THE MATTOCK.
While the magistrate reinvigorated his selfishness with a greedy
breakfast, Curdie found doing nothing in the dark rather wearisome work.
It was useless attempting to think what he should do next, seeing the
circumstances in which he was presently to find himself were altogether
unknown to him. So he began to think about his father and mother in
their little cottage home, high in the clear air of the open
mountain-side, and the thought, instead of making his dungeon gloomier
by the contrast, made a light in his soul that destroyed the power of
darkness and captivity. But he was at length startled from his waking
dream by a swell in the noise outside. All the time there had been a few
of the more idle of the inhabitants about the door, but they had been
rather quiet. Now, however, the sounds of feet and voices began to grow,
and grew so rapidly that it was plain a multitude was gathering. For
the people of Gwyntystorm always gave themselves an hour of pleasure
after their second breakfast, and what greater pleasure could they have
than to see a stranger abused by the officers of justice? The noise grew
till it was like the roaring of the sea, and that roaring went on a long
time, for the magistrate, being a great man, liked to know that he was
waited for: it added to the enjoyment of his breakfast, and, indeed,
enabled him to eat a little more after he had thought his powers
exhausted. But at length, in the waves of the human noises rose a bigger
wave, and by the running and shouting and outcry, Curdie learned that
the magistrate was approaching.
Presently came the sound of the great rusty key in the lock, which
yielded with groaning reluctance; the door was thrown back, the light
rushed in, and with it came the voice of the city marshal, calling upon
Curdie, by many legal epithets opprobrious, to come forth and be tried
for his life, inasmuch as he had raised a tumult in his majesty's city
of Gwyntystorm, troubled the hearts of the king's baker and barber, and
slain the faithful dogs of his majesty's well-beloved butchers.
He was still reading, and Curdie was still seated in the brown twilight
of the vault, not listening, but pondering with himself how this king
the city marshal talked of could be the same with the majesty he had
seen ride away on his grand white horse, with the Princess Irene on a
cushion before him, when a scream of agonized terror arose on the
farthest skirt of the crowd, and, swifter than flood or flame, the
horror spread shrieking. In a moment the air was filled with hideous
howling, cries of unspeakable dismay, and the multitudinous noise of
running feet. The next moment, in at the door of the vault bounded Lina,
her two green eyes flaming yellow as sunflowers, and seeming to light up
the dungeon. With one spring she threw herself at Curdie's feet, and
laid her head upon them panting. Then came a rush of two or three
soldiers darkening the doorway, but it was only to lay hold of the key,
pull the door to, and lock it; so that once more Curdie and Lina were
prisoners together.
For a few moments Lina lay panting hard: it is breathless work leaping
and roaring both at once, and that in a way to scatter thousands of
people. Then she jumped up, and began snuffing about all over the place;
and Curdie saw what he had never seen before--two faint spots of light
cast from her eyes upon the ground, one on each side of her snuffing
nose. He got out his tinder-box--a miner is never without one--and
lighted a precious bit of candle he carried in a division of it--just
for a moment, for he must not waste it.
The light revealed a vault without any window or other opening than the
door. It was very old and much neglected. The mortar had vanished from
between the stones, and it was half filled with a heap of all sorts of
rubbish, beaten down in the middle, but looser at the sides; it sloped
from the door to the foot of the opposite wall: evidently for a long
time the vault had been left open, and every sort of refuse thrown into
it. A single minute served for the survey, so little was there to note.
Meantime, down in the angle between the back wall and the base of the
heap Lina was scratching furiously with all the eighteen great strong
claws of her mighty feet.
"Ah, ha!" said Curdie to himself, catching sight of her, "if only they
will leave us long enough to ourselves!"
With that he ran to the door, to see if there was any fastening on the
inside. There was none: in all its long history it never had had one.
But a few blows of the right sort, now from the one, now from the other
end of his mattock, were as good as any bolt, for they so ruined the
lock that no key could ever turn in it again. Those who heard them
fancied he was trying to get out, and laughed spitefully. As soon as he
had done, he extinguished his candle, and went down to Lina.
