CHAPTER 8 - The Goblins
For some time Curdie worked away briskly, throwing
all the ore he had disengaged on one side behind him, to be ready for carrying
out in the morning. He heard a good deal of goblin-tapping, but it all sounded
far away in the hill, and he paid it little heed. Towards midnight he began to
feel rather hungry; so he dropped his pickaxe, got out a lump of bread which in
the morning he had laid in a damp hole in the rock, sat down on a heap of ore,
and ate his supper. Then he leaned back for five minutes' rest before beginning
his work again, and laid his head against the rock. He had not kept the
position for one minute before he heard something which made him sharpen his
ears. It sounded like a voice inside the rock. After a while he heard it again.
It was a goblin voice—there could be no doubt about that—and this time he could
make out the words.
'Hadn't we better be moving?'it said.
A rougher and deeper voice replied:
'There's no hurry. That wretched little mole won't
be through tonight, if he work ever so hard. He's not by any means at the
thinnest place.'
'But you still think the lode does come through
into our house?' said the first voice.
'Yes, but a good bit farther on than he has got to
yet. If he had struck a stroke more to the side just here,' said the goblin, tapping
the very stone, as it seemed to Curdie, against which his head lay, 'he would
have been through; but he's a couple of yards past it now, and if he follow the
lode it will be a week before it leads him in. You see it back there—a long
way. Still, perhaps, in case of accident it would be as well to be getting out
of this. Helfer, you'll take the great chest. That's your business, you know.'
'Yes, dad,' said a third voice. 'But you must help
me to get it on my back. It's awfully heavy, you know.'
'Well, it isn't just a bag of smoke, I admit. But
you're as strong as a mountain, Helfer.'
'You say so, dad. I think myself I'm all right.
But I could carry ten times as much if it wasn't for my feet.'
'That is your weak point, I confess, my boy.'
'Ain't it yours too, father?'
'Well, to be honest, it's a goblin weakness. Why
they come so soft, I declare I haven't an idea.'
'Specially when your head's so hard, you know,
father.'
'Yes my boy. The goblin's glory is his head. To
think how the fellows up above there have to put on helmets and things when
they go fighting! Ha! ha!'
'But why don't we wear shoes like them, father? I
should like it—especially when I've got a chest like that on my head.'
'Well, you see, it's not the fashion. The king
never wears shoes.'
'The queen does.'
'Yes; but that's for distinction. The first queen,
you see—I mean the king's first wife—wore shoes, of course, because she came
from upstairs; and so, when she died, the next queen would not be inferior to
her as she called it, and would wear shoes too. It was all pride. She is the
hardest in forbidding them to the rest of the women.'
'I'm sure I wouldn't wear them—no, not for—that I
wouldn't!' said the first voice, which was evidently that of the mother of the
family. 'I can't think why either of them should.'
'Didn't I tell you the first was from upstairs?'
said the other. 'That was the only silly thing I ever knew His Majesty guilty
of. Why should he marry an outlandish woman like that-one of our natural
enemies too?'
'I suppose he fell in love with her.' 'Pooh! pooh!
He's just as happy now with one of his own people.'
'Did she die very soon? They didn't tease her to
death, did they?'
'Oh, dear, no! The king worshipped her very
footmarks.'
'What made her die, then? Didn't the air agree
with her?'
'She died when the young prince was born.'
'How silly of her! We never do that. It must have
been because she wore shoes.'
'I don't know that.'
'Why do they wear shoes up there?'
'Ah, now that's a sensible question, and I will
answer it. But in order to do so, I must first tell you a secret. I once saw
the queen's feet.'
'Without her shoes?'
'Yes—without her shoes.'
'No! Did you? How was it?'
'Never you mind how it was. She didn't know I saw
them. And what do you think!—they had toes!'
'Toes! What's that?'
'You may well ask! I should never have known if I
had not seen the queen's feet. Just imagine! the ends of her feet were split up
into five or six thin pieces!'
'Oh, horrid! How could the king have fallen in
love with her?'
'You forget that she wore shoes. That is just why
she wore them. That is why all the men, and women too, upstairs wear shoes.
They can't bear the sight of their own feet without them.'
'Ah! now I understand. If ever you wish for shoes
again, Helfer, I'll hit your feet—I will.'
'No, no, mother; pray don't.'
'Then don't you.'
'But with such a big box on my head—'
A horrid scream followed, which Curdie interpreted
as in reply to a blow from his mother upon the feet of her eldest goblin.
