One night, after dodging5 about and listening till he was nearly falling asleep with weariness, he began to roll up his ball, for he had resolved to go home to bed. It was not long, however, before he began to feel bewildered. One after another he passed goblin-houses, caves that is, occupied by goblin families, and at length was sure they were many more than he had passed as he came. He had to use great caution to pass unseen—they lay so close together. Could his string have led him wrong? He still followed winding6 it, and still it led him into more thickly populated quarters, until he became quite uneasy, and indeed apprehensive7; for although he was not afraid of the cobs, he was afraid of not finding his way out. But what could he do? It was of no use to sit down and wait for the morning—the morning made no difference here. It was all dark, and always dark; and if his string failed him he was helpless. He might even arrive within a yard of the mine, and never know it. Seeing he could do nothing better, he would at least find where the end of the string was, and if possible how it had come to play him such a trick. He knew by the size of the ball that he was getting pretty near the last of it, when he began to feel a tugging8 and pulling at it. What could it mean? Turning a sharp corner, he thought he heard strange sounds. These grew, as he went on, to a scuffling and growling9 and squeaking10; and the noise increased, until, turning a second sharp corner, he found himself in the midst of it, and the same moment tumbled over a wallowing mass, which he knew must be a knot of the cobs' creatures. Before he could recover his feet, he had caught some great scratches on his face, and several severe bites on his legs and arms. But as he scrambled12 to get up, his hand fell upon his pickaxe, and before the horrid13 beasts could do him any serious harm, he was laying about with it right and left in the dark. The hideous14 cries which followed gave him the satisfaction of knowing that he had punished some of them pretty smartly for their rudeness, and by their scampering15 and their retreating howls, he perceived that he had routed them. He stood a little, weighing his battle-axe2 in his hand as if it had been the most precious lump of metal—but indeed no lump of gold itself could have been so precious at that time as that common tool—then untied16 the end of the string from it, put the ball in his pocket, and still stood thinking. It was clear that the cobs' creatures had found his axe, had between them carried it off, and had so led him he knew not where. But for all his thinking he could not tell what he ought to do, until suddenly he became aware of a glimmer17 of light in the distance. Without a moment's hesitation18 he set out for it, as fast as the unknown and rugged19 way would permit. Yet again turning a corner, led by the dim light, he spied something quite new in his experience of the underground regions—a small irregular shape of something shining. Going up to it, he found it was a piece of mica20, or Muscovy glass, called sheep-silver in Scotland, and the light flickering21 as if from a fire behind it. After trying in vain for some time to discover an entrance to the place where it was burning, he came at length to a small chamber22 in which an opening high in the wall revealed a glow beyond. To this opening he managed to scramble11 up, and then he saw a strange sight.
Below sat a little group of goblins around a fire, the smoke of which vanished in the darkness far aloft. The sides of the cave were full of shining minerals like those of the palace-hall; and the company was evidently of a superior order, for every one wore stones about head, or arms, or waist, shining, dull, gorgeous colors in the light of the fire. Nor had Curdie looked long before he recognized the king himself, and found that he had made his way into the inner apartment of the royal family. He had never had such a good chance of hearing something! He crept through the hole as softly as he could, scrambled a good way down the wall toward them without attracting attention, and then sat down and listened. The king, evidently the queen, and probably the crown-prince and the prime minister were talking together. He was sure of the queen by her shoes, for as she warmed her feet at the fire, he saw them quite plainly.
"That will be fun!" said the one he took for the crown-prince.
It was the first whole sentence he heard.
"I don't see why you should think it such a grand affair!" said his stepmother, tossing her head backward.
"You must remember, my spouse," interposed his Majesty23, as if making excuse for his son, "he has got the same blood in him. His mother—"
"Don't talk to me of his mother! You positively24 encourage his unnatural25 fancies. Whatever belongs to that mother, ought to be cut out of him."
"You forget yourself, my dear!" said the king.
"I don't," said the queen, "nor you either. If you expect me to approve of such coarse tastes, you will find yourself mistaken. I don't wear shoes for nothing."
"You must acknowledge, however," the king said, with a little groan26, "that this at least is no whim27 of Harelip's, but a matter of state-policy. You are well aware that his gratification comes purely28 from the pleasure of sacrificing himself to the public good. Does it not, Harelip?"
"Yes, father; of course it does. Only it will be nice to make her cry. I'll have the skin taken off between her toes, and tie them up till they grow together. Then her feet will be like other people's, and there will be no occasion for her to wear shoes."
"Do you mean to insinuate29 I've got toes, you unnatural wretch30?" cried the queen; and she moved angrily toward Harelip. The councilor, however, who was betwixt them, leaned forward so as to prevent her touching31 him, but only as if to address the prince.
"Your royal Highness," he said, "possibly requires to be reminded that you have got three toes yourself—one on one foot, two on the other."
"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted the queen triumphantly32.
The councilor, encouraged by this mark of favor, went on.
"It seems to me, your royal Highness, it would greatly endear you to your future people, proving to them that you are not the less one of themselves that you had the misfortune to be born of a sun-mother, if you were to command upon yourself the comparatively slight operation which, in a more extended form, you so wisely meditate33 with regard to your future princess."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the queen, louder than before, and the king and the minister joined in the laugh. It was anything but a laughing matter to Harelip. He growled34, and for a few moments the others continued to express their enjoyment35 of his discomfiture36.
