terror of them
spread throughout the city, and everybody began to shut and lock his
door, so that by the time the setting sun shone down the street, there
was not a shop left open, for fear of the devil and his horrible dam.
But all the upper windows within sight of them were crowded with heads
watching them where they stood lonely in the deserted market-place.

Curdie looked carefully all round, but could not see one open door. He
caught sight of the sign of an inn however, and laying down his mattock,
and telling Lina to take care of it, walked up to the door of it and
knocked. But the people in the house, instead of opening the door, threw
things at him from the windows. They would not listen to a word he
said, but sent him back to Lina with the blood running down his face.
When Lina saw that, she leaped up in a fury and was rushing at the
house, into which she would certainly have broken; but Curdie called
her, and made her lie down beside him while he bethought him what next
he should do.

"Lina," he said, "the people keep their gates open, but their houses and
their hearts shut."

As if she knew it was her presence that had brought this trouble upon
him, she rose, and went round and round him, purring like a tigress, and
rubbing herself against his legs.

Now there was one little thatched house that stood squeezed in between
two tall gables, and the sides of the two great houses shot out
projecting windows that nearly met across the roof of the little one, so
that it lay in the street like a doll's house. In this house lived a
poor old woman, with a grandchild. And because she never gossiped or
quarrelled, or chaffered in the market, but went without what she could
not afford, the people called her a witch, and would have done her many
an ill turn if they had not been afraid of her. Now while Curdie was
looking in another direction the door opened, and out came a little
dark-haired, black-eyed, gipsy-looking child, and toddled across the
market-place towards the outcasts. The moment they saw her coming, Lina
lay down flat on the road, and with her two huge fore-paws covered her
mouth, while Curdie went to meet her, holding out his arms. The little
one came straight to him, and held up her mouth to be kissed. Then she
took him by the hand, and drew him towards the house, and Curdie yielded
to the silent invitation. But when Lina rose to follow, the child shrunk
from her, frightened a little. Curdie took her up, and holding her on
one arm, patted Lina with the other hand. Then the child wanted also to
pat doggy, as she called her by a right bountiful stretch of courtesy,
and having once patted her, nothing would serve but Curdie must let her
have a ride on doggy. So he set her on Lina's back, holding her hand,
and she rode home in merry triumph, all unconscious of the hundreds of
eyes staring at her foolhardiness from the windows about the
market-place, or the murmur of deep disapproval that rose from as many
lips. At the door stood the grandmother to receive them. She caught the
child to her bosom with delight at her courage, welcomed Curdie, and
showed no dread of Lina. Many were the significant nods exchanged, and
many a one said to another that the devil and the witch were old
friends. But the woman was only a wise woman, who having seen how Curdie
and Lina behaved to each other, judged from that what sort they were,
and so made them welcome to her house. She was not like her
fellow-townspeople, for that they were strangers recommended them to
her.

The moment her door was shut, the other doors began to open, and soon
there appeared little groups about here and there a threshold, while a
few of the more courageous ventured out upon the square--all ready to
make for their houses again, however, upon the least sign of movement in
the little thatched one.

The baker and the barber had joined one of these groups, and were busily
wagging their tongues against Curdie and his horrible beast.

"He can't be honest," said the barber; "for he paid me double the worth
of the pane he broke in my window."

And then he told them how Curdie broke his window by breaking a stone in
the street with his hammer. There the baker struck in.

"Now that was the stone," said he, "over which I had fallen three times
within the last month: could it be by fair means he broke that to pieces
at the first blow? Just to make up my mind on that point I tried his own
hammer against a stone in the gate; it nearly broke both my arms, and
loosened half the teeth in my head!"

CHAPTER XV.

DERBA AND BARBARA.

Meantime the wanderers were hospitably entertained by the old woman and
her grandchild, and they were all very comfortable and happy together.
Little Barbara sat upon Curdie's knee, and he told her stories about the
mines and his adventures in them. But he never mentioned the king or the
princess, for all that story was hard to believe. And he told her about
his mother and his father, and how good they were. And Derba sat and
listened. At last little Barbara fell asleep in Curdie's arms, and her
grandmother carried her to bed.

It was a poor little house, and Derba gave up her own room to Curdie,
because he was honest and talked wisely. Curdie saw how it was, and
begged her to allow him to lie on the floor, but she would not hear of
it.

In the night he was waked by Lina pulling at him. As soon as he spoke
to her she ceased, and Curdie, listening, thought he heard some one
trying to get in. He rose, took his mattock, and went about the house,
listening and watching; but although he heard noises now at one place,
now at another, he could not think what they meant, for no one appeared.
Certainly, considering how she had frightened them all in the day, it
was not likely any one would attack Lina at night. By-and-by the noises
ceased, and Curdie went back to his bed, and slept undisturbed.

In the morning, however, Derba came to him in great agitation, and said
they had fastened up the door, so that she could not get out. Curdie
rose immediately and went with her: they found that not only the door,
but every window in the house was so secured on the outside that it was
impossible to open one of them without using great force. Poor Derba
looked anxiously in Curdie's face. He broke out laughing.

"They are much mistaken," he said, "if they fancy they could keep Lina
and a miner in any house in Gwyntystorm--even if they built up doors and
windows."

With that he shouldered his mattock. But Derba begged him not to make a
hole in her house just yet. She had plenty for breakfast, she said, and
before it was time for dinner they would know what the people meant by
it.

And indeed they did. For within an hour appeared one of the chief
magistrates of the city, accompanied by a score of soldiers with drawn
swords, and followed by a great multitude of the people, requiring the
miner and his brute to yield themselves, the one that he might be tried
for the disturbance he had occasioned and the injury he had committed,
the other that she might be roasted alive for her part in killing two
valuable and harmless animals belonging to worthy citizens. The summons
was preceded and followed by flourish of trumpet, and was read with
every formality by the city marshal himself.

The moment he ended, Lina ran into the little passage, and stood
opposite the door.

"I surrender," cried Curdie.

"Then tie up your brute, and give her here."

"No, no," cried Curdie through the door. "I surrender; but I'm not going
to do your hangman's work. If you want my dog, you must take her."

"Then we shall set the house on fire, and burn witch and all."

"It will go hard with us but we shall kill a few dozen of you first,"
cried Curdie. "We're not the least afraid of you."

With that Curdie turned to Derba, and said:--

"Don't be frightened. I have a strong feeling that all will be well.
Surely no trouble will come to you for being good to strangers."

"But the poor dog!" said Derba.

Now Curdie and Lina understood each other more than a little by this
time, and not only had he seen that she understood the proclamation, but
when she looked up at him after it was read, it was with such a grin,
and such a yellow flash, that he saw also she was determined to take
care of herself.

"The dog will probably give you reason to think a little more of her ere
long," he answered. "But now," he went on, "I fear I must hurt your
house a little. I have great confidence, however, that I shall be able
to make up to you for it one day."

"Never mind the house, if only you can get safe off," she answered. "I
don't think they will hurt this precious lamb," she added, clasping
little Barbara to her bosom. "For myself, it is all one; I am ready for
anything."

"It is but a little hole for Lina I want to make," said Curdie. "She can
creep through a much smaller one than you would think."

Again he took his mattock, and went to the back wall.

"They won't burn the house," he said to himself. "There is too good a
one on each side of it."

The tumult had kept increasing every moment, and the city marshal had
been shouting, but Curdie had not listened to him. When now they heard
the blows of his mattock, there went up a great cry, and the people
taunted the soldiers that they were afraid of a dog and his miner. The
soldiers therefore made a rush at the door, and cut its fastenings.

The moment they opened it, out leaped Lina, with a roar so unnaturally
horrible that the sword-arms of the soldiers dropped by their sides,
paralysed with the terror of that cry; the crowd fled in every
direction, shrieking and yelling with mortal dismay; and without even
knocking down with her tail, not to say biting a man of them with her
pulverizing jaws, Lina vanished--no one knew whither, for not one of the
crowd had had courage to look upon her.

The moment she was gone, Curdie advanced and gave himself up. The
soldiers were so filled with fear, shame, and chagrin, that they were
ready to kill him on the spot. But he stood quietly facing them, with
his mattock on his shoulder; and the magistrate wishing to examine him,
and the people to see him made an example of, the soldiers had to
content themselves with taking him. Partly for derision, partly to hurt
him, they laid his mattock against his back, and tied his arms to it.

They led him up a very steep street, and up another still, all the crowd
following. The king's palace-castle rose towering above them; but they
stopped before they reached it, at a low-browed door in a great, dull,
heavy-looking building.

The city marshal opened it with a key which hung at his girdle, and
ordered Curdie to enter. The place within was dark as night, and while
he was feeling his way with his feet, the marshal gave him a rough push.
He fell, and rolled once or twice over, unable to help himself because
his hands were tied behind him.

It was the hour of the magistrate's second and more important breakfast,
and until that was over he never found himself capable of attending to a
case with concentration sufficient to the distinguishing of the side
upon which his own advantage lay; and hence was this respite for Curdie,
with time to collect his thoughts. But indeed he had very few to
collect, for all he had to do, so far as he could see, was to wait for
what would come next. Neither had he much power to collect them, for he
was a good deal shaken.

In a few minutes he discovered, to his great relief, that, from the
projection of the pick-end of his mattock beyond his body, the fall had
loosened the ropes tied round it. He got one hand disengaged, and then
the other; and presently stood free, with his good mattock once more in
right serviceable relation to his arms and legs.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MATTOCK.

While the magistrate reinvigorated his selfishness with a greedy
breakfast, Curdie found doing nothing in the dark rather wearisome work.
It was useless attempting to think what he should do next, seeing the
circumstances in which he was presently to find himself were altogether
unknown to him. So he began to think about his father and mother in
their little cottage home, high in the clear air of the open
mountain-side, and the thought, instead of making his dungeon gloomier
by the contrast, made a light in his soul that destroyed the power of
darkness and captivity. But he was at length startled from his waking
dream by a swell in the noise outside. All the time there had been a few
of the more idle of the inhabitants about the door, but they had been
rather quiet. Now, however, the sounds of feet and voices began to grow,
and grew so rapidly that it was plain a multitude was gathering. For
the people of Gwyntystorm always gave themselves an hour of pleasure
after their second breakfast, and what greater pleasure could they have
than to see a stranger abused by the officers of justice? The noise grew
till it was like the roaring of the sea, and that roaring went on a long
time, for the magistrate, being a great man, liked to know that he was
waited for: it added to the enjoyment of his breakfast, and, indeed,
enabled him to eat a little more after he had thought his powers
exhausted. But at length, in the waves of the human noises rose a bigger
wave, and by the running and shouting and outcry, Curdie learned that
the magistrate was approaching.

Presently came the sound of the great rusty key in the lock, which
yielded with groaning reluctance; the door was thrown back, the light
rushed in, and with it came the voice of the city marshal, calling upon
Curdie, by many legal epithets opprobrious, to come forth and be tried
for his life, inasmuch as he had raised a tumult in his majesty's city
of Gwyntystorm, troubled the hearts of the king's baker and barber, and
slain the faithful dogs of his majesty's well-beloved butchers.

He was still reading, and Curdie was still seated in the brown twilight
of the vault, not listening, but pondering with himself how this king
the city marshal talked of could be the same with the majesty he had
seen ride away on his grand white horse, with the Princess Irene on a
cushion before him, when a scream of agonized terror arose on the
farthest skirt of the crowd, and, swifter than flood or flame, the
horror spread shrieking. In a moment the air was filled with hideous
howling, cries of unspeakable dismay, and the multitudinous noise of
running feet. The next moment, in at the door of the vault bounded Lina,
her two green eyes flaming yellow as sunflowers, and seeming to light up
the dungeon. With one spring she threw herself at Curdie's feet, and
laid her head upon them panting. Then came a rush of two or three
soldiers darkening the doorway, but it was only to lay hold of the key,
pull the door to, and lock it; so that once more Curdie and Lina were
prisoners together.

For a few moments Lina lay panting hard: it is breathless work leaping
and roaring both at once, and that in a way to scatter thousands of
people. Then she jumped up, and began snuffing about all over the place;
and Curdie saw what he had never seen before--two faint spots of light
cast from her eyes upon the ground, one on each side of her snuffing
nose. He got out his tinder-box--a miner is never without one--and
lighted a precious bit of candle he carried in a division of it--just
for a moment, for he must not waste it.