She had reached the hard rock which formed the floor of the dungeon, and
was now clearing away the earth a little wider. Presently she looked up
in his face and whined, as much as to say, "My paws are not hard enough
to get any further."
"Then get out of my way, Lina," said Curdie, "and mind you keep your
eyes shining, for fear I should hit you."
So saying, he heaved his mattock, and assailed with the hammer end of it
the spot she had cleared.
The rock was very hard, but when it did break it broke in good-sized
pieces. Now with hammer, now with pick, he worked till he was weary,
then rested, and then set to again. He could not tell how the day went,
as he had no light but the lamping of Lina's eyes. The darkness hampered
him greatly, for he would not let Lina come close enough to give him all
the light she could, lest he should strike her. So he had, every now and
then, to feel with his hands to know how he was getting on, and to
discover in what direction to strike: the exact spot was a mere
imagination.
He was getting very tired and hungry, and beginning to lose heart a
little, when out of the ground, as if he had struck a spring of it,
burst a dull, gleamy, lead-coloured light, and the next moment he heard
a hollow splash and echo. A piece of rock had fallen out of the floor,
and dropped into water beneath. Already Lina, who had been lying a few
yards off all the time he worked, was on her feet and peering through
the hole. Curdie got down on his hands and knees, and looked. They were
over what seemed a natural cave in the rock, to which apparently the
river had access, for, at a great distance below, a faint light was
gleaming upon water. If they could but reach it, they might get out; but
even if it was deep enough, the height was very dangerous. The first
thing, whatever might follow, was to make the hole larger. It was
comparatively easy to break away the sides of it, and in the course of
another hour he had it large enough to get through.
And now he must reconnoitre. He took the rope they had tied him
with--for Curdie's hindrances were always his furtherance--and fastened
one end of it by a slip-knot round the handle of his pickaxe, then
dropped the other end through, and laid the pickaxe so that, when he was
through himself, and hanging on to the edge, he could place it across
the hole to support him on the rope. This done, he took the rope in his
hands, and, beginning to descend, found himself in a narrow cleft
widening into a cave. His rope was not very long, and would not do much
to lessen the force of his fall--he thought with himself--if he should
have to drop into the water; but he was not more than a couple of yards
below the dungeon when he spied an opening on the opposite side of the
cleft: it might be but a shallow hole, or it might lead them out. He
dropped himself a little below its level, gave the rope a swing by
pushing his feet against the side of the cleft, and so penduled himself
into it. Then he laid a stone on the end of the rope that it should not
forsake him, called to Lina, whose yellow eyes were gleaming over the
mattock-grating above, to watch there till he returned, and went
cautiously in.
It proved a passage, level for some distance, then sloping gently up. He
advanced carefully, feeling his way as he went. At length he was stopped
by a door--a small door, studded with iron. But the wood was in places
so much decayed that some of the bolts had dropped out, and he felt sure
of being able to open it. He returned, therefore, to fetch Lina and his
mattock. Arrived at the cleft, his strong miner arms bore him swiftly up
along the rope and through the hole into the dungeon. There he undid the
rope from his mattock, and making Lina take the end of it in her teeth,
and get through the hole, he lowered her--it was all he could do, she
was so heavy. When she came opposite the passage, with a slight push of
her tail she shot herself into it, and let go the rope, which Curdie
drew up. Then he lighted his candle and searching in the rubbish found a
bit of iron to take the place of his pickaxe across the hole. Then he
searched again in the rubbish, and found half an old shutter. This he
propped up leaning a little over the hole, with a bit of stick, and
heaped against the back of it a quantity of the loosened earth. Next he
tied his mattock to the end of the rope, dropped it, and let it hang.
Last, he got through the hole himself, and pulled away the propping
stick, so that the shutter fell over the hole with a quantity of earth
on the top of it. A few motions of hand over hand, and he swung himself
and his mattock into the passage beside Lina. There he secured the end
of the rope, and they went on together to the door.