The Avengers
There was nothing now to be dreaded from Dr Kelman, but it made Curdie
anxious, as the evening drew near, to think that not a soul belonging
to the court had been to visit the king, or ask how he did, that day.
He feared, in some shape or other, a more determined assault. He had
provided himself a place in the room, to which he might retreat upon
approach, and whence he could watch; but not once had he had to betake
himself to it.
Towards night the king fell asleep. Curdie thought more and more
uneasily of the moment when he must again leave them for a little
while. Deeper and deeper fell the shadows. No one came to light the
lamp. The princess drew her chair close to Curdie: she would rather it
were not so dark, she said. She was afraid of something--she could not
tell what; nor could she give any reason for her fear but that all was
so dreadfully still.
When it had been dark about an hour, Curdie thought Lina might have
returned; and reflected that the sooner he went the less danger was
there of any assault while he was away. There was more risk of his own
presence being discovered, no doubt, but things were now drawing to a
crisis, and it must be run. So, telling the princess to lock all the
doors of the bedchamber, and let no one in, he took his mattock, and
with here a run, and there a halt under cover, gained the door at the
head of the cellar stair in safety. To his surprise he found it
locked, and the key was gone. There was no time for deliberation. He
felt where the lock was, and dealt it a tremendous blow with his
mattock. It needed but a second to dash the door open. Someone laid a
hand on his arm.
'Who is it?' said Curdie.
'I told you they wouldn't believe me, sir,' said the housemaid. 'I
have been here all day.'
He took her hand, and said, 'You are a good, brave girl. Now come with
me, lest your enemies imprison you again.'
He took her to the cellar, locked the door, lighted a bit of candle,
gave her a little wine, told her to wait there till he came, and went
out the back way.
Swiftly he swung himself up into the dungeon. Lina had done her part.
The place was swarming with creatures--animal forms wilder and more
grotesque than ever ramped in nightmare dream. Close by the hole,
waiting his coming, her green eyes piercing the gulf below, Lina had
but just laid herself down when he appeared. All about the vault and
up the slope of the rubbish heap lay and stood and squatted the
forty-nine whose friendship Lina had conquered in the wood. They all
came crowding about Curdie.
He must get them into the cellar as quickly as ever he could. But when
he looked at the size of some of them, he feared it would be a long
business to enlarge the hole sufficiently to let them through. At it
he rushed, hitting vigorously at the edge with his mattock. At the
very first blow came a splash from the water beneath, but ere he could
heave a third, a creature like a tapir, only that the grasping point of
its proboscis was hard as the steel of Curdie's hammer, pushed him
gently aside, making room for another creature, with a head like a
great club, which it began banging upon the floor with terrible force
and noise. After about a minute of this battery, the tapir came up
again, shoved Clubhead aside, and putting its own head into the hole
began gnawing at the sides of it with the finger of its nose, in such a
fashion that the fragments fell in a continuous gravelly shower into
the water. In a few minutes the opening was large enough for the
biggest creature among them to get through it.
Next came the difficulty of letting them down: some were quite light,
but the half of them were too heavy for the rope, not to say for his
arms. The creatures themselves seemed to be puzzling where or how they
were to go. One after another of them came up, looked down through the
hole, and drew back. Curdie thought if he let Lina down, perhaps that
would suggest something; possibly they did not see the opening on the
other side. He did so, and Lina stood lighting up the entrance of the
passage with her gleaming eyes.
One by one the creatures looked down again, and one by one they drew
back, each standing aside to glance at the next, as if to say, Now you
have a look. At last it came to the turn of the serpent with the long
body, the four short legs behind, and the little wings before. No
sooner had he poked his head through than he poked it farther
through--and farther, and farther yet, until there was little more than
his legs left in the dungeon. By that time he had got his head and
neck well into the passage beside Lina. Then his legs gave a great
waddle and spring, and he tumbled himself, far as there was betwixt
them, heels over head into the passage.
'That is all very well for you, Mr Legserpent!' thought Curdie to
himself; 'but what is to be done with the rest?' He had hardly time to
think it, however, before the creature's head appeared again through
the floor. He caught hold of the bar of iron to which Curdie's rope
was tied, and settling it securely across the narrowest part of the
irregular opening, held fast to it with his teeth. It was plain to
Curdie, from the universal hardness among them, that they must all, at
one time or another, have been creatures of the mines.
He saw at once what this one was after. The beast had planted his feet
firmly upon the floor of the passage, and stretched his long body up
and across the chasm to serve as a bridge for the rest. Curdie mounted
instantly upon his neck, threw his arms round him as far as they would
go, and slid down in ease and safety, the bridge just bending a little
as his weight glided over it. But he thought some of the creatures
would try the legserpent's teeth.
One by one the oddities followed, and slid down in safety. When they
seemed to be all landed, he counted them: there were but forty-eight.
Up the rope again he went, and found one which had been afraid to trust
himself to the bridge, and no wonder! for he had neither legs nor head
nor arms nor tail: he was just a round thing, about a foot in diameter,
with a nose and mouth and eyes on one side of the ball. He had made
his journey by rolling as swiftly as the fleetest of them could run.
The back of the legserpent not being flat, he could not quite trust
himself to roll straight and not drop into the gulf. Curdie took him
in his arms, and the moment he looked down through the hole, the bridge
made itself again, and he slid into the passage in safety, with
Ballbody in his bosom.
He ran first to the cellar to warn the girl not to be frightened at the
avengers of wickedness. Then he called to Lina to bring in her friends.
One after another they came trooping in, till the cellar seemed full of
them. The housemaid regarded them without fear.
'Sir,' she said, 'there is one of the pages I don't take to be a bad
fellow.'
'Then keep him near you,' said Curdie. 'And now can you show me a way
to the king's chamber not through the servants' hall?'
'There is a way through the chamber of the colonel of the guard,' she
answered, 'but he is ill, and in bed.'
'Take me that way,' said Curdie.
By many ups and downs and windings and turnings she brought him to a
dimly lighted room, where lay an elderly man asleep. His arm was
outside the coverlid, and Curdie gave his hand a hurried grasp as he
went by. His heart beat for joy, for he had found a good, honest,
human hand.
'I suppose that is why he is ill,' he said to himself.
It was now close upon suppertime, and when the girl stopped at the door
of the king's chamber, he told her to go and give the servants one
warning more.
'Say the messenger sent you,' he said. 'I will be with you very soon.'
The king was still asleep. Curdie talked to the princess for a few
minutes, told her not to be frightened whatever noises she heard, only
to keep her door locked till he came, and left her.