The light revealed a vault without any window or other opening than the
door. It was very old and much neglected. The mortar had vanished from
between the stones, and it was half filled with a heap of all sorts of
rubbish, beaten down in the middle, but looser at the sides; it sloped
from the door to the foot of the opposite wall: evidently for a long
time the vault had been left open, and every sort of refuse thrown into
it. A single minute served for the survey, so little was there to note.

Meantime, down in the angle between the back wall and the base of the
heap Lina was scratching furiously with all the eighteen great strong
claws of her mighty feet.

"Ah, ha!" said Curdie to himself, catching sight of her, "if only they
will leave us long enough to ourselves!"

With that he ran to the door, to see if there was any fastening on the
inside. There was none: in all its long history it never had had one.
But a few blows of the right sort, now from the one, now from the other
end of his mattock, were as good as any bolt, for they so ruined the
lock that no key could ever turn in it again. Those who heard them
fancied he was trying to get out, and laughed spitefully. As soon as he
had done, he extinguished his candle, and went down to Lina.

She had reached the hard rock which formed the floor of the dungeon, and
was now clearing away the earth a little wider. Presently she looked up
in his face and whined, as much as to say, "My paws are not hard enough
to get any further."

"Then get out of my way, Lina," said Curdie, "and mind you keep your
eyes shining, for fear I should hit you."

So saying, he heaved his mattock, and assailed with the hammer end of it
the spot she had cleared.

The rock was very hard, but when it did break it broke in good-sized
pieces. Now with hammer, now with pick, he worked till he was weary,
then rested, and then set to again. He could not tell how the day went,
as he had no light but the lamping of Lina's eyes. The darkness hampered
him greatly, for he would not let Lina come close enough to give him all
the light she could, lest he should strike her. So he had, every now and
then, to feel with his hands to know how he was getting on, and to
discover in what direction to strike: the exact spot was a mere
imagination.

He was getting very tired and hungry, and beginning to lose heart a
little, when out of the ground, as if he had struck a spring of it,
burst a dull, gleamy, lead-coloured light, and the next moment he heard
a hollow splash and echo. A piece of rock had fallen out of the floor,
and dropped into water beneath. Already Lina, who had been lying a few
yards off all the time he worked, was on her feet and peering through
the hole. Curdie got down on his hands and knees, and looked. They were
over what seemed a natural cave in the rock, to which apparently the
river had access, for, at a great distance below, a faint light was
gleaming upon water. If they could but reach it, they might get out; but
even if it was deep enough, the height was very dangerous. The first
thing, whatever might follow, was to make the hole larger. It was
comparatively easy to break away the sides of it, and in the course of
another hour he had it large enough to get through.

And now he must reconnoitre. He took the rope they had tied him
with--for Curdie's hindrances were always his furtherance--and fastened
one end of it by a slip-knot round the handle of his pickaxe, then
dropped the other end through, and laid the pickaxe so that, when he was
through himself, and hanging on to the edge, he could place it across
the hole to support him on the rope. This done, he took the rope in his
hands, and, beginning to descend, found himself in a narrow cleft
widening into a cave. His rope was not very long, and would not do much
to lessen the force of his fall--he thought with himself--if he should
have to drop into the water; but he was not more than a couple of yards
below the dungeon when he spied an opening on the opposite side of the
cleft: it might be but a shallow hole, or it might lead them out. He
dropped himself a little below its level, gave the rope a swing by
pushing his feet against the side of the cleft, and so penduled himself
into it. Then he laid a stone on the end of the rope that it should not
forsake him, called to Lina, whose yellow eyes were gleaming over the
mattock-grating above, to watch there till he returned, and went
cautiously in.

It proved a passage, level for some distance, then sloping gently up. He
advanced carefully, feeling his way as he went. At length he was stopped
by a door--a small door, studded with iron. But the wood was in places
so much decayed that some of the bolts had dropped out, and he felt sure
of being able to open it. He returned, therefore, to fetch Lina and his
mattock. Arrived at the cleft, his strong miner arms bore him swiftly up
along the rope and through the hole into the dungeon. There he undid the
rope from his mattock, and making Lina take the end of it in her teeth,
and get through the hole, he lowered her--it was all he could do, she
was so heavy. When she came opposite the passage, with a slight push of
her tail she shot herself into it, and let go the rope, which Curdie
drew up. Then he lighted his candle and searching in the rubbish found a
bit of iron to take the place of his pickaxe across the hole. Then he
searched again in the rubbish, and found half an old shutter. This he
propped up leaning a little over the hole, with a bit of stick, and
heaped against the back of it a quantity of the loosened earth. Next he
tied his mattock to the end of the rope, dropped it, and let it hang.
Last, he got through the hole himself, and pulled away the propping
stick, so that the shutter fell over the hole with a quantity of earth
on the top of it. A few motions of hand over hand, and he swung himself
and his mattock into the passage beside Lina. There he secured the end
of the rope, and they went on together to the door.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE WINE-CELLAR.

He lighted his candle and examined it. Decayed and broken as it was, it
was strongly secured in its place by hinges on the one side, and either
lock or bolt, he could not tell which, on the other. A brief use of his
pocket-knife was enough to make room for his hand and arm to get
through, and then he found a great iron bolt--but so rusty that he could
not move it. Lina whimpered. He took his knife again, made the hole
bigger, and stood back. In she shot her small head and long neck, seized
the bolt with her teeth, and dragged it grating and complaining back. A
push then opened the door. It was at the foot of a short flight of
steps. They ascended, and at the top Curdie found himself in a space
which, from the echo to his stamp, appeared of some size, though of what
sort he could not at first tell, for his hands, feeling about, came upon
nothing. Presently, however, they fell on a great thing: it was a
wine-cask.

[Illustration: "_Curdie was just setting out to explore the place when
he heard steps coming down a stair._"]

He was just setting out to explore the place by a thorough palpation,
when he heard steps coming down a stair. He stood still, not knowing
whether the door would open an inch from his nose or twenty yards behind
his back. It did neither. He heard the key turn in the lock, and a
stream of light shot in, ruining the darkness, about fifteen yards away
on his right.

A man carrying a candle in one hand and a large silver flagon in the
other, entered, and came towards him. The light revealed a row of huge
wine-casks, that stretched away into the darkness of the other end of
the long vault. Curdie retreated into the recess of the stair, and
peeping round the corner of it, watched him, thinking what he could do
to prevent him from locking them in. He came on and on, until Curdie
feared he would pass the recess and see them. He was just preparing to
rush out, and master him before he should give alarm, not in the least
knowing what he should do next, when, to his relief, the man stopped at
the third cask from where he stood. He set down his light on the top of
it, removed what seemed a large vent-peg, and poured into the cask a
quantity of something from the flagon. Then he turned to the next cask,
drew some wine, rinsed the flagon, threw the wine away, drew and rinsed
and threw away again, then drew and drank, draining to the bottom. Last
of all, he filled the flagon from the cask he had first visited,
replaced then the vent-peg, took up his candle, and turned towards the
door.

"There is something wrong here!" thought Curdie.

"Speak to him, Lina," he whispered.

The sudden howl she gave made Curdie himself start and tremble for a
moment. As to the man, he answered Lina's with another horrible howl,
forced from him by the convulsive shudder of every muscle of his body,
then reeled gasping to and fro, and dropped his candle. But just as
Curdie expected to see him fall dead he recovered himself, and flew to
the door, through which he darted, leaving it open behind him. The
moment he ran, Curdie stepped out, picked up the candle still alight,
sped after him to the door, drew out the key, and then returned to the
stair and waited. In a few minutes he heard the sound of many feet and
voices. Instantly he turned the tap of the cask from which the man had
been drinking, set the candle beside it on the floor, went down the
steps and out of the little door, followed by Lina, and closed it behind
them.

Through the hole in it he could see a little, and hear all. He could see
how the light of many candles filled the place, and could hear how some
two dozen feet ran hither and thither through the echoing cellar; he
could hear the clash of iron, probably spits and pokers, now and then;
and at last heard how, finding nothing remarkable except the best wine
running to waste, they all turned on the butler, and accused him of
having fooled them with a drunken dream. He did his best to defend
himself, appealing to the evidence of their own senses that he was as
sober as they were. They replied that a fright was no less a fright that
the cause was imaginary, and a dream no less a dream that the fright had
waked him from it. When he discovered, and triumphantly adduced as
corroboration, that the key was gone from the door, they said it merely
showed how drunk he had been--either that or how frightened, for he had
certainly dropped it. In vain he protested that he had never taken it
out of the lock--that he never did when he went in, and certainly had
not this time stopped to do so when he came out; they asked him why he
had to go to the cellar at such a time of the day, and said it was
because he had already drunk all the wine that was left from dinner. He
said if he had dropped the key, the key was to be found, and they must
help him to find it. They told him they wouldn't move a peg for him. He
declared, with much language, he would have them all turned out of the
king's service. They said they would swear he was drunk. And so positive
were they about it, that at last the butler himself began to think
whether it was possible they could be in the right. For he knew that
sometimes when he had been drunk he fancied things had taken place
which he found afterwards could not have happened. Certain of his
fellow-servants, however, had all the time a doubt whether the cellar
goblin had not appeared to him, or at least roared at him, to protect
the wine. In any case nobody wanted to find the key for him; nothing
could please them better than that the door of the wine-cellar should
never more be locked. By degrees the hubbub died away, and they
departed, not even pulling to the door, for there was neither handle nor
latch to it.

As soon as they were gone, Curdie returned, knowing now that they were
in the wine-cellar of the palace, as, indeed, he had suspected. Finding
a pool of wine in a hollow of the floor, Lina lapped it up eagerly: she
had had no breakfast, and was now very thirsty as well as hungry. Her
master was in a similar plight, for he had but just begun to eat when
the magistrate arrived with the soldiers. If only they were all in bed,
he thought, that he might find his way to the larder! For he said to
himself that, as he was sent there by the young princess's
great-great-grandmother to serve her or her father in some way, surely
he must have a right to his food in the palace, without which he could
do nothing. He would go at once and reconnoitre.

So he crept up the stair that led from the cellar. At the top was a
door, opening on a long passage, dimly lighted by a lamp. He told Lina
to lie down upon the stair while he went on. At the end of the passage
he found a door ajar, and, peeping through, saw right into a great stone
hall, where a huge fire was blazing, and through which men in the king's
livery were constantly coming and going. Some also in the same livery
were lounging about the fire. He noted that their colours were the same
with those he himself, as king's miner, wore; but from what he had seen
and heard of the habits of the place, he could not hope they would treat
him the better for that.

The one interesting thing at the moment, however, was the plentiful
supper with which the table was spread. It was something at least to
stand in sight of food, and he was unwilling to turn his back on the
prospect so long as a share in it was not absolutely hopeless. Peeping
thus, he soon made up his mind that if at any moment the hall should be
empty, he would at that moment rush in and attempt to carry off a dish.
That he might lose no time by indecision, he selected a large pie upon
which to pounce instantaneously. But after he had watched for some
minutes, it did not seem at all likely the chance would arrive before
supper-time, and he was just about to turn away and rejoin Lina, when he
saw that there was not a person in the place. Curdie never made up his
mind and then hesitated. He darted in, seized the pie, and bore it,
swiftly and noiselessly, to the cellar stair.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE KING'S KITCHEN.

Back to the cellar Curdie and Lina sped with their booty, where, seated
on the steps, Curdie lighted his bit of candle for a moment. A very
little bit it was now, but they did not waste much of it in examination
of the pie; that they effected by a more summary process. Curdie thought
it the nicest food he had ever tasted, and between them they soon ate it
up. Then Curdie would have thrown the dish along with the bones into the
water, that there might be no traces of them; but he thought of his
mother, and hid it instead; and the very next minute they wanted it to
draw some wine into. He was careful it should be from the cask of which
he had seen the butler drink. Then they sat down again upon the steps,
and waited until the house should be quiet. For he was there to do
something, and if it did not come to him in the cellar, he must go to
meet it in other places. Therefore, lest he should fall asleep, he set
the end of the helve of his mattock on the ground, and seated himself on
the cross part, leaning against the wall, so that as long as he kept
awake he should rest, but the moment he began to fall asleep he must
fall awake instead. He quite expected some of the servants would visit
the cellar again that night, but whether it was that they were afraid of
each other, or believed more of the butler's story than they had chosen
to allow, not one of them appeared.

