The Princess and the Goblin
But presently she came to a huge heap of stones, piled in a slope
against the wall of the cavern. On these she climbed, and soon
recovered the level of the thread only however to find, the next
moment, that it vanished through the heap of stones, and left her
standing on it, with her face to the solid rock. For one terrible
moment she felt as if her grandmother had forsaken her. The thread
which the spiders had spun far over the seas, which her grandmother had
sat in the moonlight and spun again for her, which she had tempered in
the rose-fire and tied to her opal ring, had left her--had gone where
she could no longer follow it--had brought her into a horrible cavern,
and there left her! She was forsaken indeed!
'When shall I wake?' she said to herself in an agony, but the same
moment knew that it was no dream. She threw herself upon the heap, and
began to cry. It was well she did not know what creatures, one of them
with stone shoes on her feet, were lying in the next cave. But neither
did she know who was on the other side of the slab.
At length the thought struck her that at least she could follow the
thread backwards, and thus get out of the mountain, and home. She rose
at once, and found the thread. But the instant she tried to feel it
backwards, it vanished from her touch. Forwards, it led her hand up to
the heap of stones--backwards it seemed nowhere. Neither could she see
it as before in the light of the fire. She burst into a wailing cry,
and again threw herself down on the stones.
CHAPTER 21
The Escape
As the princess lay and sobbed she kept feeling the thread
mechanically, following it with her finger many times up to the stones
in which it disappeared. By and by she began, still mechanically, to
poke her finger in after it between the stones as far as she could.
All at once it came into her head that she might remove some of the
stones and see where the thread went next. Almost laughing at herself
for never having thought of this before, she jumped to her feet. Her
fear vanished; once more she was certain her grandmother's thread could
not have brought her there just to leave her there; and she began to
throw away the stones from the top as fast as she could, sometimes two
or three at a handful, sometimes taking both hands to lift one. After
clearing them away a little, she found that the thread turned and went
straight downwards. Hence, as the heap sloped a good deal, growing of
course wider towards its base, she had to throw away a multitude of
stones to follow the thread. But this was not all, for she soon found
that the thread, after going straight down for a little way, turned
first sideways in one direction, then sideways in another, and then
shot, at various angles, hither and thither inside the heap, so that
she began to be afraid that to clear the thread she must remove the
whole huge gathering. She was dismayed at the very idea, but, losing
no time, set to work with a will; and with aching back, and bleeding
fingers and hands, she worked on, sustained by the pleasure of seeing
the heap slowly diminish and begin to show itself on the opposite side
of the fire. Another thing which helped to keep up her courage was
that, as often as she uncovered a turn of the thread, instead of lying
loose upon the stone, it tightened up; this made her sure that her
grandmother was at the end of it somewhere.
She had got about half-way down when she started, and nearly fell with
fright. Close to her ears as it seemed, a voice broke out singing:
'Jabber, bother, smash!
You'll have it all in a crash.
Jabber, smash, bother!
You'll have the worst of the pother.
Smash, bother, jabber!--'
Here Curdie stopped, either because he could not find a rhyme to
'jabber', or because he remembered what he had forgotten when he woke
up at the sound of Irene's labours, that his plan was to make the
goblins think he was getting weak. But he had uttered enough to let
Irene know who he was.
'It's Curdie!' she cried joyfully.
'Hush! hush!' came Curdie's voice again from somewhere. 'Speak softly.'
'Why, you were singing loud!' said Irene.
'Yes. But they know I am here, and they don't know you are. Who are
you?'
'I'm Irene,' answered the princess. 'I know who you are quite well.
You're Curdie.'
'Why, how ever did you come here, Irene?'
'My great-great-grandmother sent me; and I think I've found out why.
You can't get out, I suppose?'
'No, I can't. What are you doing?'
'Clearing away a huge heap of stones.'
'There's a princess!' exclaimed Curdie, in a tone of delight, but still
speaking in little more than a whisper. 'I can't think how you got
here, though.'
'My grandmother sent me after her thread.'
'I don't know what you mean,' said Curdie; 'but so you're there, it
doesn't much matter.'
'Oh, yes, it does!' returned Irene. 'I should never have been here but
for her.'
'You can tell me all about it when we get out, then. There's no time
to lose now,' said Curdie.
And Irene went to work, as fresh as when she began.
'There's such a lot of stones!' she said. 'It will take me a long time
to get them all away.'
'How far on have you got?' asked Curdie.
'I've got about the half away, but the other half is ever so much
bigger.'
'I don't think you will have to move the lower half. Do you see a slab
laid up against the wall?'
Irene looked, and felt about with her hands, and soon perceived the
outlines of the slab.
'Yes,' she answered, 'I do.'
'Then, I think,' rejoined Curdie, 'when you have cleared the slab about
half-way down, or a bit more, I shall be able to push it over.'
'I must follow my thread,' returned Irene, 'whatever I do.'
'What do you mean?' exclaimed Curdie.
'You will see when you get out,' answered the princess, and went on
harder than ever.
