'
The moment Curdie heard that, he caught her up in his arms, and set
off at full speed, crying:
come on, mother dear! The king may break his heart before he knows
that she is safe.'
Irene clung round his neck and he ran with her like a deer. When
he entered the gate into the court, there sat the king on his
horse, with all the people of the house about him, weeping and
hanging their heads. The king was not weeping, but his face was
white as a dead man's, and he looked as if the life had gone out of
him. The men-at-arms he had brought with him sat with
horror-stricken faces, but eyes flashing with rage, waiting only
for the word of the king to do something - they did not know what,
and nobody knew what.
The day before, the men-at-arms belonging to the house, as soon as
they were satisfied the princess had been carried away, rushed
after the goblins into the hole, but found that they had already so
skilfully blockaded the narrowest part, not many feet below the
cellar, that without miners and their tools they could do nothing.
Not one of them knew where the mouth of the mine lay, and some of
those who had set out to find it had been overtaken by the storm
and had not even yet returned.
Pages:
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245