'Well, I never knew so much before!' remarked a
fourth voice.
'Your knowledge is not universal quite yet,' said
the father. 'You were only fifty last month. Mind you see to the bed and
bedding. As soon as we've finished our supper, we'll be up and going. Ha! ha!
ha!'
'What are you laughing at, husband?'
'I'm laughing to think what a mess the miners will
find themselves in—somewhere before this day ten years.'
'Why, what do you mean?'
'Oh, nothing.'
'Oh, yes, you do mean something. You always do
mean something.'
'It's more than you do, then, wife.' 'That may be;
but it's not more than I find out, you know.'
'Ha! ha! You're a sharp one. What a mother you've
got, Helfer!'
'Yes, father.'
'Well, I suppose I must tell you. They're all at
the palace consulting about it tonight; and as soon as we've got away from this
thin place I'm going there to hear what night they fix upon. I should like to
see that young ruffian there on the other side, struggling in the agonies of—'
He dropped his voice so low that Curdie could hear
only a growl. The growl went on in the low bass for a good while, as
inarticulate as if the goblin's tongue had been a sausage; and it was not until
his wife spoke again that it rose to its former pitch.
'But what shall we do when you are at the palace?'
she asked.
'I will see you safe in the new house I've been
digging for you for the last two months. Podge, you mind the table and chairs.
I commit them to your care. The table has seven legs—each chair three. I shall
require them all at your hands.'
After this arose a confused conversation about the
various household goods and their transport; and Curdie heard nothing more that
was of any importance.
He now knew at least one of the reasons for the
constant sound of the goblin hammers and pickaxes at night. They were making
new houses for themselves, to which they might retreat when the miners should
threaten to break into their dwellings. But he had learned two things of far
greater importance. The first was, that some grievous calamity was preparing,
and almost ready to fall upon the heads of the miners; the second was—the one
weak point of a goblin's body; he had not known that their feet were so tender
as he had now reason to suspect. He had heard it said that they had no toes: he
had never had opportunity of inspecting them closely enough, in the dusk in
which they always appeared, to satisfy himself whether it was a correct report.
Indeed, he had not been able even to satisfy himself as to whether they had no
fingers, although that also was commonly said to be the fact. One of the
miners, indeed, who had had more schooling than the rest, was wont to argue
that such must have been the primordial condition of humanity, and that
education and handicraft had developed both toes and fingers—with which
proposition Curdie had once heard his father sarcastically agree, alleging in
support of it the probability that babies' gloves were a traditional remnant of
the old state of things; while the stockings of all ages, no regard being paid
in them to the toes, pointed in the same direction. But what was of importance
was the fact concerning the softness of the goblin feet, which he foresaw might
be useful to all miners. What he had to do in the meantime, however, was to
discover, if possible, the special evil design the goblins had now in their
heads.
Although he knew all the gangs and all the natural
galleries with which they communicated in the mined part of the mountain, he
had not the least idea where the palace of the king of the gnomes was;
otherwise he would have set out at once on the enterprise of discovering what
the said design was. He judged, and rightly, that it must lie in a farther part
of the mountain, between which and the mine there was as yet no communication.
There must be one nearly completed, however; for it could be but a thin
partition which now separated them. If only he could get through in time to
follow the goblins as they retreated! A few blows would doubtless be
sufficient—just where his ear now lay; but if he attempted to strike there with
his pickaxe, he would only hasten the departure of the family, put them on
their guard, and perhaps lose their involuntary guidance. He therefore began to
feel the wall With his hands, and soon found that some of the stones were loose
enough to be drawn out with little noise.
Laying hold of a large one with both his hands, he
drew it gently out, and let it down softly.
'What was that noise?' said the goblin father.
Curdie blew out his light, lest it should shine
through.
'It must be that one miner that stayed behind the
rest,' said the mother.
'No; he's been gone a good while. I haven't heard
a blow for an hour. Besides, it wasn't like that.'
'Then I suppose it must have been a stone carried
down the brook inside.'
'Perhaps. It will have more room by and by.'
Curdie kept quite still. After a little while,
hearing nothing but the sounds of their preparations for departure, mingled
with an occasional word of direction, and anxious to know whether the removal
of the stone had made an opening into the goblins' house, he put in his hand to
feel. It went in a good way, and then came in contact with something soft. He
had but a moment to feel it over, it was so quickly withdrawn: it was one of
the toeless goblin feet. The owner of it gave a cry of fright.