But she was soon satisfied that what Curdie wanted done and what the
thread wanted done were one and the same thing. For she not only saw
that by following the turns of the thread she had been clearing the
face of the slab, but that, a little more than half-way down, the
thread went through the chink between the slab and the wall into the
place where Curdie was confined, so that she could not follow it any
farther until the slab was out of her way. As soon as she found this,
she said in a right joyous whisper:
'Now, Curdie, I think if you were to give a great push, the slab would
tumble over.'
'Stand quite clear of it, then,' said Curdie, 'and let me know when you
are ready.'
Irene got off the heap, and stood on one side of it. 'Now, Curdie!'
she cried.
Curdie gave a great rush with his shoulder against it. Out tumbled the
slab on the heap, and out crept Curdie over the top of it.
'You've saved my life, Irene!' he whispered.
'Oh, Curdie! I'm so glad! Let's get out of this horrid place as fast
as we can.'
'That's easier said than done,' returned he.
'Oh, no, it's quite easy,' said Irene. 'We have only to follow my
thread. I am sure that it's going to take us out now.'
She had already begun to follow it over the fallen slab into the hole,
while Curdie was searching the floor of the cavern for his pickaxe.
'Here it is!' he cried. 'No, it is not,' he added, in a disappointed
tone. 'What can it be, then? I declare it's a torch. That is jolly!
It's better almost than my pickaxe. Much better if it weren't for
those stone shoes!' he went on, as he lighted the torch by blowing the
last embers of the expiring fire.
When he looked up, with the lighted torch casting a glare into the
great darkness of the huge cavern, he caught sight of Irene
disappearing in the hole out of which he had himself just come.
'Where are you going there?' he cried. 'That's not the way out. That's
where I couldn't get out.'
'I know that,' whispered Irene. 'But this is the way my thread goes,
and I must follow it.'
'What nonsense the child talks!' said Curdie to himself. 'I must
follow her, though, and see that she comes to no harm. She will soon
find she can't get out that way, and then she will come with me.'
So he crept over the slab once more into the hole with his torch in his
hand. But when he looked about in it, he could see her nowhere. And
now he discovered that although the hole was narrow, it was much longer
than he had supposed; for in one direction the roof came down very low,
and the hole went off in a narrow passage, of which he could not see
the end. The princess must have crept in there. He got on his knees
and one hand, holding the torch with the other, and crept after her.
The hole twisted about, in some parts so low that he could hardly get
through, in others so high that he could not see the roof, but
everywhere it was narrow--far too narrow for a goblin to get through,
and so I presume they never thought that Curdie might. He was
beginning to feel very uncomfortable lest something should have
befallen the princess, when he heard her voice almost close to his ear,
whispering:
'Aren't you coming, Curdie?'
And when he turned the next corner there she stood waiting for him.
'I knew you couldn't go wrong in that narrow hole, but now you must
keep by me, for here is a great wide place,' she said.
'I can't understand it,' said Curdie, half to himself, half to Irene.
'Never mind,' she returned. 'Wait till we get out.'
Curdie, utterly astonished that she had already got so far, and by a
path he had known nothing of, thought it better to let her do as she
pleased. 'At all events,' he said again to himself, 'I know nothing
about the way, miner as I am; and she seems to think she does know
something about it, though how she should passes my comprehension. So
she's just as likely to find her way as I am, and as she insists on
taking the lead, I must follow. We can't be much worse off than we
are, anyhow.' Reasoning thus, he followed her a few steps, and came
out in another great cavern, across which Irene walked in a straight
line, as confidently as if she knew every step of the way. Curdie went
on after her, flashing his torch about, and trying to see something of
what lay around them. Suddenly he started back a pace as the light fell
upon something close by which Irene was passing. It was a platform of
rock raised a few feet from the floor and covered with sheepskins, upon
which lay two horrible figures asleep, at once recognized by Curdie as
the king and queen of the goblins. He lowered his torch instantly lest
the light should awake them. As he did so it flashed upon his pickaxe,
lying by the side of the queen, whose hand lay close by the handle of
it.
'Stop one moment,' he whispered. 'Hold my torch, and don't let the
light on their faces.'
Irene shuddered when she saw the frightful creatures, whom she had
passed without observing them, but she did as he requested, and turning
her back, held the torch low in front of her. Curdie drew his pickaxe
carefully away, and as he did so spied one of her feet, projecting from
under the skins. The great clumsy granite shoe, exposed thus to his
hand, was a temptation not to be resisted. He laid hold of it, and,
with cautious efforts, drew it off. The moment he succeeded, he saw to
his astonishment that what he had sung in ignorance, to annoy the
queen, was actually true: she had six horrible toes. Overjoyed at his
success, and seeing by the huge bump in the sheepskins where the other
foot was, he proceeded to lift them gently, for, if he could only
succeed in carrying away the other shoe as well, he would be no more
afraid of the goblins than of so many flies. But as he pulled at the
second shoe the queen gave a growl and sat up in bed. The same instant
the king awoke also and sat up beside her.