When at length he thought he might venture, he shouldered his mattock
and crept up the stair. The lamp was out in the passage, but he could
not miss his way to the servants' hall. Trusting to Lina's quickness in
concealing herself, he took her with him.

When they reached the hall they found it quiet and nearly dark. The last
of the great fire was glowing red, but giving little light. Curdie stood
and warmed himself for a few moments: miner as he was, he had found the
cellar cold to sit in doing nothing; and standing thus he thought of
looking if there were any bits of candle about. There were many
candlesticks on the supper-table, but to his disappointment and
indignation their candles seemed to have been all left to burn out, and
some of them, indeed, he found still hot in the neck.

Presently, one after another, he came upon seven men fast asleep, most
of them upon tables, one in a chair, and one on the floor. They seemed,
from their shape and colour, to have eaten and drunk so much that they
might be burned alive without waking. He grasped the hand of each in
succession, and found two ox-hoofs, three pig-hoofs, one concerning
which he could not be sure whether it was the hoof of a donkey or a
pony, and one dog's paw. "A nice set of people to be about a king!"
thought Curdie to himself, and turned again to his candle hunt. He did
at last find two or three little pieces, and stowed them away in his
pockets.

They now left the hall by another door, and entered a short passage,
which led them to the huge kitchen, vaulted, and black with smoke. There
too the fire was still burning, so that he was able to see a little of
the state of things in this quarter also. The place was dirty and
disorderly. In a recess, on a heap of brushwood, lay a kitchenmaid, with
a table-cover around her, and a skillet in her hand: evidently she too
had been drinking. In another corner lay a page, and Curdie noted how
like his dress was to his own. In the cinders before the hearth were
huddled three dogs and five cats, all fast asleep, while the rats were
running about the floor. Curdie's heart ached to think of the lovely
child-princess living over such a sty. The mine was a paradise to a
palace with such servants in it.

Leaving the kitchen, he got into the region of the sculleries. There
horrible smells were wandering about, like evil spirits that come forth
with the darkness. He lighted a candle--but only to see ugly sights.
Everywhere was filth and disorder. Mangy turn-spit dogs were lying
about, and gray rats were gnawing at refuse in the sinks. It was like a
hideous dream. He felt as if he should never get out of it, and longed
for one glimpse of his mother's poor little kitchen, so clean and bright
and airy. Turning from it at last in miserable disgust, he almost ran
back through the kitchen, re-entered the hall, and crossed it to another
door.

It opened upon a wider passage, leading to an arch in a stately
corridor, all its length lighted by lamps in niches. At the end of it
was a large and beautiful hall, with great pillars. There sat three men
in the royal livery, fast asleep, each in a great arm-chair, with his
feet on a huge footstool. They looked like fools dreaming themselves
kings; and Lina looked as if she longed to throttle them. At one side of
the hall was the grand staircase, and they went up.

Everything that now met Curdie's eyes was rich--not glorious like the
splendours of the mountain cavern, but rich and soft--except where, now
and then, some rough old rib of the ancient fortress came through, hard
and discoloured. Now some dark bare arch of stone, now some rugged and
blackened pillar, now some huge beam, brown with the smoke and dust of
centuries, looked like a thistle in the midst of daisies, or a rock in a
smooth lawn.

They wandered about a good while, again and again finding themselves
where they had been before. Gradually, however, Curdie was gaining some
idea of the place. By-and-by Lina began to look frightened, and as they
went on Curdie saw that she looked more and more frightened. Now, by
this time he had come to understand that what made her look frightened
was always the fear of frightening, and he therefore concluded they must
be drawing nigh to somebody. At last, in a gorgeously-painted gallery,
he saw a curtain of crimson, and on the curtain a royal crown wrought in
silks and stones. He felt sure this must be the king's chamber, and it
was here he was wanted; or, if it was not the place he was bound for,
something would meet him and turn him aside; for he had come to think
that so long as a man wants to do right he may go where he can: when he
can go no further, then it is not the way. "Only," said his father, in
assenting to the theory, "he must really want to do right, and not
merely fancy he does. He must want it with his heart and will, and not
with his rag of a tongue."

So he gently lifted the corner of the curtain, and there behind it was a
half-open door. He entered, and the moment he was in, Lina stretched
herself along the threshold between the curtain and the door.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE KING'S CHAMBER.

He found himself in a large room, dimly lighted by a silver lamp that
hung from the ceiling. Far at the other end was a great bed, surrounded
with dark heavy curtains. He went softly towards it, his heart beating
fast. It was a dreadful thing to be alone in the king's chamber at the
dead of night. To gain courage he had to remind himself of the beautiful
princess who had sent him. But when he was about halfway to the bed, a
figure appeared from the farther side of it, and came towards him, with
a hand raised warningly. He stood still. The light was dim, and he could
distinguish little more than the outline of a young girl. But though the
form he saw was much taller than the princess he remembered, he never
doubted it was she. For one thing, he knew that most girls would have
been frightened to see him there in the dead of the night, but like a
true princess, and the princess he used to know, she walked straight on
to meet him. As she came she lowered the hand she had lifted, and laid
the forefinger of it upon her lips. Nearer and nearer, quite near,
close up to him she came, then stopped, and stood a moment looking at
him.

"You are Curdie," she said.

"And you are the Princess Irene," he returned.

"Then we know each other still," she said, with a sad smile of pleasure.
"You will help me."

"That I will," answered Curdie. He did not say, "If I can;" for he knew
that what he was sent to do, that he could do. "May I kiss your hand,
little princess?"

She was only between nine and ten, though indeed she looked several
years older, and her eyes almost those of a grown woman, for she had had
terrible trouble of late.

She held out her hand.

"I am not the _little_ princess any more. I have grown up since I saw
you last, Mr. Miner."

The smile which accompanied the words had in it a strange mixture of
playfulness and sadness.

"So I see, Miss Princess," returned Curdie; "and therefore, being more
of a princess, you are the more my princess. Here I am, sent by your
great-great-grandmother, to be your servant.--May I ask why you are up
so late, princess?"

"Because my father wakes _so_ frightened, and I don't know what he
_would_ do if he didn't find me by his bedside. There! he's waking now."

She darted off to the side of the bed she had come from. Curdie stood
where he was.

A voice altogether unlike what he remembered of the mighty, noble king
on his white horse came from the bed, thin, feeble, hollow, and husky,
and in tone like that of a petulant child:--

"I will not, I will not. I am a king, and I _will_ be a king. I hate you
and despise you, and you shall not torture me!"

"Never mind them, father dear," said the princess. "I am here, and they
shan't touch you. They dare not, you know, so long as you defy them."

"They want my crown, darling; and I can't give them my crown, can I? for
what is a king without his crown?"

"They shall never have your crown, my king," said Irene. "Here it
is--all safe, you see. I am watching it for you."

Curdie drew near the bed on the other side. There lay the grand old
king--he looked grand still, and twenty years older. His body was
pillowed high; his beard descended long and white over the crimson
coverlid; and his crown, its diamonds and emeralds gleaming in the
twilight of the curtains, lay in front of him, his long, thin old hands
folded round the rigol, and the ends of his beard straying among the
lovely stones. His face was like that of a man who had died fighting
nobly; but one thing made it dreadful: his eyes, while they moved about
as if searching in this direction and in that, looked more dead than his
face. He saw neither his daughter nor his crown: it was the voice of the
one and the touch of the other that comforted him. He kept murmuring
what seemed words, but was unintelligible to Curdie, although, to judge
from the look of Irene's face, she learned and concluded from it.

By degrees his voice sank away and the murmuring ceased, although still
his lips moved. Thus lay the old king on his bed, slumbering with his
crown between his hands; on one side of him stood a lovely little
maiden, with blue eyes, and brown hair going a little back from her
temples, as if blown by a wind that no one felt but herself; and on the
other a stalwart young miner, with his mattock over his shoulder.
Stranger sight still was Lina lying along the threshold--only nobody saw
her just then.

A moment more and the king's lips ceased to move. His breathing had
grown regular and quiet. The princess gave a sigh of relief, and came
round to Curdie.

"We can talk a little now," she said, leading him towards the middle of
the room. "My father will sleep now till the doctor wakes him to give
him his medicine. It is not really medicine, though, but wine. Nothing
but that, the doctor says, could have kept him so long alive. He always
comes in the middle of the night to give it him with his own hands. But
it makes me cry to see him waked up when so nicely asleep."

"What sort of man is your doctor?" asked Curdie.

"Oh, such a dear, good, kind gentleman!" replied the princess. "He
speaks so softly, and is so sorry for his dear king! He will be here
presently, and you shall see for yourself. You will like him very much."

"Has your king-father been long ill?" asked Curdie.

"A whole year now," she replied. "Did you not know? That's how your
mother never got the red petticoat my father promised her. The lord
chancellor told me that not only Gwyntystorm but the whole land was
mourning over the illness of the good man."

Now Curdie himself had not heard a word of his majesty's illness, and
had no ground for believing that a single soul in any place he had
visited on his journey had heard of it. Moreover, although mention had
been made of his majesty again and again in his hearing since he came to
Gwyntystorm, never once had he heard an allusion to the state of his
health. And now it dawned upon him also that he had never heard the
least expression of love to him. But just for the time he thought it
better to say nothing on either point.

"Does the king wander like this every night?" he asked.

"Every night," answered Irene, shaking her head mournfully. "That is why
I never go to bed at night. He is better during the day--a little, and
then I sleep--in the dressing-room there, to be with him in a moment if
he should call me. It is _so_ sad he should have only me and not my
mamma! A princess is nothing to a queen!"

"I wish he would like me," said Curdie, "for then I might watch by him
at night, and let you go to bed, princess."

"Don't you know then?" returned Irene, in wonder. "How was it you
came?--Ah! you said my grandmother sent you. But I thought you knew that
he wanted you."

And again she opened wide her blue stars.

"Not I," said Curdie, also bewildered, but very glad.

"He used to be constantly saying--he was not so ill then as he is
now--that he wished he had you about him."

"And I never to know it!" said Curdie, with displeasure.

"The master of the horse told papa's own secretary that he had written
to the miner-general to find you and send you up; but the miner-general
wrote back to the master of the horse, and he told the secretary, and
the secretary told my father, that they had searched every mine in the
kingdom and could hear nothing of you. My father gave a great sigh, and
said he feared the goblins had got you after all, and your father and
mother were dead of grief. And he has never mentioned you since, except
when wandering. I cried very much. But one of my grandmother's pigeons
with its white wing flashed a message to me through the window one day,
and then I knew that my Curdie wasn't eaten by the goblins, for my
grandmother wouldn't have taken care of him one time to let him be eaten
the next. Where were you, Curdie, that they couldn't find you?"

"We will talk about that another time, when we are not expecting the
doctor," said Curdie.

As he spoke, his eyes fell upon something shining on the table under the
lamp. His heart gave a great throb, and he went nearer.--Yes, there
could be no doubt;--it was the same flagon that the butler had filled in
the wine-cellar.

"It looks worse and worse!" he said to himself, and went back to Irene,
where she stood half dreaming.

"When will the doctor be here?" he asked once more--this time hurriedly.

The question was answered--not by the princess, but by something which
that instant tumbled heavily into the room. Curdie flew towards it in
vague terror about Lina.

On the floor lay a little round man, puffing and blowing, and uttering
incoherent language. Curdie thought of his mattock, and ran and laid it
aside.

"Oh, dear Dr. Kelman!" cried the princess, running up and taking hold of
his arm; "I am _so_ sorry!" She pulled and pulled, but might almost as
well have tried to set up a cannon-ball. "I hope you have not hurt
yourself?"

"Not at all, not at all," said the doctor, trying to smile and to rise
both at once, but finding it impossible to do either.

"If he slept on the floor he would be late for breakfast," said Curdie
to himself, and held out his hand to help him.

But when he took hold of it, Curdie very nearly let him fall again, for
what he held was not even a foot: it was the belly of a creeping thing.
He managed, however, to hold both his peace and his grasp, and pulled
the doctor roughly on his legs--such as they were.

"Your royal highness has rather a thick mat at the door," said the
doctor, patting his palms together. "I hope my awkwardness may not have
startled his majesty."

While he talked Curdie went to the door: Lina was not there.

The doctor approached the bed.

"And how has my beloved king slept to-night?" he asked.

"No better," answered Irene, with a mournful shake of her head.

"Ah, that is very well!" returned the doctor, his fall seeming to have
muddled either his words or his meaning. "We must give him his wine, and
then he will be better still."

