Down to the Prisoners' Pit!
"Oh! Oh! Give me another hand and I'll do my best to help you,"
sputtered Nifflepok, as Handy Mandy ruthlessly continued to squeeze his
fingers.
"We'll help ourselves, thank you," retorted the Goat Girl tartly.
Then relenting a little, she relaxed her hold, for she could not help
pitying Nifflepok and all the subjects of this cruel King. "Where are
these prison pits?" she asked impatiently, for she was anxious to be
alone with Nox. "If you are going to lock us up, do hurry along with
it."
"Yes, yes, absolutely yes!" moaned Nifflepok, glancing nervously
over his shoulder to be sure the white Ox was not going to tread on
his heels. "You'll be there in no time, no time at all," he assured
them earnestly. "Step over here, please." Moving a sliding door in
the wall of the corridor, the King's assistant waved them toward a
smooth wheelless silver carriage. It looked to Handy a lot like an
old-fashioned sleigh, and as there were seats in front and a space in
back large enough for the Ox, she let go Nifflepok's hand and quite
willingly climbed aboard. Nox, grunting a little, stepped over the side
and settled himself behind her.
"Well, goodbye," sniffed Nifflepok, rubbing his bruised fingers
tenderly. "You'll find everything you need below, not that you'll
be needing anything," he added mournfully as he pulled out a silver
switch. "Goodbye, I'm sorry for you!" he shouted as the car with a
lurch that almost loosened Handy's teeth shot down a sliding runway to
the deep pits of darkness below.
Now, you and I, who are used to scenic railways and have enjoyed the
thrills of chute the chutes for years, would have been less startled
by the wild dizzy leaps, the swoops, curves and climbs, and the
sickening drops of the Silver King's chariot. But neither the Goat Girl
nor the Royal Ox had ever heard of a scenic railway, much less ridden
in one, and the underground car of the Silver Monarch was more like
a chute the chutes than anything else. Sometimes the two travellers
were in complete darkness, at other times they whirled by the narrow,
well-lighted ledges of a queer cave city, where the subjects of the
Mountain King lived in cell-like apertures in the silver rock like the
cliff dwellers of old. Then without warning the car would plunge to
the work caverns below, past the gloomy shafts of the silver mines, or
dart up to the living quarters and grottos of the King himself, caves
so lavishly furnished and glowing with jewels, Handy let out little
shrieks of astonishment. In the King's subterranean gardens, silver
swallows bathed in the silver fountains, silver maples rustled their
lacy branches in the lavender-scented breezes, silver-petalled flowers
with jeweled centers grew as riotously as daisies and buttercups in the
upstairs world.
The mountaineers themselves, working listless with pick and shovel in
the mines, or walking soberly along the ledges beside their little
cliff dwellings, seemed undersized and unhappy to the Goat Girl. Not
that she caught more than a flying glimpse of them as the silver car
tore by. In fact, she was so frantically busy holding on to the front
rail of the car with all her various hands and catching her breath
after each dizzy swoop, that her mind was in a perfect whirl. The
groans and snorts of Nox were far from reassuring, but afraid to look
back lest she herself be flung out, Handy clung desperately to the rail
wondering when the wild ride would end and where under the mountain
the silver car was taking them. The last words of Nifflepok rang
unpleasantly in her ears and as they raced by a cave marked "Potters
Den" the Goat Girl positively shuddered. Here, set out in vast silver
pots and buried to their chins in the silver earth, were scores of the
King's pale-faced prisoners. A grim-looking gardener was watering them
from a milk can, and from the hungry way they lapped up the few drops
that fell to them, Handy concluded that this was probably their only
food.
"First I shot over a mountain, and now I'm shooting through one!"
moaned the distracted Goat Girl, trying to collect her spinning
thoughts and faculties. "Oh, my--y, we're going to pot for sure. Oh,
this time we are really done for!"
Then all at once Handy's good common sense began to assert itself. And
as their strange chariot with a sudden increase of speed and power
again dashed down into the darkness, she snatched the precious blue
flower from her pocket and at the exact moment the silver car turned
over and flung them into space, Handy began pulling the petals from the
flower and letting them drift down ahead of her own rapidly falling
body. It was just light enough for her to see Nox, with bristling
horns and quivering nostrils, fall past, when she herself started to
turn so many and such dizzy somersaults she lost all count of time and
distance.