The Princess and the Goblin
Page 18
CHAPTER 18
Curdie's Clue
Curdie was as watchful as ever, but was almost getting tired of his illsuccess. Every other night or so he followed the goblins about, asthey went on digging and boring, and getting as near them as he could,watched them from behind stones and rocks; but as yet he seemed nonearer finding out what they had in view. As at first, he always kepthold of the end of his string, while his pickaxe, left just outside thehole by which he entered the goblins' country from the mine, continuedto serve as an anchor and hold fast the other end. The goblins,hearing no more noise in that quarter, had ceased to apprehend animmediate invasion, and kept no watch.
One night, after dodging about and listening till he was nearly fallingasleep with weariness, he began to roll up his ball, for he hadresolved to go home to bed. It was not long, however, before he beganto feel bewildered. One after another he passed goblin houses, caves,that is, occupied by goblin families, and at length was sure they weremany more than he had passed as he came. He had to use great cautionto pass unseen--they lay so close together. Could his string have ledhim wrong? He still followed winding it, and still it led him intomore thickly populated quarters, until he became quite uneasy, andindeed apprehensive; for although he was not afraid of the cobs, he wasafraid of not finding his way out. But what could he do? It was of nouse to sit down and wait for the morning--the morning made nodifference here. It was dark, and always dark; and if his stringfailed him he was helpless. He might even arrive within a yard of themine and never know it. Seeing he could do nothing better he would atleast find where the end of his string was, and, if possible, how ithad come to play him such a trick. He knew by the size of the ballthat he was getting pretty near the last of it, when he began to feel atugging and pulling at it. What could it mean? Turning a sharpcorner, he thought he heard strange sounds. These grew, as he went on,to a scuffling and growling and squeaking; and the noise increased,until, turning a second sharp corner, he found himself in the midst ofit, and the same moment tumbled over a wallowing mass, which he knewmust be a knot of the cobs' creatures. Before he could recover hisfeet, he had caught some great scratches on his face and several severebites on his legs and arms. But as he scrambled to get up, his handfell upon his pickaxe, and before the horrid beasts could do him anyserious harm, he was laying about with it right and left in the dark.The hideous cries which followed gave him the satisfaction of knowingthat he had punished some of them pretty smartly for their rudeness,and by their scampering and their retreating howls, he perceived thathe had routed them. He stood for a little, weighing his battle-axe inhis hand as if it had been the most precious lump of metal--but indeedno lump of gold itself could have been so precious at the time as thatcommon tool--then untied the end of the string from it, put the ball inhis pocket, and still stood thinking. It was clear that the cobs'creatures had found his axe, had between them carried it off, and hadso led him he knew not where. But for all his thinking he could nottell what he ought to do, until suddenly he became aware of a glimmerof light in the distance. Without a moment's hesitation he set out forit, as fast as the unknown and rugged way would permit. Yet againturning a corner, led by the dim light, he spied something quite new inhis experience of the underground regions--a small irregular shape ofsomething shining. Going up to it, he found it was a piece of mica, orMuscovy glass, called sheep-silver in Scotland, and the light flickeredas if from a fire behind it. After trying in vain for some time todiscover an entrance to the place where it was burning, he came atlength to a small chamber in which an opening, high in the wall,revealed a glow beyond. To this opening he managed to scramble up, andthen he saw a strange sight.
Below sat a little group of goblins around a fire, the smoke of whichvanished in the darkness far aloft. The sides of the cave were full ofshining minerals like those of the palace hall; and the company wasevidently of a superior order, for every one wore stones about head, orarms, or waist, shining dull gorgeous colours in the light of the fire.Nor had Curdie looked long before he recognized the king himself, andfound that he had made his way into the inner apartment of the royalfamily. He had never had such a good chance of hearing something. Hecrept through the hole as softly as he could, scrambled a good way downthe wall towards them without attracting attention, and then sat downand listened. The king, evidently the queen, and probably the crownprince and the Prime Minister were talking together. He was sure ofthe queen by her shoes, for as she warmed her feet at the fire, he sawthem quite plainly.