'What's the matter, Helfer?' asked his mother.
'A beast came out of the wall and licked my foot.'
'Nonsense! There are no wild beasts in our country,'
said his father.
'But it was, father. I felt it.'
'Nonsense, I say. Will you malign your native
realms and reduce them to a level with the country upstairs? That is swarming
with wild beasts of every description.'
'But I did feel it, father.'
'I tell you to hold your tongue. You are no
patriot.'
Curdie suppressed his laughter, and lay still as a
mouse—but no stiller, for every moment he kept nibbling away with his fingers
at the edges of the hole. He was slowly making it bigger, for here the rock had
been very much shattered with the blasting.
There seemed to be a good many in the family, to
judge from the mass of confused talk which now and then came through the hole;
but when all were speaking together, and just as if they had bottle-brushes—each
at least one—in their throats, it was not easy to make out much that was said.
At length he heard once more what the father goblin was saying.
'Now, then,' he said, 'get your bundles on your
backs. Here, Helfer, I'll help you up with your chest.'
'I wish it was my chest, father.'
'Your turn will come in good time enough! Make
haste. I must go to the meeting at the palace tonight. When that's over, we can
come back and clear out the last of the things before our enemies return in the
morning. Now light your torches, and come along. What a distinction it is, to
provide our own light, instead of being dependent on a thing hung up in the
air—a most disagreeable contrivance—intended no doubt to blind us when we
venture out under its baleful influence! Quite glaring and vulgar, I call it,
though no doubt useful to poor creatures who haven't the wit to make light for
themselves.'
Curdie could hardly keep himself from calling
through to know whether they made the fire to light their torches by. But a
moment's reflection showed him that they would have said they did, inasmuch as
they struck two stones together, and the fire came.
CHAPTER 9 - The Hall of the
Goblin Palace
A sound of many soft feet followed, but soon
ceased. Then Curdie flew at the hole like a tiger, and tore and pulled. The
sides gave way, and it was soon large enough for him to crawl through. He would
not betray himself by rekindling his lamp, but the torches of the retreating
company, which he found departing in a straight line up a long avenue from the
door of their cave, threw back light enough to afford him a glance round the
deserted home of the goblins. To his surprise, he could discover nothing to
distinguish it from an ordinary natural cave in the rock, upon many of which he
had come with the rest of the miners in the progress of their excavations. The
goblins had talked of coming back for the rest of their household gear: he saw
nothing that would have made him suspect a family had taken shelter there for a
single night. The floor was rough and stony; the walls full of projecting
corners; the roof in one place twenty feet high, in another endangering his
forehead; while on one side a stream, no thicker than a needle, it is true, but
still sufficient to spread a wide dampness over the wall, flowed down the face
of the rock. But the troop in front of him was toiling under heavy burdens. He
could distinguish Helfer now and then, in the flickering light and shade, with
his heavy chest on his bending shoulders; while the second brother was almost
buried in what looked like a great feather bed. 'Where do they get the
feathers?' thought Curdie; but in a moment the troop disappeared at a turn of
the way, and it was now both safe and necessary for Curdie to follow them, lest
they should be round the next turning before he saw them again, for so he might
lose them altogether. He darted after them like a greyhound. When he reached
the corner and looked cautiously round, he saw them again at some distance down
another long passage. None of the galleries he saw that night bore signs of the
work of man—or of goblin either. Stalactites, far older than the mines, hung
from their roofs; and their floors were rough with boulders and large round
stones, showing that there water must have once run. He waited again at this
corner till they had disappeared round the next, and so followed them a long
way through one passage after another. The passages grew more and more lofty,
and were more and more covered in the roof with shining stalactites.
It was a strange enough procession which he
followed. But the strangest part of it was the household animals which crowded
amongst the feet of the goblins. It was true they had no wild animals down
there—at least they did not know of any; but they had a wonderful number of tame
ones. I must, however, reserve any contributions towards the natural history of
these for a later position in my story.
At length, turning a corner too abruptly, he had
almost rushed into the middle of the goblin family; for there they had already
set down all their burdens on the floor of a cave considerably larger than that
which they had left. They were as yet too breathless to speak, else he would
have had warning of their arrest. He started back, however, before anyone saw
him, and retreating a good way, stood watching till the father should come out
to go to the palace.
