was sure they were many more than he had passed as he came. He had
to use great caution to pass unseen - they lay so close together.

Could his string have led him wrong? He still followed winding it,
and still it led him into more thickly populated quarters, until he

became quite uneasy, and indeed apprehensive; for although he was
not afraid of the cobs, he was afraid of not finding his way out.

But what could he do? It was of no use to sit down and wait for
the morning - the morning made no difference here. It was dark,

and always dark; and if his string failed him he was helpless. He
might even arrive within a yard of the mine and never know it.

Seeing he could do nothing better he would at least find where the
end of his string was, and, if possible, how it had come to play

him such a trick. He knew by the size of the ball that he was
getting pretty near the last of it, when he began to feel a tugging

and pulling at it. What could it mean? Turning a sharp corner, 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

of it, and the same moment tumbled over a wallowing mass, which he
knew must be a knot of the cobs' creatures. Before he could

recover his feet, he had caught some great scratches on his face
and several severe bites on his legs and arms. But as he scrambled

to get up, his hand fell upon his pickaxe, and before the horrid
beasts could do him any serious harm, he was laying about with it

right and left in the dark. The hideous cries which followed gave
him the satisfaction of knowing that he had punished some of them

pretty smartly for their rudeness, and by their scampering and
their retreating howls, he perceived that he had routed them. He

stood for a little, weighing his battle-axe in his hand as if it
had been the most precious lump of metal - but indeed no lump of

gold itself could have been so precious at the time as that common
tool - then untied the end of the string from it, put the ball in

his pocket, and still stood thinking. It was clear that the cobs'
creatures had found his axe, had between them carried it off, and

had so led him he knew not where. But for all his thinking he
could not tell what he ought to do, until suddenly he became aware

of a glimmer of light in the distance. Without a moment's
hesitation he set out for it, as fast as the unknown and rugged way

would permit. Yet again turning a corner, led by the dim light, he
spied something quite new in his experience of the underground

regions - a small irregular shape of something shining. Going up
to it, he found it was a piece of mica, or Muscovy glass, called

sheep-silver in Scotland, and the light flickered as if from a fire
behind it. After trying in vain for some time to discover an

entrance to the place where it was burning, he came at length to a
small chamber in which an opening, high in the wall, revealed a

glow beyond. To this opening he managed to scramble up, and then
he saw a strange sight.

Below sat a little group of goblins around a fire, the smoke of
which vanished in the darkness far aloft. The sides of the cave

were full of shining minerals like those of the palace hall; and
the company was evidently of a superior order, for every one wore

stones about head, or arms, or waist, shining dull gorgeous colours
in the light of the fire. Nor had Curdie looked long before he

recognized the king himself, and found that he had made his way
into the inner apartment of the royal family. He had never had

such a good chance of hearing something. He crept through the hole
as softly as he could, scrambled a good way down the wall towards

them without attracting attention, and then sat down and listened.
The king, evidently the queen, and probably the crown prince and

the Prime Minister were talking together. He was sure of the queen
by her shoes, for as she warmed her feet at the fire, he saw them

quite plainly.
'That will be fun!' said the one he took for the crown prince.

It was the first whole sentence he heard.
'I don't see why you should think it such a grand affair!' said his

stepmother, tossing her head backward.
'You must remember, my spouse,' interposed His Majesty, as if

making excuse for his son, 'he has got the same blood in him. His
mother -'

'Don't talk to me of his mother! You positivelyencourage his
unnatural fancies. Whatever belongs to that mother ought to be cut

out of him.'
'You forget yourself, my dear!' said the king.

'I don't,' said the queen, 'nor you either. If you expect me to
approve of such coarse tastes, you will find yourself mistaken. I

don'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
State policy. You are well aware that his gratification comes

purely from the 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 till they grow together. Then her feet will be like other
people's, and there will be no occasion for her to wear shoes.'

'Do you mean to insinuate I've got toes, you unnatural wretch?'
cried the queen; and she moved angrily towards Harelip. The

councillor, however, who was betwixt them, leaned forward so as to
prevent her touching him, but only as if to address the prince.

'Your Royal Highness,' he said, 'possibly requires to be reminded
that you 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

to your future people, proving to them that you are not the less
one of themselves that you had the misfortune to be born of a

sun-mother, if you were to command upon yourself the comparatively
slight operation which, in a more extended form, you so wisely

meditate with regard to your future princess.'
'Ha! ha! ha!' laughed the queen louder than before, and the king

and the minister joined in the laugh. Harelip growled, and for a
few moments the others continued to express their enjoyment of his

discomfiture.
The queen was the only one Curdie could see with any distinctness.

She sat sideways to him, and the light of the fire shone full upon
her face. He could not consider her handsome. Her nose was

certainly broader at the end than its extreme length, and her eyes,
instead of being horizontal, were set up like two perpendicular

eggs, one on the broad, the other on the small end. Her mouth was
no bigger than a small buttonhole until she laughed, when it

stretched from ear to ear - only, to be sure, her ears were very
nearly in the middle of her cheeks.

Anxious to hear everything they might say, Curdie ventured to slide
down 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 of the 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 was mingled with fear, for they took him for the first