Curdie darted at the flagon, and lifted it high, as if he had expected
to find it full, but had found it empty.

"That stupid butler! I heard them say he was drunk!" he cried in a loud
whisper, and was gliding from the room.

"Come here with that flagon, you! page!" cried the doctor.

Curdie came a few steps towards him with the flagon dangling from his
hand, heedless of the gushes that fell noiseless on the thick carpet.

"Are you aware, young man," said the doctor, "that it is not every wine
can do his majesty the benefit I intend he should derive from my
prescription?"

"Quite aware, sir," answered Curdie. "The wine for his majesty's use is
in the third cask from the corner."

"Fly, then," said the doctor, looking satisfied.

Curdie stopped outside the curtain and blew an audible breath--no more:
up came Lina noiseless as a shadow. He showed her the flagon.

"The cellar, Lina: go," he said.

She galloped away on her soft feet, and Curdie had indeed to fly to keep
up with her. Not once did she make even a dubious turn. From the king's
gorgeous chamber to the cold cellar they shot. Curdie dashed the wine
down the back stair, rinsed the flagon out as he had seen the butler do,
filled it from the cask of which he had seen the butler drink, and
hastened with it up again to the king's room.

The little doctor took it, poured out a full glass, smelt, but did not
taste it, and set it down. Then he leaned over the bed, shouted in the
king's ear, blew upon his eyes, and pinched his arm: Curdie thought he
saw him run something bright into it. At last the king half woke. The
doctor seized the glass, raised his head, poured the wine down his
throat, and let his head fall back on the pillow again. Tenderly wiping
his beard, and bidding the princess good-night in paternal tones, he
then took his leave. Curdie would gladly have driven his pick into his
head, but that was not in his commission, and he let him go.

The little round man looked very carefully to his feet as he crossed the
threshold.

"That attentive fellow of a page has removed the mat," he said to
himself, as he walked along the corridor. "I must remember him."

CHAPTER XX.

COUNTER-PLOTTING.

Curdie was already sufficiently enlightened as to how things were going,
to see that he must have the princess of one mind with him, and they
must work together. It was clear that amongst those about the king there
was a plot against him: for one thing, they had agreed in a lie
concerning himself; and it was plain also that the doctor was working
out a design against the health and reason of his majesty, rendering the
question of his life a matter of little moment. It was in itself
sufficient to justify the worst fears, that the people outside the
palace were ignorant of his majesty's condition: he believed those
inside it also--the butler excepted--were ignorant of it as well.
Doubtless his majesty's councillors desired to alienate the hearts of
his subjects from their sovereign. Curdie's idea was that they intended
to kill the king, marry the princess to one of themselves, and found a
new dynasty; but whatever their purpose, there was treason in the palace
of the worst sort: they were making and keeping the king incapable, in
order to effect that purpose. The first thing to be seen to therefore
was, that his majesty should neither eat morsel nor drink drop of
anything prepared for him in the palace. Could this have been managed
without the princess, Curdie would have preferred leaving her in
ignorance of the horrors from which he sought to deliver her. He feared
also the danger of her knowledge betraying itself to the evil eyes about
her; but it must be risked--and she had always been a wise child.

Another thing was clear to him--that with such traitors no terms of
honour were either binding or possible, and that, short of lying, he
might use any means to foil them. And he could not doubt that the old
princess had sent him expressly to frustrate their plans.

While he stood thinking thus with himself, the princess was earnestly
watching the king, with looks of childish love and womanly tenderness
that went to Curdie's heart. Now and then with a great fan of peacock
feathers she would fan him very softly; now and then, seeing a cloud
begin to gather upon the sky of his sleeping face, she would climb upon
the bed, and bending to his ear whisper into it, then draw back and
watch again--generally to see the cloud disperse. In his deepest
slumber, the soul of the king lay open to the voice of his child, and
that voice had power either to change the aspect of his visions, or,
which was better still, to breathe hope into his heart, and courage to
endure them.

Curdie came near, and softly called her.

"I can't leave papa just yet," she returned, in a low voice.

"I will wait," said Curdie; "but I want very much to say something."

In a few minutes she came to him where he stood under the lamp.

"Well, Curdie, what is it?" she said.

"Princess," he replied, "I want to tell you that I have found why your
grandmother sent me."

"Come this way, then," she answered, "where I can see the face of my
king."

Curdie placed a chair for her in the spot she chose, where she would be
near enough to mark any slightest change on her father's countenance,
yet where their low-voiced talk would not disturb him. There he sat down
beside her and told her all the story--how her grandmother had sent her
good pigeon for him, and how she had instructed him, and sent him there
without telling him what he had to do. Then he told her what he had
discovered of the state of things generally in Gwyntystorm, and
specially what he had heard and seen in the palace that night.

"Things are in a bad state enough," he said in conclusion;--"lying and
selfishness and inhospitality and dishonesty everywhere; and to crown
all, they speak with disrespect of the good king, and not a man of them
knows he is ill."

"You frighten me dreadfully," said Irene, trembling.

"You must be brave for your king's sake," said Curdie.

"Indeed I will," she replied, and turned a long loving look upon the
beautiful face of her father. "But what _is_ to be done? And how _am_ I
to believe such horrible things of Dr. Kelman?"

"My dear princess," replied Curdie, "you know nothing of him but his
face and his tongue, and they are both false. Either you must beware of
him, or you must doubt your grandmother and me; for I tell you, by the
gift she gave me of testing hands, that this man is a snake. That round
body he shows is but the case of a serpent. Perhaps the creature lies
there, as in its nest, coiled round and round inside."

"Horrible!" said Irene.

"Horrible indeed; but we must not try to get rid of horrible things by
refusing to look at them, and saying they are not there. Is not your
beautiful father sleeping better since he had the wine?"

"Yes."

"Does he always sleep better after having it?"

She reflected an instant.

"No; always worse--till to-night," she answered.

"Then remember that was the wine I got him--not what the butler drew.
Nothing that passes through any hand in the house except yours or mine
must henceforth, till he is well, reach his majesty's lips."

"But how, dear Curdie?" said the princess, almost crying.

"That we must contrive," answered Curdie. "I know how to take care of
the wine; but for his food--now we must think."

"He takes hardly any," said the princess, with a pathetic shake of her
little head which Curdie had almost learned to look for.

"The more need," he replied, "there should be no poison in it." Irene
shuddered. "As soon as he has honest food he will begin to grow better.
And you must be just as careful with yourself, princess," Curdie went
on, "for you don't know when they may begin to poison you too."

"There's no fear of me; don't talk about me," said Irene. "The good
food!--how are we to get it, Curdie? That is the whole question."

"I am thinking hard," answered Curdie. "The good food? Let me see--let
me see!--Such servants as I saw below are sure to have the best of
everything for themselves: I will go and see what I can find on their
supper-table."

"The chancellor sleeps in the house, and he and the master of the king's
horse always have their supper together in a room off the great hall, to
the right as you go down the stair," said Irene. "I would go with you,
but I dare not leave my father. Alas! he scarcely ever takes more than a
mouthful. I can't think how he lives! And the very thing he would like,
and often asks for--a bit of bread--I can hardly ever get for him: Dr.
Kelman has forbidden it, and says it is nothing less than poison to
him."

"Bread at least he _shall_ have," said Curdie; "and that, with the
honest wine, will do as well as anything, I do believe. I will go at
once and look for some. But I want you to see Lina first, and know her,
lest, coming upon her by accident at any time, you should be
frightened."

"I should like much to see her," said the princess.

Warning her not to be startled by her ugliness, he went to the door and
called her.

She entered, creeping with downcast head, and dragging her tail over the
floor behind her. Curdie watched the princess as the frightful creature
came nearer and nearer. One shudder went from head to foot of her, and
next instant she stepped to meet her. Lina dropped flat on the floor,
and covered her face with her two big paws. It went to the heart of the
princess: in a moment she was on her knees beside her, stroking her ugly
head, and patting her all over.

"Good dog! Dear ugly dog!" she said.

Lina whimpered.

"I believe," said Curdie, "from what your grandmother told me, that Lina
is a woman, and that she was naughty, but is now growing good."

Lina had lifted her head while Irene was caressing her; now she dropped
it again between her paws; but the princess took it in her hands, and
kissed the forehead betwixt the gold-green eyes.

"Shall I take her with me or leave her?" asked Curdie.

"Leave her, poor dear," said Irene, and Curdie, knowing the way now,
went without her.

He took his way first to the room the princess had spoken of, and there
also were the remains of supper; but neither there nor in the kitchen
could he find a scrap of plain wholesome-looking bread. So he returned
and told her that as soon as it was light he would go into the city for
some, and asked her for a handkerchief to tie it in. If he could not
bring it himself, he would send it by Lina, who could keep out of sight
better than he, and as soon as all was quiet at night he would come to
her again. He also asked her to tell the king that he was in the house.

His hope lay in the fact that bakers everywhere go to work early. But it
was yet much too early. So he persuaded the princess to lie down,
promising to call her if the king should stir.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE LOAF.

His majesty slept very quietly. The dawn had grown almost day, and still
Curdie lingered, unwilling to disturb the princess.

At last, however, he called her, and she was in the room in a moment.
She had slept, she said, and felt quite fresh. Delighted to find her
father still asleep, and so peacefully, she pushed her chair close to
the bed, and sat down with her hands in her lap.

Curdie got his mattock from where he had hidden it behind a great
mirror, and went to the cellar, followed by Lina. They took some
breakfast with them as they passed through the hall, and as soon as they
had eaten it went out the back way.

At the mouth of the passage Curdie seized the rope, drew himself up,
pushed away the shutter, and entered the dungeon. Then he swung the end
of the rope to Lina, and she caught it in her teeth. When her master
said, "Now, Lina!" she gave a great spring, and he ran away with the end
of the rope as fast as ever he could. And such a spring had she made,
that by the time he had to bear her weight she was within a few feet of
the hole. The instant she got a paw through, she was all through.

Apparently their enemies were waiting till hunger should have cowed
them, for there was no sign of any attempt having been made to open the
door. A blow or two of Curdie's mattock drove the shattered lock clean
from it, and telling Lina to wait there till he came back, and let no
one in, he walked out into the silent street, and drew the door to
behind him. He could hardly believe it was not yet a whole day since he
had been thrown in there with his hands tied at his back.

Down the town he went, walking in the middle of the street, that, if any
one saw him, he might see he was not afraid, and hesitate to rouse an
attack on him. As to the dogs, ever since the death of their two
companions, a shadow that looked like a mattock was enough to make them
scamper. As soon as he reached the archway of the city gate he turned to
reconnoitre the baker's shop, and perceiving no sign of movement, waited
there watching for the first.

After about an hour, the door opened, and the baker's man appeared with
a pail in his hand. He went to a pump that stood in the street, and
having filled his pail returned with it into the shop. Curdie stole
after him, found the door on the latch, opened it very gently, peeped
in, saw nobody, and entered. Remembering perfectly from what shelf the
baker's wife had taken the loaf she said was the best, and seeing just
one upon it, he seized it, laid the price of it on the counter, and sped
softly out, and up the street. Once more in the dungeon beside Lina, his
first thought was to fasten up the door again, which would have been
easy, so many iron fragments of all sorts and sizes lay about; but he
bethought himself that if he left it as it was, and they came to find
him, they would conclude at once that they had made their escape by it,
and would look no farther so as to discover the hole. He therefore
merely pushed the door close and left it. Then once more carefully
arranging the earth behind the shutter, so that it should again fall
with it, he returned to the cellar.

And now he had to convey the loaf to the princess. If he could venture
to take it himself, well; if not, he would send Lina. He crept to the
door of the servants' hall, and found the sleepers beginning to stir.
One said it was time to go to bed; another, that he would go to the
cellar instead, and have a mug of wine to waken him up; while a third
challenged a fourth to give him his revenge at some game or other.

"Oh, hang your losses!" answered his companion; "you'll soon pick up
twice as much about the house, if you but keep your eyes open."

Perceiving there would be risk in attempting to pass through, and
reflecting that the porters in the great hall would probably be awake
also, Curdie went back to the cellar, took Irene's handkerchief with the
loaf in it, tied it round Lina's neck, and told her to take it to the
princess.

Using every shadow and every shelter, Lina slid through the servants
like a shapeless terror through a guilty mind, and so, by corridor and
great hall, up the stair to the king's chamber.