Before very long, both he and his son Helfer appeared
and kept on in the same direction as before, while Curdie followed them again
with renewed precaution. For a long time he heard no sound except something
like the rush of a river inside the rock; but at length what seemed the far-off
noise of a great shouting reached his ears, which, however, presently ceased.
After advancing a good way farther, he thought he heard a single voice. It
sounded clearer and clearer as he went on, until at last he could almost
distinguish the words. In a moment or two, keeping after the goblins round
another corner, he once more started back—this time in amazement.
He was at the entrance of a magnificent cavern, of
an oval shape, once probably a huge natural reservoir of water, now the great
palace hall of the goblins. It rose to a tremendous height, but the roof was
composed of such shining materials, and the multitude of torches carried by the
goblins who crowded the floor lighted up the place so brilliantly, that Curdie
could see to the top quite well. But he had no idea how immense the place was
until his eyes had got accustomed to it, which was not for a good many minutes.
The rough projections on the walls, and the shadows thrown upwards from them by
the torches, made the sides of the chamber look as if they were crowded with
statues upon brackets and pedestals, reaching in irregular tiers from floor to
roof. The walls themselves were, in many parts, of gloriously shining
substances, some of them gorgeously coloured besides, which powerfully
contrasted with the shadows. Curdie could not help wondering whether his rhymes
would be of any use against such a multitude of goblins as filled the floor of
the hall, and indeed felt considerably tempted to begin his shout of 'One, two,
three!', but as there was no reason for routing them and much for endeavouring
to discover their designs, he kept himself perfectly quiet, and peering round
the edge of the doorway, listened with both his sharp ears.
At the other end of the hall, high above the heads
of the multitude, was a terrace-like ledge of considerable height, caused by
the receding of the upper part of the cavern-wall. Upon this sat the king and
his court: the king on a throne hollowed out of a huge block of green copper
ore, and his court upon lower seats around it. The king had been making them a
speech, and the applause which followed it was what Curdie had heard. One of
the court was now addressing the multitude. What he heard him say was to the
following effect: 'Hence it appears that two plans have been for some time together
working in the strong head of His Majesty for the deliverance of his people.
Regardless of the fact that we were the first possessors of the regions they
now inhabit; regardless equally of the fact that we abandoned that region from
the loftiest motives; regardless also of the self-evident fact that we excel
them so far in mental ability as they excel us in stature, they look upon us as
a degraded race and make a mockery of all our finer feelings. But, the time has
almost arrived when—thanks to His Majesty's inventive genius—it will be in our
power to take a thorough revenge upon them once for all, in respect of their
unfriendly behaviour.'
'May it please Your Majesty—' cried a voice close
by the door, which Curdie recognized as that of the goblin he had followed.
'Who is he that interrupts the Chancellor?' cried
another from near the throne.
'Glump,' answered several voices.
'He is our trusty subject,' said the king himself,
in a slow and stately voice: 'let him come forward and speak.'
A lane was parted through the crowd, and Glump,
having ascended the platform and bowed to the king, spoke as follows:
'Sire, I would have held my peace, had I not known
that I only knew how near was the moment, to which the Chancellor had just
referred.
In all probability, before another day is past,
the enemy will have broken through into my house—the partition between being
even now not more than a foot in thickness.'
'Not quite so much,' thought Curdie to himself.
'This very evening I have had to remove my household
effects; therefore the sooner we are ready to carry out the plan, for the
execution of which His Majesty has been making such magnificent preparations,
the better. I may just add, that within the last few days I have perceived a
small outbreak in my dining-room, which, combined with observations upon the
course of the river escaping where the evil men enter, has convinced me that
close to the spot must be a deep gulf in its channel. This discovery will, I
trust, add considerably to the otherwise immense forces at His Majesty's
disposal.'
He ceased, and the king graciously acknowledged
his speech with a bend of his head; whereupon Glump, after a bow to His
Majesty, slid down amongst the rest of the undistinguished multitude. Then the
Chancellor rose and resumed.
'The information which the worthy Glump has given
us,' he said, 'might have been of considerable import at the present moment,
but for that other design already referred to, which naturally takes
precedence. His Majesty, unwilling to proceed to extremities, and well aware
that such measures sooner or later result in violent reactions, has excogitated
a more fundamental and comprehensive measure, of which I need say no more.
