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, 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 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 grayhound. 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 toward 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 any
one 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 upward 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 colored 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 endeavoring to discover their designs, he kept himself perfectly
quiet, and peeping 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 as 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 behavior."
"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 lie 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 behavior of
his 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 rigor 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 toward him least of all, who was known as a special rhymster 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 backward 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 fire-damp 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 lime, 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 that former
plan was. At the same time they could not then resume their intermitted
labors 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.