'That will be fun!' said the one he took for the crown prince. It wasthe first whole sentence he heard.
'I don't see why you should think it such a grand affair!' said hisstepmother, tossing her head backward.
'You must remember, my spouse,' interposed His Majesty, as if makingexcuse for his son, 'he has got the same blood in him. His mother--'
'Don't talk to me of his mother! You positively encourage hisunnatural fancies. Whatever belongs to that mother ought to be cut outof him.'
'You forget yourself, my dear!' said the king.
'I don't,' said the queen, 'nor you either. If you expect me toapprove of such coarse tastes, you will find yourself mistaken. Idon't wear shoes for nothing.'
'You must acknowledge, however,' the king said, with a little groan,'that this at least is no whim of Harelip's, but a matter of Statepolicy. You are well aware that his gratification comes purely fromthe pleasure of sacrificing himself to the public good.
Does it not, Harelip?'
'Yes, father; of course it does. Only it will be nice to make her cry.I'll have the skin taken off between her toes, and tie them up tillthey grow together. Then her feet will be like other people's, andthere will be no occasion for her to wear shoes.'
'Do you mean to insinuate I've got toes, you unnatural wretch?' criedthe queen; and she moved angrily towards Harelip. The councillor,however, who was betwixt them, leaned forward so as to prevent hertouching him, but only as if to address the prince.
'Your Royal Highness,' he said, 'possibly requires to be reminded thatyou have got three toes yourself--one on one foot, two on the other.'
'Ha! ha! ha!' shouted the queen triumphantly.
The councillor, encouraged by this mark of favour, went on.
'It seems to me, Your Royal Highness, it would greatly endear you toyour future people, proving to them that you are not the less one ofthemselves that you had the misfortune to be born of a sun-mother, ifyou were to command upon yourself the comparatively slight operationwhich, in a more extended form, you so wisely meditate with regard toyour future princess.'
'Ha! ha! ha!' laughed the queen louder than before, and the king andthe minister joined in the laugh. Harelip growled, and for a fewmoments the others continued to express their enjoyment of hisdiscomfiture.
The queen was the only one Curdie could see with any distinctness. Shesat sideways to him, and the light of the fire shone full upon herface. He could not consider her handsome. Her nose was certainlybroader at the end than its extreme length, and her eyes, instead ofbeing horizontal, were set up like two perpendicular eggs, one on thebroad, the other on the small end. Her mouth was no bigger than asmall buttonhole until she laughed, when it stretched from ear toear--only, to be sure, her ears were very nearly in the middle of hercheeks.
Anxious to hear everything they might say, Curdie ventured to slidedown a smooth part of the rock just under him, to a projection below,upon which he thought to rest. But whether he was not careful enough,or the projection gave way, down he came with a rush on the floor ofthe cavern, bringing with him a great rumbling shower of stones.
The goblins jumped from their seats in more anger than consternation,for they had never yet seen anything to be afraid of in the palace.But when they saw Curdie with his pick in his hand their rage wasmingled with fear, for they took him for the first of an invasion ofminers. The king notwithstanding drew himself up to his full height offour feet, spread himself to his full breadth
of three and a half, forhe was the handsomest and squarest of all the goblins, and strutting upto Curdie, planted himself with outspread feet before him, and saidwith dignity:
'Pray what right have you in my palace?'
'The right of necessity, Your Majesty,' answered Curdie. 'I lost myway and did not know where I was wandering to.'
'How did you get in?'
'By a hole in the mountain.'
'But you are a miner! Look at your pickaxe!'
Curdie did look at it, answering:
'I came upon it lying on the ground a little way from here. I tumbledover some wild beasts who were playing with it. Look, Your Majesty.'And Curdie showed him how he was scratched and bitten.
The king was pleased to find him behave more politely than he hadexpected from what his people had told him concerning the miners, forhe attributed it to the power of his own presence; but he did nottherefore feel friendly to the intruder.
'You will oblige me by walking out of my dominions at once,' he said,well knowing what a mockery lay in the words.