Should His Majesty be successful—as who dares to doubt?—then a peace, all to
the advantage of the goblin kingdom, will be established for a generation at
least, rendered absolutely secure by the pledge which His Royal Highness the
prince will have and hold for the good behaviour of her relatives. Should His
Majesty fail—which who shall dare even to imagine in his most secret thoughts?—then
will be the time for carrying out with rigour the design to which Glump
referred, and for which our preparations are even now all but completed. The
failure of the former will render the latter imperative.'
Curdie, perceiving that the assembly was drawing
to a close and that there was little chance of either plan being more fully
discovered, now thought it prudent to make his escape before the goblins began
to disperse, and slipped quietly away.
There was not much danger of meeting any goblins,
for all the men at least were left behind him in the palace; but there was
considerable danger of his taking a wrong turning, for he had now no light, and
had therefore to depend upon his memory and his hands. After he had left behind
him the glow that issued from the door of Glump's new abode, he was utterly
without guide, so far as his eyes were concerned.
He was most anxious to get back through the hole
before the goblins should return to fetch the remains of their furniture. It
was not that he was in the least afraid of them, but, as it was of the utmost
importance that he should thoroughly discover what the plans they were
cherishing were, he must not occasion the slightest suspicion that they were
watched by a miner.
He hurried on, feeling his way along the walls of
rock. Had he not been very courageous, he must have been very anxious, for he
could not but know that if he lost his way it would be the most difficult thing
in the world to find it again. Morning would bring no light into these regions;
and towards him least of all, who was known as a special rhymester and
persecutor, could goblins be expected to exercise courtesy. Well might he wish
that he had brought his lamp and tinder-box with him, of which he had not
thought when he crept so eagerly after the goblins! He wished it all the more
when, after a while, he found his way blocked up, and could get no farther. It
was of no use to turn back, for he had not the least idea where he had begun to
go wrong. Mechanically, however, he kept feeling about the walls that hemmed
him in. His hand came upon a place where a tiny stream of water was running
down the face of the rock. 'What a stupid I am!' he said to himself. 'I am
actually at the end of my journey! And there are the goblins coming back to fetch
their things!' he added, as the red glimmer of their torches appeared at the
end of the long avenue that led up to the cave. In a moment he had thrown
himself on the floor, and wriggled backwards through the hole. The floor on the
other side was several feet lower, which made it easier to get back. It was all
he could do to lift the largest stone he had taken out of the hole, but he did
manage to shove it in again. He sat down on the ore-heap and thought.
He was pretty sure that the latter plan of the
goblins was to inundate the mine by breaking outlets for the water accumulated
in the natural reservoirs of the mountain, as well as running through portions
of it. While the part hollowed by the miners remained shut off from that
inhabited by the goblins, they had had no opportunity of injuring them thus;
but now that a passage was broken through, and the goblins' part proved the
higher in the mountain, it was clear to Curdie that the mine could be destroyed
in an hour. Water was always the chief danger to which the miners were exposed.
They met with a little choke-damp sometimes, but never with the explosive
firedamp so common in coal-mines. Hence they were careful as soon as they saw
any appearance of water. As the result of his reflections while the goblins
were busy in their old home, it seemed to Curdie that it would be best to build
up the whole of this gang, filling it with stone, and clay or lie, so that
there should be no smallest channel for the water to get into. There was not,
however, any immediate danger, for the execution of the goblins' plan was
contingent upon the failure of that unknown design which was to take precedence
of it; and he was most anxious to keep the door of communication open, that he
might if possible discover what the former plan was. At the same time they
could not resume their intermitted labours for the inundation without his
finding it out; when by putting all hands to the work, the one existing outlet
might in a single night be rendered impenetrable to any weight of water; for by
filling the gang entirely up, their embankment would be buttressed by the sides
of the mountain itself.
As soon as he found that the goblins had again
retired, he lighted his lamp, and proceeded to fill the hole he had made with
such stones as he could withdraw when he pleased. He then thought it better, as
he might have occasion to be up a good many nights after this, to go home and
have some sleep.
How pleasant the night air felt upon the outside
of the mountain after what he had gone through in the inside of it! He hurried
up the hill without meeting a single goblin on the way, and called and tapped
at the window until he woke his father, who soon rose and let him in. He told
him the whole story; and, just as he had expected, his father thought it best
to work that lode no farther, but at the same time to pretend occasionally to
be at work there still in order that the goblins might have no suspicions. Both
father and son then went to bed and slept soundly until the morning.