Irene trembled a little when she saw her glide soundless in across the
silent dusk of the morning, that filtered through the heavy drapery of
the windows, but she recovered herself at once when she saw the bundle
about her neck, for it both assured her of Curdie's safety, and gave her
hope of her father's. She untied it with joy, and Lina stole away,
silent as she had come. Her joy was the greater that the king had woke
up a little while before, and expressed a desire for food--not that he
felt exactly hungry, he said, and yet he wanted something. If only he
might have a piece of nice fresh bread! Irene had no knife, but with
eager hands she broke a great piece from the loaf, and poured out a full
glass of wine. The king ate and drank, enjoyed the bread and the wine
much, and instantly fell asleep again.

It was hours before the lazy people brought their breakfast. When it
came, Irene crumbled a little about, threw some into the fire-place, and
managed to make the tray look just as usual.

In the meantime, down below in the cellar, Curdie was lying in the
hollow between the upper sides of two of the great casks, the warmest
place he could find. Lina was watching. She lay at his feet, across the
two casks, and did her best so to arrange her huge tail that it should
be a warm coverlid for her master.

By-and-by Dr. Kelman called to see his patient; and now that Irene's
eyes were opened, she saw clearly enough that he was both annoyed and
puzzled at finding his majesty rather better. He pretended however to
congratulate him, saying he believed he was quite fit to see the lord
chamberlain: he wanted his signature to something important; only he
must not strain his mind to understand it, whatever it might be: if his
majesty did, he would not be answerable for the consequences. The king
said he would see the lord chamberlain, and the doctor went. Then Irene
gave him more bread and wine, and the king ate and drank, and smiled a
feeble smile, the first real one she had seen for many a day. He said he
felt much better, and would soon be able to take matters into his own
hands again. He had a strange miserable feeling, he said, that things
were going terribly wrong, although he could not tell how. Then the
princess told him that Curdie was come, and that at night, when all was
quiet, for nobody in the palace must know, he would pay his majesty a
visit. Her great-great-grandmother had sent him, she said. The king
looked strangely upon her, but, the strange look passed into a smile
clearer than the first, and Irene's heart throbbed with delight.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN.

At noon the lord chamberlain appeared. With a long, low bow, and paper
in hand, he stepped softly into the room. Greeting his majesty with
every appearance of the profoundest respect, and congratulating him on
the evident progress he had made, he declared himself sorry to trouble
him, but there were certain papers, he said, which required his
signature--and therewith drew nearer to the king, who lay looking at him
doubtfully. He was a lean, long, yellow man, with a small head, bald
over the top, and tufted at the back and about the ears. He had a very
thin, prominent, hooked nose, and a quantity of loose skin under his
chin and about the throat, which came craning up out of his neckcloth.
His eyes were very small, sharp, and glittering, and looked black as
jet. He had hardly enough of a mouth to make a smile with. His left hand
held the paper, and the long, skinny fingers of his right a pen just
dipped in ink.

But the king, who for weeks had scarcely known what he did, was to-day
so much himself as to be aware that he was not quite himself; and the
moment he saw the paper, he resolved that he would not sign without
understanding and approving of it. He requested the lord chamberlain
therefore to read it. His lordship commenced at once but the
difficulties he seemed to encounter, and the fits of stammering that
seized him, roused the king's suspicion tenfold. He called the princess.

"I trouble his lordship too much," he said to her: "you can read print
well, my child--let me hear how you can read writing. Take that paper
from his lordship's hand, and read it to me from beginning to end, while
my lord drinks a glass of my favourite wine, and watches for your
blunders."

"Pardon me, your majesty," said the lord chamberlain, with as much of a
smile as he was able to extemporize, "but it were a thousand pities to
put the attainments of her royal highness to a test altogether too
severe. Your majesty can scarcely with justice expect the very organs of
her speech to prove capable of compassing words so long, and to her so
unintelligible."

"I think much of my little princess and her capabilities," returned the
king, more and more aroused. "Pray, my lord, permit her to try."

"Consider, your majesty: the thing would be altogether without
precedent. It would be to make sport of statecraft," said the lord
chamberlain.

"Perhaps you are right, my lord," answered the king with more meaning
than he intended should be manifest while to his growing joy he felt new
life and power throbbing in heart and brain. "So this morning we shall
read no farther. I am indeed ill able for business of such weight."

"Will your majesty please sign your royal name here?" said the lord
chamberlain, preferring the request as a matter of course, and
approaching with the feather end of the pen pointed to a spot where was
a great red seal.

"Not to-day, my lord," replied the king.

"It is of the greatest importance, your majesty," softly insisted the
other.

"I descried no such importance in it," said the king.

"Your majesty heard but a part."

"And I can hear no more to-day."

"I trust your majesty has ground enough, in a case of necessity like the
present, to sign upon the representation of his loyal subject and
chamberlain?--Or shall I call the lord chancellor?" he added, rising.

"There is no need. I have the very highest opinion of your judgment, my
lord," answered the king; "--that is, with respect to means: we _might_
differ as to ends."

The lord chamberlain made yet further attempts at persuasion; but they
grew feebler and feebler, and he was at last compelled to retire without
having gained his object. And well might his annoyance be keen! For that
paper was the king's will, drawn up by the attorney-general; nor until
they had the king's signature to it was there much use in venturing
farther. But his worst sense of discomfiture arose from finding the king
with so much capacity left, for the doctor had pledged himself so to
weaken his brain that he should be as a child in their hands, incapable
of refusing anything requested of him: his lordship began to doubt the
doctor's fidelity to the conspiracy.

The princess was in high delight. She had not for weeks heard so many
words, not to say words of such strength and reason, from her father's
lips: day by day he had been growing weaker and more lethargic. He was
so much exhausted however after this effort, that he asked for another
piece of bread and more wine, and fell fast asleep the moment he had
taken them.

The lord chamberlain sent in a rage for Dr. Kelman. He came, and while
professing himself unable to understand the symptoms described by his
lordship, yet pledged himself again that on the morrow the king should
do whatever was required of him.

The day went on. When his majesty was awake, the princess read to
him--one story-book after another; and whatever she read, the king
listened as if he had never heard anything so good before, making out in
it the wisest meanings. Every now and then he asked for a piece of bread
and a little wine, and every time he ate and drank he slept, and every
time he woke he seemed better than the last time. The princess bearing
her part, the loaf was eaten up and the flagon emptied before night. The
butler took the flagon away, and brought it back filled to the brim, but
both were thirsty as well as hungry when Curdie came again.

Meantime he and Lina, watching and waking alternately, had plenty of
sleep. In the afternoon, peeping from the recess, they saw several of
the servants enter hurriedly, one after the other, draw wine, drink it,
and steal out; but their business was to take care of the king, not of
his cellar, and they let them drink. Also, when the butler came to fill
the flagon, they restrained themselves, for the villain's fate was not
yet ready for him. He looked terribly frightened, and had brought with
him a large candle and a small terrier--which latter indeed threatened
to be troublesome, for he went roving and sniffing about until he came
to the recess where they were. But as soon as he showed himself, Lina
opened her jaws so wide, and glared at him so horribly, that, without
even uttering a whimper, he tucked his tail between his legs and ran to
his master. He was drawing the wicked wine at the moment, and did not
see him, else he would doubtless have run too.

When supper-time approached, Curdie took his place at the door into the
servants' hall; but after a long hour's vain watch, he began to fear he
should get nothing: there was so much idling about, as well as coming
and going. It was hard to bear--chiefly from the attractions of a
splendid loaf, just fresh out of the oven, which he longed to secure for
the king and princess. At length his chance did arrive: he pounced upon
the loaf and carried it away, and soon after got hold of a pie.

This time, however, both loaf and pie were missed. The cook was called.
He declared he had provided both. One of themselves, he said, must have
carried them away for some friend outside the palace. Then a housemaid,
who had not long been one of them, said she had seen some one like a
page running in the direction of the cellar with something in his hands.
Instantly all turned upon the pages, accusing them, one after another.
All denied, but nobody believed one of them: where there is no truth
there can be no faith.

To the cellar they all set out to look for the missing pie and loaf.
Lina heard them coming, as well she might, for they were talking and
quarrelling loud, and gave her master warning. They snatched up
everything, and got all signs of their presence out at the back door
before the servants entered. When they found nothing, they all turned on
the chambermaid, and accused her, not only of lying against the pages,
but of having taken the things herself. Their language and behaviour so
disgusted Curdie, who could hear a great part of what passed, and he saw
the danger of discovery now so much increased, that he began to devise
how best at once to rid the palace of the whole pack of them. That
however, would be small gain so long as the treacherous officers of
state continued in it. They must be first dealt with. A thought came to
him, and the longer he looked at it the better he liked it.

As soon as the servants were gone, quarrelling and accusing all the way,
they returned and finished their supper. Then Curdie, who had long been
satisfied that Lina understood almost every word he said, communicated
his plan to her, and knew by the wagging of her tail and the flashing of
her eyes that she comprehended it. Until they had the king safe through
the worst part of the night, however, nothing could be done.

They had now merely to go on waiting where they were till the household
should be asleep. This waiting and waiting was much the hardest thing
Curdie had to do in the whole affair. He took his mattock, and going
again into the long passage, lighted a candle-end, and proceeded to
examine the rock on all sides. But this was not merely to pass the
time: he had a reason for it. When he broke the stone in the street,
over which the baker fell, its appearance led him to pocket a fragment
for further examination; and since then he had satisfied himself that it
was the kind of stone in which gold is found, and that the yellow
particles in it were pure metal. If such stone existed here in any
plenty, he could soon make the king rich, and independent of his
ill-conditioned subjects. He was therefore now bent on an examination of
the rock; nor had he been at it long before he was persuaded that there
were large quantities of gold in the half-crystalline white stone, with
its veins of opaque white and of green, of which the rock, so far as he
had been able to inspect it, seemed almost entirely to consist. Every
piece he broke was spotted with particles and little lumps of a lovely
greenish yellow--and that was gold. Hitherto he had worked only in
silver, but he had read, and heard talk, and knew therefore about gold.
As soon as he had got the king free of rogues and villains, he would
have all the best and most honest miners, with his father at the head of
them, to work this rock for the king.

It was a great delight to him to use his mattock once more. The time
went quickly, and when he left the passage to go to the king's chamber,
he had already a good heap of fragments behind the broken door.

CHAPTER XXIII.

DR. KELMAN.

As soon as he had reason to hope the way was clear, Curdie ventured
softly into the hall, with Lina behind him. There was no one asleep on
the bench or floor, but by the fading fire sat a girl weeping. It was
the same who had seen him carrying off the food, and had been so hardly
used for saying so. She opened her eyes when he appeared, but did not
seem frightened at him.

"I know why you weep," said Curdie; "and I am sorry for you."

"It _is_ hard not to be believed just _because_ one speaks the truth,"
said the girl, "but that seems reason enough with some people. My mother
taught me to speak the truth, and took such pains with me that I should
find it hard to tell a lie, though I could invent many a story these
servants would believe at once; for the truth is a strange thing here,
and they don't know it when they see it. Show it them, and they all
stare as if it were a wicked lie, and that with the lie yet warm that
has just left their own mouths!--You are a stranger," she said, and
burst out weeping afresh, "but the stranger you are to such a place and
such people the better!"

"I am the person," said Curdie, "whom you saw carrying the things from
the supper-table." He showed her the loaf. "If you can trust, as well as
speak the truth, I will trust you.--Can you trust me?"

She looked at him steadily for a moment.

"I can," she answered.

"One thing more," said Curdie: "have you courage as well as faith?"

"I think so."

"Look my dog in the face and don't cry out.--Come here, Lina."

Lina obeyed. The girl looked at her, and laid her hand on her head.

"Now I know you are a true woman," said Curdie. "--I am come to set
things right in this house. Not one of the servants knows I am here.
Will you tell them to-morrow morning, that, if they do not alter their
ways, and give over drinking, and lying, and stealing, and unkindness,
they shall every one of them be driven from the palace?"

"They will not believe me."

"Most likely; but will you give them the chance?"

"I will."

"Then I will be your friend. Wait here till I come again."

She looked him once more in the face, and sat down.