'With pleasure, if Your Majesty will give me a guide,' said Curdie.
'I will give you a thousand,' said the king with a scoffing air ofmagnificent liberality.
'One will be quite sufficient,' said Curdie.
But the king uttered a strange shout, half halloo, half roar, and inrushed goblins till the cave was swarming. He said something to thefirst of them which Curdie could not hear, and it was passed from oneto another till in a moment the farthest in the crowd had evidentlyheard and understood it. They began to gather about him in a way hedid not relish, and he retreated towards the wall. They pressed uponhim.
'Stand back,' said Curdie, grasping his pickaxe tighter by his knee.
They only grinned and pressed closer. Curdie bethought himself andbegan to rhyme.
'Ten, twenty, thirty-- You're all so very dirty! Twenty, thirty, forty-- You're all so thick and snorty! 'Thirty, forty, fifty-- You're all so puff-and-snifty! Forty, fifty, sixty-- Beast and man so mixty!
'Fifty, sixty, seventy-- Mixty, maxty, leaventy! Sixty, seventy, eighty-- All your cheeks so slaty!
'Seventy, eighty, ninety, All your hands so flinty! Eighty, ninety, hundred, Altogether dundred!'
The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horriblegrimaces all through the rhyme, as if eating something so disagreeablethat it set their teeth on edge and gave them the creeps; but whetherit was that the rhyming words were most of them no words at all, for, anew rhyme being considered the more efficacious, Curdie had made it onthe spur of the moment, or whether it was that the presence of the kingand queen gave them courage, I cannot tell; but the moment the rhymewas over they crowded on him again, and out shot a hundred long arms,with a multitude of thick nailless fingers at the ends of them, to layhold upon him. Then Curdie heaved up his axe. But being as gentle ascourageous and not wishing to kill any of them, he turned the end whichwas square and blunt like a hammer, and with that came down a greatblow on the head of the goblin nearest him. Hard as the heads of allgoblins are, he thought he must feel that. And so he did, no doubt;but he only gave a horrible cry, and sprung at Curdie's throat.Curdie, however, drew back in time, and just at that critical momentremembered the vulnerable part of the goblin body. He made a suddenrush at the king and stamped with all his might on His Majesty's feet.The king gave a most unkingly howl and almost fell into the fire.Curdie then rushed into the crowd, stamping right and left. Thegoblins drew back, howling on every side as he approached, but theywere so crowded that few of those he attacked could escape his tread;and the shrieking and roaring that filled the cave would have appalledCurdie but for the good hope it gave him. They were tumbling over eachother in heaps in their eagerness to rush from the cave, when a newassailant suddenly faced him--the queen, with flaming eyes and expandednostrils, her hair standing half up from her head, rushed at him. Shetrusted in her shoes: they were of granite--hollowed like Frenchsabots. Curdie would have endured much rather than hurt a woman, evenif she was a goblin; but here was an affair of life and death:forgetting her shoes, he made a great stamp on one of her feet. Butshe instantly returned it with very different effect, causing himfrightful pain, and almost disabling him. His only chance with herwould have been to attack the granite shoes with his pickaxe, butbefore he could think of that she had caught him up in her arms and wasrushing with him across the cave. She dashed him into a hole in thewall, with a force that almost stunned him. But although he could notmove, he was not too far gone to hear her great cry, and the rush ofmultitudes of soft feet, followed by the sounds of something heaved upagainst the rock; after which came a multitudinous patter of stonesfalling near him. The last had not ceased when he grew very faint, forhis head had been badly cut, and at last insensible.
When he came to himself there was perfect silence about him, and utterdarkness, but for the merest glimmer in one tiny spot. He crawled toit, and found that they had heaved a slab against the mouth of thehole, past the edge of which a poor little gleam found its way from thefire. He could not move it a hairbreadth, for they had piled a greatheap of stones against it. He crawled back to where he had been lying,in the faint hope of finding his pickaxe, But after a vain search hewas at last compelled to acknowledge himself in an evil plight. He satdown and tried to think, but soon fell fast asleep.