When he reached the royal chamber, he found his majesty awake, and very
anxiously expecting him. He received him with the utmost kindness, and
at once as it were put himself in his hands by telling him all he knew
concerning the state he was in. His voice was feeble, but his eye was
clear, and although now and then his words and thoughts seemed to
wander, Curdie could not be certain that the cause of their not being
intelligible to him did not lie in himself. The king told him that for
some years, ever since his queen's death, he had been losing heart over
the wickedness of his people. He had tried hard to make them good, but
they got worse and worse. Evil teachers, unknown to him, had crept into
the schools; there was a general decay of truth and right principle at
least in the city; and as that set the example to the nation, it must
spread. The main cause of his illness was the despondency with which the
degeneration of his people affected him. He could not sleep, and had
terrible dreams; while, to his unspeakable shame and distress, he
doubted almost everybody. He had striven against his suspicion, but in
vain, and his heart was sore, for his courtiers and councillors were
really kind; only he could not think why none of their ladies came near
his princess. The whole country was discontented, he heard, and there
were signs of gathering storm outside as well as inside his borders. The
master of the horse gave him sad news of the insubordination of the
army; and his great white horse was dead, they told him; and his sword
had lost its temper: it bent double the last time he tried it!--only
perhaps that was in a dream; and they could not find his shield; and one
of his spurs had lost the rowel. Thus the poor king went wandering in a
maze of sorrows, some of which were purely imaginary, while others were
truer than he understood. He told how thieves came at night and tried to
take his crown, so that he never dared let it out of his hands even when
he slept; and how, every night, an evil demon in the shape of his
physician came and poured poison down his throat. He knew it to be
poison, he said, somehow, although it tasted like wine.

Here he stopped, faint with the unusual exertion of talking. Curdie
seized the flagon, and ran to the wine-cellar.

In the servants' hall the girl still sat by the fire, waiting for him.
As he returned he told her to follow him, and left her at the chamber
door till he should rejoin her.

[Illustration: _Curdie brings wine to the king._]

When the king had had a little wine, he informed him that he had already
discovered certain of his majesty's enemies, and one of the worst of
them was the doctor, for it was no other demon than the doctor himself
who had been coming every night, and giving him a slow poison.

"So!" said the king. "Then I have not been suspicious enough, for I
thought it was but a dream! Is it possible Kelman can be such a wretch?
Who then am I to trust?"

"Not one in the house, except the princess and myself," said Curdie.

"I will not go to sleep," said the king.

"That would be as bad as taking the poison," said Curdie. "No, no, sire;
you must show your confidence by leaving all the watching to me, and
doing all the sleeping your majesty can."

The king smiled a contented smile, turned on his side, and was presently
fast asleep. Then Curdie persuaded the princess also to go to sleep, and
telling Lina to watch, went to the housemaid. He asked her if she could
inform him which of the council slept in the palace, and show him their
rooms. She knew every one of them, she said, and took him the round of
all their doors, telling him which slept in each room. He then dismissed
her, and returning to the king's chamber, seated himself behind a
curtain at the head of the bed, on the side farthest from the king. He
told Lina to get under the bed, and make no noise.

About one o'clock the doctor came stealing in. He looked round for the
princess, and seeing no one, smiled with satisfaction as he approached
the wine where it stood under the lamp. Having partly filled a glass, he
took from his pocket a small phial, and filled up the glass from it. The
light fell upon his face from above, and Curdie saw the snake in it
plainly visible. He had never beheld such an evil countenance: the man
hated the king, and delighted in doing him wrong.

With the glass in his hand, he drew near the bed, set it down, and began
his usual rude rousing of his majesty. Not at once succeeding, he took a
lancet from his pocket, and was parting its cover with an involuntary
hiss of hate between his closed teeth, when Curdie stooped and whispered
to Lina, "Take him by the leg, Lina." She darted noiselessly upon him.
With a face of horrible consternation, he gave his leg one tug to free
it; the next instant Curdie heard the one scrunch with which she crushed
the bone like a stick of celery. He tumbled on the floor with a yell.

"Drag him out, Lina," said Curdie.

Lina took him by the collar, and dragged him out. Her master followed to
direct her, and they left him lying across the lord chamberlain's
door, where he gave another horrible yell, and fainted.

[Illustration: "_Lina darted noiselessly upon him._"]

The king had waked at his first cry, and by the time Curdie re-entered
he had got at his sword where it hung from the centre of the tester, had
drawn it, and was trying to get out of bed. But when Curdie told him all
was well, he lay down again as quietly as a child comforted by his
mother from a troubled dream. Curdie went to the door to watch.

The doctor's yells had roused many, but not one had yet ventured to
appear. Bells were rung violently, but none were answered; and in a
minute or two Curdie had what he was watching for. The door of the lord
chamberlain's room opened, and, pale with hideous terror, his lordship
peeped out. Seeing no one, he advanced to step into the corridor, and
tumbled over the doctor. Curdie ran up, and held out his hand. He
received in it the claw of a bird of prey--vulture or eagle, he could
not tell which.

His lordship, as soon as he was on his legs, taking him for one of the
pages, abused him heartily for not coming sooner, and threatened him
with dismissal from the king's service for cowardice and neglect. He
began indeed what bade fair to be a sermon on the duties of a page, but
catching sight of the man who lay at his door, and seeing it was the
doctor, he fell out upon Curdie afresh for standing there doing
nothing, and ordered him to fetch immediate assistance. Curdie left him,
but slipped into the king's chamber, closed and locked the door, and
left the rascals to look after each other. Ere long he heard hurrying
footsteps, and for a few minutes there was a great muffled tumult of
scuffling feet, low voices, and deep groanings; then all was still
again.

Irene slept through the whole--so confidently did she rest, knowing
Curdie was in her father's room watching over him.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE PROPHECY.

Curdie sat and watched every motion of the sleeping king. All the night,
to his ear, the palace lay as quiet as a nursery of healthful children.
At sunrise he called the princess.

"How has his Majesty slept?" were her first words as she entered the
room.

"Quite quietly," answered Curdie; "that is, since the doctor was got rid
of."

"How did you manage that?" inquired Irene; and Curdie had to tell all
about it.

"How terrible!" she said. "Did it not startle the king dreadfully?"

"It did rather. I found him getting out of bed, sword in hand."

"The brave old man!" cried the princess.

"Not so old!" said Curdie, "--as you will soon see. He went off again
in a minute or so; but for a little while he was restless, and once when
he lifted his hand it came down on the spikes of his crown, and he half
waked."

"But where _is_ the crown?" cried Irene, in sudden terror.

"I stroked his hands," answered Curdie, "and took the crown from them;
and ever since he has slept quietly, and again and again smiled in his
sleep."

"I have never seen him do that," said the princess. "But what have you
done with the crown, Curdie?"

"Look," said Curdie, moving away from the bedside.

Irene followed him--and there, in the middle of the floor, she saw a
strange sight. Lina lay at full length, fast asleep, her tail stretched
out straight behind her and her fore-legs before her: between the two
paws meeting in front of it, her nose just touching it behind, glowed
and flashed the crown, like a nest for the humming-birds of heaven.

Irene gazed, and looked up with a smile.

"But what if the thief were to come, and she not to wake?" she said.
"Shall I try her?" And as she spoke she stooped towards the crown.

"No, no, no!" cried Curdie, terrified. "She would frighten you out of
your wits. I would do it to show you, but she would wake your father.
You have no conception with what a roar she would spring at my throat.
But you shall see how lightly she wakes the moment I speak to
her.--Lina!"

She was on her feet the same instant, with her great tail sticking out
straight behind her, just as it had been lying.

"Good dog!" said the princess, and patted her head. Lina wagged her tail
solemnly, like the boom of an anchored sloop. Irene took the crown, and
laid it where the king would see it when he woke.

"Now, princess," said Curdie, "I must leave you for a few minutes. You
must bolt the door, please, and not open it to any one."

Away to the cellar he went with Lina, taking care, as they passed
through the servants' hall, to get her a good breakfast. In about one
minute she had eaten what he gave her, and looked up in his face: it was
not more she wanted, but work. So out of the cellar they went through
the passage, and Curdie into the dungeon, where he pulled up Lina,
opened the door, let her out, and shut it again behind her. As he
reached the door of the king's chamber, Lina was flying out of the gate
of Gwyntystorm as fast as her mighty legs could carry her.

"What's come to the wench?" growled the men-servants one to another,
when the chambermaid appeared among them the next morning. There was
something in her face which they could not understand, and did not
like.

"Are we all dirt?" they said. "What are you thinking about? Have you
seen yourself in the glass this morning, miss?"

She made no answer.

"Do you want to be treated as you deserve, or will you speak, you
hussy?" said the first woman-cook. "I would fain know what right _you_
have to put on a face like that!"

"You won't believe me," said the girl.

"Of course not. What is it?"

"I must tell you, whether you believe me or not," she said.

"Of course you must."

"It is this, then: if you do not repent of your bad ways, you are all
going to be punished--all turned out of the palace together."

"A mighty punishment!" said the butler. "A good riddance, say I, of the
trouble of keeping minxes like you in order! And why, pray, should we be
turned out? What have I to repent of now, your holiness?"

"That you know best yourself," said the girl.

"A pretty piece of insolence! How should _I_ know, forsooth, what a
menial like you has got against me! There _are_ people in this
house--oh! I'm not blind to their ways! but every one for himself, say
I!--Pray, Miss Judgment, who gave you such an impertinent message to his
majesty's household?"

"One who is come to set things right in the king's house."

"Right, indeed!" cried the butler; but that moment the thought came back
to him of the roar he had heard in the cellar, and he turned pale and
was silent.

The steward took it up next.

"And pray, pretty prophetess," he said, attempting to chuck her under
the chin, "what have _I_ got to repent of?"

"That you know best yourself," said the girl. "You have but to look into
your books or your heart."

"Can you tell _me_, then, what I have to repent of?" said the groom of
the chambers.

"That you know best yourself," said the girl once more. "The person who
told me to tell you said the servants of this house had to repent of
thieving, and lying, and unkindness, and drinking; and they will be made
to repent of them one way, if they don't do it of themselves another."

Then arose a great hubbub; for by this time all the servants in the
house were gathered about her, and all talked together, in towering
indignation.

"Thieving, indeed!" cried one. "A pretty word in a house where
everything is left lying about in a shameless way, tempting poor
innocent girls!--a house where nobody cares for anything, or has the
least respect to the value of property!"

"I suppose you envy me this brooch of mine," said another. "There was
just a half-sheet of note-paper about it, not a scrap more, in a drawer
that's always open in the writing-table in the study! What sort of a
place is that for a jewel? Can you call it stealing to take a thing from
such a place as that? Nobody cared a straw about it. It might as well
have been in the dust-hole! If it had been locked up--then, to be sure!"

"Drinking!" said the chief porter, with a husky laugh. "And who wouldn't
drink when he had a chance? Or who would repent it, except that the
drink was gone? Tell me that, Miss Innocence."

"Lying!" said a great, coarse footman. "I suppose you mean when I told
you yesterday you were a pretty girl when you didn't pout? Lying,
indeed! Tell us something worth repenting of! Lying is the way of
Gwyntystorm. You should have heard Jabez lying to the cook last night!
He wanted a sweetbread for his pup, and pretended it was for the
princess! Ha! ha! ha!"

"Unkindness! I wonder who's unkind! Going and listening to any stranger
against her fellow-servants, and then bringing back his wicked words to
trouble them!" said the oldest and worst of the housemaids. "--One of
ourselves, too!--Come, you hypocrite! this is all an invention of yours
and your young man's, to take your revenge of us because we found you
out in a lie last night. Tell true now:--wasn't it the same that stole
the loaf and the pie that sent you with the impudent message?"

As she said this, she stepped up to the housemaid and gave her, instead
of time to answer, a box on the ear that almost threw her down; and
whoever could get at her began to push and hustle and pinch and punch
her.

"You invite your fate," she said quietly.

They fell furiously upon her, drove her from the hall with kicks and
blows, hustled her along the passage, and threw her down the stair to
the wine-cellar, then locked the door at the top of it, and went back to
their breakfast.

In the meantime the king and the princess had had their bread and wine,
and the princess, with Curdie's help, had made the room as tidy as she
could--they were terribly neglected by the servants. And now Curdie set
himself to interest and amuse the king, and prevent him from thinking
too much, in order that he might the sooner think the better. Presently,
at his majesty's request, he began from the beginning, and told
everything he could recall of his life, about his father and mother and
their cottage on the mountain, of the inside of the mountain and the
work there, about the goblins and his adventures with them. When he came
to finding the princess and her nurse overtaken by the twilight on the
mountain, Irene took up her share of the tale, and told all about
herself to that point, and then Curdie took it up again; and so they
went on, each fitting in the part that the other did not know, thus
keeping the hoop of the story running straight; and the king listened
with wondering and delighted ears, astonished to find what he could so
ill comprehend, yet fitting so well together from the lips of two
narrators. At last, with the mission given him by the wonderful princess
and his consequent adventures, Curdie brought up the whole tale to the
present moment. Then a silence fell, and Irene and Curdie thought the
king was asleep. But he was far from it; he was thinking about many
things. After a long pause he said:--

"Now at last, my children, I am compelled to believe many things I could
not and do not yet understand--things I used to hear, and sometimes see,
as often as I visited my mother's home. Once, for instance, I heard my
mother say to her father--speaking of me--'He is a good, honest boy, but
he will be an old man before he understands;' and my grandfather
answered, 'Keep up your heart, child: my mother will look after him.' I
thought often of their words, and the many strange things besides I both
heard and saw in that house; but by degrees, because I could not
understand them, I gave up thinking of them. And indeed I had almost
forgotten them, when you, my child, talking that day about the Queen
Irene and her pigeons, and what you had seen in her garret, brought them
all back to my mind in a vague mass. But now they keep coming back to
me, one by one, every one for itself; and I shall just hold my peace,
and lie here quite still, and think about them all till I get well
again."

What he meant they could not quite understand, but they saw plainly that
already he was better.

"Put away my crown," he said. "I am tired of seeing it, and have no more
any fear of its safety."

They put it away together, withdrew from the bedside, and left him in
peace.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE AVENGERS.

There was nothing now to be dreaded from Dr. Kelman, but it made Curdie
anxious, as the evening drew near, to think that not a soul belonging to
the court had been to visit the king, or ask how he did, that day. He
feared, in some shape or other, a more determined assault. He had
provided himself a place in the room, to which he might retreat upon
approach, and whence he could watch; but not once had he had to betake
himself to it.

Towards night the king fell asleep. Curdie thought more and more
uneasily of the moment when he must again leave them for a little while.
Deeper and deeper fell the shadows. No one came to light the lamp. The
princess drew her chair close to Curdie: she would rather it were not so
dark, she said. She was afraid of something--she could not tell what;
nor could she give any reason for her fear but that all was so
dreadfully still. When it had been dark about an hour, Curdie thought
Lina might be returned; and reflected that the sooner he went the less
danger was there of any assault while he was away. There was more risk
of his own presence being discovered, no doubt, but things were now
drawing to a crisis, and it must be run. So, telling the princess to
lock all the doors of the bedchamber, and let no one in, he took his
mattock, and with here a run, and there a halt under cover, gained the
door at the head of the cellar-stair in safety. To his surprise he found
it locked, and the key was gone. There was no time for deliberation. He
felt where the lock was, and dealt it a tremendous blow with his
mattock. It needed but a second to dash the door open. Some one laid a
hand on his arm.

"Who is it?" said Curdie.

"I told you they wouldn't believe me, sir," said the housemaid. "I have
been here all day."

He took her hand, and said, "You are a good, brave girl. Now come with
me, lest your enemies imprison you again."

He took her to the cellar, locked the door, lighted a bit of candle,
gave her a little wine, told her to wait there till he came, and went
out the back way.

Swiftly he swung himself up into the dungeon. Lina had done her part.
The place was swarming with creatures--animal forms wilder and more
grotesque than ever ramped in nightmare dream. Close by the hole,
waiting his coming, her green eyes piercing the gulf below, Lina had but
just laid herself down when he appeared. All about the vault and up the
slope of the rubbish-heap lay and stood and squatted the forty-nine
whose friendship Lina had conquered in the wood. They all came crowding
about Curdie.

He must get them into the cellar as quickly as ever he could. But when
he looked at the size of some of them, he feared it would be a long
business to enlarge the hole sufficiently to let them through. At it he
rushed, hitting vigorously at its edge with his mattock. At the very
first blow came a splash from the water beneath, but ere he could heave
a third, a creature like a tapir, only that the grasping point of its
proboscis was hard as the steel of Curdie's hammer, pushed him gently
aside, making room for another creature, with a head like a great club,
which it began banging upon the floor with terrible force and noise.
After about a minute of this battery, the tapir came up again, shoved
Clubhead aside, and putting its own head into the hole began gnawing at
the sides of it with the finger of its nose, in such a fashion that the
fragments fell in a continuous gravelly shower into the water. In a few
minutes the opening was large enough for the biggest creature amongst
them to get through it.

Next came the difficulty of letting them down: some were quite light,
but the half of them were too heavy for the rope, not to say for his
arms. The creatures themselves seemed to be puzzling where or how they
were to go. One after another of them came up, looked down through the
hole, and drew back. Curdie thought if he let Lina down, perhaps that
would suggest something; possibly they did not see the opening on the
other side. He did so, and Lina stood lighting up the entrance of the
passage with her gleaming eyes. One by one the creatures looked down
again, and one by one they drew back, each standing aside to glance at
the next, as if to say, _Now you have a look_. At last it came to the
turn of the serpent with the long body, the four short legs behind, and
the little wings before. No sooner had he poked his head through than he
poked it farther through--and farther, and farther yet, until there was
little more than his legs left in the dungeon. By that time he had got
his head and neck well into the passage beside Lina. Then his legs gave
a great waddle and spring, and he tumbled himself, far as there was
betwixt them, heels over head into the passage.

"That is all very well for you, Mr. Legserpent!" thought Curdie to
himself; "but what is to be done with the rest?"

He had hardly time to think it however, before the creature's head
appeared again through the floor. He caught hold of the bar of iron to
which Curdie's rope was tied, and settling it securely across the
narrowest part of the irregular opening, held fast to it with his teeth.
It was plain to Curdie, from the universal hardness amongst them, that
they must all, at one time or another, have been creatures of the mines.

He saw at once what this one was after. He had planted his feet firmly
upon the floor of the passage, and stretched his long body up and across
the chasm to serve as a bridge for the rest. He mounted instantly upon
his neck, threw his arms round him as far as they would go, and slid
down in ease and safety, the bridge just bending a little as his weight
glided over it. But he thought some of the creatures would try his
teeth.

One by one the oddities followed, and slid down in safety. When they
seemed to be all landed, he counted them: there were but forty-eight. Up
the rope again he went, and found one which had been afraid to trust
himself to the bridge, and no wonder! for he had neither legs nor head
nor arms nor tail: he was just a round thing, about a foot in diameter,
with a nose and mouth and eyes on one side of the ball. He had made his
journey by rolling as swiftly as the fleetest of them could run. The
back of the legserpent not being flat, he could not quite trust himself
to roll straight and not drop into the gulf. Curdie took him in his
arms, and the moment he looked down through the hole, the bridge made
itself again, and he slid into the passage in safety, with Ballbody in
his bosom.

He ran first to the cellar, to warn the girl not to be frightened at the
avengers of wickedness. Then he called to Lina to bring in her friends.

One after another they came trooping in, till the cellar seemed full of
them. The housemaid regarded them without fear.

"Sir," she said, "there is one of the pages I don't take to be a bad
fellow."

"Then keep him near you," said Curdie. "And now can you show me a way to
the king's chamber not through the servants' hall?"

"There is a way through the chamber of the colonel of the guard," she
answered, "but he is ill, and in bed."

"Take me that way," said Curdie.

By many ups and downs and windings and turnings she brought him to a
dimly-lighted room, where lay an elderly man asleep. His arm was outside
the coverlid, and Curdie gave his hand a hurried grasp as he went by.
His heart beat for joy, for he had found a good, honest human hand.

"I suppose that is why he is ill," he said to himself.

It was now close upon supper-time, and when the girl stopped at the door
of the king's chamber, he told her to go and give the servants one
warning more.

"Say the messenger sent you," he said. "I will be with you very soon."

The king was still asleep. Curdie talked to the princess for a few
minutes, told her not to be frightened whatever noises she heard, only
to keep her door locked till he came, and left her.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE VENGEANCE.

By the time the girl reached the servants' hall they were seated at
supper. A loud, confused exclamation arose when she entered. No one made
room for her; all stared with unfriendly eyes. A page, who entered the
next minute by another door, came to her side.

"Where do _you_ come from, hussy?" shouted the butler, and knocked his
fist on the table with a loud clang.

He had gone to fetch wine, had found the stair door broken open and the
cellar-door locked, and had turned and fled. Amongst his fellows,
however, he had now regained what courage could be called his.

"From the cellar," she replied. "The messenger broke open the door, and
sent me to you again."

"The messenger! Pooh! What messenger?"

"The same who sent me before to tell you to repent."

"What! will you go fooling it still? Haven't you had enough of it?"
cried the butler in a rage, and starting to his feet, drew near
threateningly.

"I must do as I am told," said the girl.

"Then why _don't_ you do as _I_ tell you, and hold your tongue?" said
the butler. "Who wants your preachments? If anybody here has anything to
repent of, isn't that enough--and more than enough for him--but you must
come bothering about, and stirring up, till not a drop of quiet will
settle inside him? You come along with me, young woman; we'll see if we
can't find a lock somewhere in the house that'll hold you in!"

"Hands off, Mr. Butler!" said the page, and stepped between.

"Oh, ho!" cried the butler, and pointed his fat finger at him. "That's
you, is it, my fine fellow? So it's you that's up to her tricks, is it?"

The youth did not answer, only stood with flashing eyes fixed on him,
until, growing angrier and angrier, but not daring a step nearer, he
burst out with rude but quavering authority,--

"Leave the house, both of you! Be off, or I'll have Mr. Steward to talk
to you. Threaten your masters, indeed! Out of the house with you, and
show us the way you tell us of!"

Two or three of the footmen got up and ranged themselves behind the
butler.

"Don't say _I_ threaten you, Mr. Butler," expostulated the girl from
behind the page. "The messenger said I was to tell you again, and give
you one chance more."

"Did the _messenger_ mention me in particular?" asked the butler,
looking the page unsteadily in the face.

"No, sir," answered the girl.

"I thought not! I should like to hear him!"

"Then hear him now," said Curdie, who that moment entered at the
opposite corner of the hall. "I speak of the butler in particular when I
say that I know more evil of him than of any of the rest. He will not
let either his own conscience or my messenger speak to him: I therefore
now speak myself. I proclaim him a villain, and a traitor to his majesty
the king.--But what better is any one of you who cares only for himself,
eats, drinks, takes good money, and gives vile service in return,
stealing and wasting the king's property, and making of the palace,
which ought to be an example of order and sobriety, a disgrace to the
country?"

For a moment all stood astonished into silence by this bold speech
from a stranger. True, they saw by his mattock over his shoulder
that he was nothing but a miner boy, yet for a moment the truth told
notwithstanding. Then a great roaring laugh burst from the biggest of
the footmen as he came shouldering his way through the crowd towards
Curdie.

"Yes, I'm right," he cried; "I thought as much! This _messenger_,
forsooth, is nothing but a gallows-bird--a fellow the city marshal was
going to hang, but unfortunately put it off till he should be starved
enough to save rope and be throttled with a pack-thread. He broke
prison, and here he is preaching!"

As he spoke, he stretched out his great hand to lay hold of him. Curdie
caught it in his left hand, and heaved his mattock with the other.
Finding, however, nothing worse than an ox-hoof, he restrained himself,
stepped back a pace or two, shifted his mattock to his left hand, and
struck him a little smart blow on the shoulder. His arm dropped by his
side, he gave a roar, and drew back.

His fellows came crowding upon Curdie. Some called to the dogs; others
swore; the women screamed; the footmen and pages got round him in a
half-circle, which he kept from closing by swinging his mattock, and
here and there threatening a blow.

"Whoever confesses to having done anything wrong in this house, however
small, however great, and means to do better, let him come to this
corner of the room," he cried.

None moved but the page, who went towards him skirting the wall. When
they caught sight of him, the crowd broke into a hiss of derision.

"There! see! Look at the sinner! He confesses! actually confesses! Come,
what is it you stole? The barefaced hypocrite! There's your sort to set
up for reproving other people! Where's the other now?"

But the maid had left the room, and they let the page pass, for he
looked dangerous to stop. Curdie had just put him betwixt him and the
wall, behind the door, when in rushed the butler with the huge kitchen
poker, the point of which he had blown red-hot in the fire, followed by
the cook with his longest spit. Through the crowd, which scattered right
and left before them, they came down upon Curdie. Uttering a shrill
whistle, he caught the poker a blow with his mattock, knocking the point
to the ground, while the page behind him started forward, and seizing
the point of the spit, held on to it with both hands, the cook kicking
him furiously.

Ere the butler could raise the poker again, or the cook recover the
spit, with a roar to terrify the dead, Lina dashed into the room, her
eyes flaming like candles. She went straight at the butler. He was down
in a moment, and she on the top of him, wagging her tail over him like a
lioness.

"Don't kill him, Lina," said Curdie.

"Oh, Mr. Miner!" cried the butler.

"Put your foot on his mouth, Lina," said Curdie. "The truth Fear tells
is not much better than her lies."

The rest of the creatures now came stalking, rolling, leaping, gliding,
hobbling into the room, and each as he came took the next place along
the wall, until, solemn and grotesque, all stood ranged, awaiting
orders.

And now some of the culprits were stealing to the doors nearest them.
Curdie whispered the two creatures next him. Off went Ballbody, rolling
and bounding through the crowd like a spent cannon shot, and when the
foremost reached the door to the corridor, there he lay at the foot of
it grinning; to the other door scuttled a scorpion, as big as a huge
crab. The rest stood so still that some began to think they were only
boys dressed up to look awful; they persuaded themselves they were only
another part of the housemaid and page's vengeful contrivance, and their
evil spirits began to rise again. Meantime Curdie had, with a second
sharp blow from the hammer of his mattock, disabled the cook, so that he
yielded the spit with a groan. He now turned to the avengers.

"Go at them," he said.

The whole nine-and-forty obeyed at once, each for himself, and after his
own fashion. A scene of confusion and terror followed. The crowd
scattered like a dance of flies. The creatures had been instructed not
to hurt much, but to hunt incessantly, until every one had rushed
from the house. The women shrieked, and ran hither and thither through
the hall, pursued each by her own horror, and snapped at by every other
in passing. If one threw herself down in hysterical despair, she was
instantly poked or clawed or nibbled up again. Though they were quite as
frightened at first, the men did not run so fast; and by-and-by some of
them, finding they were only glared at, and followed, and pushed, began
to summon up courage once more, and with courage came impudence. The
tapir had the big footman in charge: the fellow stood stock-still, and
let the beast come up to him, then put out his finger and playfully
patted his nose. The tapir gave the nose a little twist, and the finger
lay on the floor. Then indeed the footman ran, and did more than run,
but nobody heeded his cries. Gradually the avengers grew more severe,
and the terrors of the imagination were fast yielding to those of
sensuous experience, when a page, perceiving one of the doors no longer
guarded, sprang at it, and ran out. Another and another followed. Not a
beast went after, until, one by one, they were every one gone from the
hall, and the whole menie in the kitchen. There they were beginning to
congratulate themselves that all was over, when in came the creatures
trooping after them, and the second act of their terror and pain began.
They were flung about in all directions; their clothes were torn from
them; they were pinched and scratched any and everywhere; Ballbody kept
rolling up them and over them, confining his attentions to no one in
particular; the scorpion kept grabbing at their legs with his huge
pincers; a three-foot centipede kept screwing up their bodies, nipping
as he went; varied as numerous were their woes. Nor was it long before
the last of them had fled from the kitchen to the sculleries. But
thither also they were followed, and there again they were hunted about.
They were bespattered with the dirt of their own neglect; they were
soused in the stinking water that had boiled greens; they were smeared
with rancid dripping; their faces were rubbed in maggots: I dare not
tell all that was done to them. At last they got the door into a
back-yard open, and rushed out. Then first they knew that the wind was
howling and the rain falling in sheets. But there was no rest for them
even there. Thither also were they followed by the inexorable avengers,
and the only door here was a door out of the palace: out every soul of
them was driven, and left, some standing, some lying, some crawling, to
the farther buffeting of the waterspouts and whirlwinds ranging every
street of the city. The door was flung to behind them, and they heard it
locked and bolted and barred against them.

[Illustration: "_A scene of confusion and terror followed: the crowd
scattered like a dance of flies._"]

CHAPTER XXVII.

MORE VENGEANCE.

As soon as they were gone, Curdie brought the creatures back to the
servants' hall, and told them to eat up everything on the table. It
_was_ a sight to see them all standing round it--except such as had to
get upon it--eating and drinking, each after its fashion, without a
smile, or a word, or a glance of fellowship in the act. A very few
moments served to make everything eatable vanish, and then Curdie
requested them to clean the house, and the page who stood by to assist
them.

Every one set about it except Ballbody: he could do nothing at cleaning,
for the more he rolled, the more he spread the dirt. Curdie was curious
to know what he had been, and how he had come to be such as he was; but
he could only conjecture that he was a gluttonous alderman whom nature
had treated homeopathically.

And now there was such a cleaning and clearing out of neglected places,
such a burying and burning of refuse, such a rinsing of jugs, such a
swilling of sinks, and such a flushing of drains, as would have
delighted the eyes of all true housekeepers and lovers of cleanliness
generally.

Curdie meantime was with the king, telling him all he had done. They had
heard a little noise, but not much, for he had told the avengers to
repress outcry as much as possible; and they had seen to it that the
more any one cried out the more he had to cry out upon, while the
patient ones they scarcely hurt at all.

Having promised his majesty and her royal highness a good breakfast,
Curdie now went to finish the business. The courtiers must be dealt
with. A few who were the worst, and the leaders of the rest, must be
made examples of; the others should be driven from their beds to the
street.

He found the chiefs of the conspiracy holding a final consultation in
the smaller room off the hall. These were the lord chamberlain, the
attorney-general, the master of the horse, and the king's private
secretary: the lord chancellor and the rest, as foolish as faithless,
were but the tools of these.

The housemaid had shown him a little closet, opening from a passage
behind, where he could overhear all that passed in that room; and now
Curdie heard enough to understand that they had determined, in the dead
of that night, rather in the deepest dark before the morning, to bring a
certain company of soldiers into the palace, make away with the king,
secure the princess, announce the sudden death of his majesty, read as
his the will they had drawn up, and proceed to govern the country at
their ease, and with results: they would at once levy severer taxes, and
pick a quarrel with the most powerful of their neighbours. Everything
settled, they agreed to retire, and have a few hours' quiet sleep
first--all but the secretary, who was to sit up and call them at the
proper moment. Curdie stole away, allowed them half an hour to get to
bed, and then set about completing his purgation of the palace.

First he called Lina, and opened the door of the room where the
secretary sat. She crept in, and laid herself down against it. When the
secretary, rising to stretch his legs, caught sight of her eyes, he
stood frozen with terror. She made neither motion nor sound. Gathering
courage, and taking the thing for a spectral illusion, he made a step
forward. She showed her other teeth, with a growl neither more than
audible nor less than horrible. The secretary sank fainting into a
chair. He was not a brave man, and besides, his conscience had gone over
to the enemy, and was sitting against the door by Lina.

To the lord chamberlain's door next, Curdie conducted the legserpent,
and let him in.

Now his lordship had had a bedstead made for himself, sweetly fashioned
of rods of silver gilt: upon it the legserpent found him asleep, and
under it he crept. But out he came on the other side, and crept over it
next, and again under it, and so over it, under it, over it, five or six
times, every time leaving a coil of himself behind him, until he had
softly folded all his length about the lord chamberlain and his bed.
This done, he set up his head, looking down with curved neck right over
his lordship's, and began to hiss in his face. He woke in terror
unspeakable, and would have started up; but the moment he moved, the
legserpent drew his coils closer, and closer still, and drew and drew
until the quaking traitor heard the joints of his bedstead grinding and
gnarring. Presently he persuaded himself that it was only a horrid
nightmare, and began to struggle with all his strength to throw it off.
Thereupon the legserpent gave his hooked nose such a bite, that his
teeth met through it--but it was hardly thicker than the bowl of a
spoon; and then the vulture knew that he was in the grasp of his enemy
the snake, and yielded. As soon as he was quiet the legserpent began to
untwist and retwist, to uncoil and recoil himself, swinging and swaying,
knotting and relaxing himself with strangest curves and convolutions,
always, however, leaving at least one coil around his victim. At last he
undid himself entirely, and crept from the bed. Then first the lord
chamberlain discovered that his tormentor had bent and twisted the
bedstead, legs and canopy and all, so about him, that he was shut in a
silver cage out of which it was impossible for him to find a way. Once
more, thinking his enemy was gone, he began to shout for help. But the
instant he opened his mouth his keeper darted at him and bit him, and
after three or four such essays, with like result, he lay still.

The master of the horse Curdie gave in charge to the tapir. When the
soldier saw him enter--for he was not yet asleep--he sprang from his
bed, and flew at him with his sword. But the creature's hide was
invulnerable to his blows, and he pecked at his legs with his proboscis
until he jumped into bed again, groaning, and covered himself up; after
which the tapir contented himself with now and then paying a visit to
his toes.

For the attorney-general, Curdie led to his door a huge spider, about
two feet long in the body, which, having made an excellent supper, was
full of webbing. The attorney-general had not gone to bed, but sat in a
chair asleep before a great mirror. He had been trying the effect of a
diamond star which he had that morning taken from the jewel-room. When
he woke he fancied himself paralysed; every limb, every finger even, was
motionless: coils and coils of broad spider-ribbon bandaged his members
to his body, and all to the chair. In the glass he saw himself wound
about, under and over and around, with slavery infinite. On a footstool
a yard off sat the spider glaring at him.

Clubhead had mounted guard over the butler, where he lay tied hand and
foot under the third cask. From that cask he had seen the wine run into
a great bath, and therein he expected to be drowned. The doctor, with
his crushed leg, needed no one to guard him.

And now Curdie proceeded to the expulsion of the rest. Great men or
underlings, he treated them all alike. From room to room over the house
he went, and sleeping or waking took the man by the hand. Such was the
state to which a year of wicked rule had reduced the moral condition of
the court, that in it all he found but three with human hands. The
possessors of these he allowed to dress themselves and depart in peace.
When they perceived his mission, and how he was backed, they yielded
without dispute.

Then commenced a general hunt, to clear the house of the vermin. Out of
their beds in their night-clothing, out of their rooms, gorgeous
chambers or garret nooks, the creatures hunted them. Not one was allowed
to escape. Tumult and noise there was little, for the fear was too
deadly for outcry. Ferreting them out everywhere, following them
upstairs and downstairs, yielding no instant of repose except upon the
way out, the avengers persecuted the miscreants, until the last of them
was shivering outside the palace gates, with hardly sense enough left to
know where to turn.

When they set out to look for shelter, they found every inn full of the
servants expelled before them, and not one would yield his place to a
superior suddenly levelled with himself. Most houses refused to admit
them on the ground of the wickedness that must have drawn on them such a
punishment; and not a few would have been left in the streets all night,
had not Derba, roused by the vain entreaties at the doors on each side
of her cottage, opened hers, and given up everything to them. The lord
chancellor was only too glad to share a mattress with a stable-boy, and
steal his bare feet under his jacket.

In the morning Curdie appeared, and the outcasts were in terror,
thinking he had come after them again. But he took no notice of them:
his object was to request Derba to go to the palace: the king required
her services. She needed take no trouble about her cottage, he said; the
palace was henceforward her home: she was the king's chastelaine over
men and maidens of his household. And this very morning she must cook
his majesty a nice breakfast.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE PREACHER.

Various reports went undulating through the city as to the nature of
what had taken place in the palace. The people gathered, and stared at
the house, eyeing it as if it had sprung up in the night. But it looked
sedate enough, remaining closed and silent, like a house that was dead.
They saw no one come out or go in. Smoke rose from a chimney or two;
there was hardly another sign of life. It was not for some little time
generally understood that the highest officers of the crown as well as
the lowest menials of the palace had been dismissed in disgrace: for who
was to recognise a lord chancellor in his night-shirt? and what lord
chancellor would, so attired in the street, proclaim his rank and office
aloud? Before it was day most of the courtiers crept down to the river,
hired boats, and betook themselves to their homes or their friends in
the country. It was assumed in the city that the domestics had been
discharged upon a sudden discovery of general and unpardonable
peculation; for, almost everybody being guilty of it himself, petty
dishonesty was the crime most easily credited and least easily passed
over in Gwyntystorm.

Now that same day was Religion day, and not a few of the clergy, always
glad to seize on any passing event to give interest to the dull and
monotonic grind of their intellectual machines, made this remarkable one
the ground of discourse to their congregations. More especially than the