The queen was the only one Curdie could see with any distinctness. She sat sideways to him, and the light of the fire shone full upon her face. He could not consider her handsome. Her nose was certainly broader at the end than its extreme length, and her eyes, instead of being horizontal, were set up like two perpendicular37 eggs, one on the broad, the other on the small, end. Her mouth was no bigger than a small buttonhole until she laughed, when it stretched from ear to ear—only to be sure her ears were very nearly in the middle of her cheeks.
Anxious to hear everything they might say, Curdie ventured to slide down a smooth part of the rock just under him, to a projection38 below, upon which he thought to rest. But whether he was not careful enough, or the projection gave way, down he came with a rush on the floor of the cavern39, bringing with him a great rumbling40 shower of stones.
The goblins jumped from their seats in more anger than consternation41, for they had never yet seen anything to be afraid of in the palace. But when they saw Curdie with his pick in his hand, their rage was mingled42 with fear, for they took him for the first of an invasion of miners. The king notwithstanding drew himself up to his full height of four feet, spread himself to his full breadth of three and a half, for he was the handsomest and squarest of all the goblins, and strutting44 up to Curdie, planted himself with outspread feet before him, and said with dignity—
"Pray what right have you in my palace?"
"The right of necessity, your majesty," answered Curdie. "I lost my way, and did not know where I was wandering to."
"How did you get in?"
"By a hole in the mountain."
"But you are a miner! Look at your pickaxe!"
Curdie did look at it, answering,
"I came upon it, lying on the ground, a little way from here. I tumbled over some wild beasts who were playing with it. Look, your majesty." And Curdie showed him how he was scratched and bitten.
The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horrible grimaces45 all through the rhyme. The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horrible grimaces all through the rhyme.
The king was pleased to find him behave more politely than he had expected from what his people had told him concerning the miners, for he attributed it to the power of his own presence; but he did not therefore feel friendly to the intruder.
"You will oblige me by walking out of my dominions46 at once," he said, well knowing what a mockery lay in the words.
"With pleasure, if your majesty will give me a guide," said Curdie.
"One will be quite sufficient," said Curdie.
But the king uttered a strange shout, half halloo, half roar, and in rushed goblins till the cave was swarming48. He said something to the first of them which Curdie could not hear, and it was passed from one to another till in a moment the farthest in the crowd had evidently heard and understood it. They began to gather about him in a way he did not relish49, and he retreated toward the wall. They pressed upon him.
"Stand back," said Curdie, grasping his pickaxe tighter by his knee.
They only grinned and pressed closer. Curdie bethought himself, and began to rhyme.
"Ten, twenty, thirty—
You're all so very dirty!
Twenty, thirty, forty—
You're all so thick and snorty!
"Thirty, forty, fifty—
You're all so puff-and-snifty!
Forty, fifty, sixty—
[119]Beast and man so mixty!
"Fifty, sixty, seventy—
Mixty, maxty, leaventy—
Sixty, seventy, eighty—
"Seventy, eighty, ninety,
All your hands so flinty!
Eighty, ninety, hundred,
Altogether dundred!"
The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horrible grimaces all through the rhyme, as if eating something so disagreeable that it set their teeth on edge and gave them the creeps; but whether it was that the rhyming words were most of them no words at all, for a new rhyme being considered more efficacious, Curdie had made it on the spur of the moment, or whether it was that the presence of the king and queen gave them courage, I cannot tell; but the moment the rhyme was over, they crowded on him again, and out shot a hundred long arms, with a multitude of thick nailless fingers at the end of them, to lay hold upon him. Then Curdie heaved up his axe. But being as gentle as courageous51 and not wishing to kill any of them, he turned the end which was square and blunt like a hammer, and with that came down a great blow on the head of the goblin nearest him. Hard as the heads of all goblins are, he thought he must feel that. And so he did, no doubt; but he only gave a horrible cry, and sprung at Curdie's throat. Curdie however drew back in time, and just at that critical moment, remembered the vulnerable part of the goblin-body. He made a sudden rush at the king, and stamped with all his might on his Majesty's feet. The king gave a most unkingly howl, and almost fell into the fire. Curdie then rushed into the crowd, stamping right and left. The goblins drew back howling on every side as he approached, but they were so crowded that few of those he attacked could escape his tread; and the shrieking52 and roaring that filled the cave would have appalled53 Curdie, but for the good hope it gave him. They were tumbling over each other in heaps in their eagerness to rush from the cave, when a new assailant suddenly faced him:—the queen, with flaming eyes and expanded nostrils54, her hair standing43 half up from her head, rushed at him. She trusted in her shoes; they were of granite55—hollowed like French sabots. Curdie would have endured much rather than hurt a woman, even if she was a goblin; but here was an affair of life and death: forgetting her shoes, he made a great stamp on one of her feet. But she instantly returned it with very different effect, causing him frightful56 pain and almost disabling him. His only chance with her would have been to attack the granite shoes with his pickaxe, but before he could think of that, she had caught him up in her arms, and was rushing with him across the cave. She dashed him into a hole in the wall, with a force that almost stunned57 him. But although he could not move, he was not too far gone to hear her great cry, and the rush of multitudes of soft feet, followed by the sounds of something heaved up against the rock; after which came a multitudinous patter of stones falling near him. The last had not ceased when he grew very faint, for his head had been badly cut, and at last insensible.
When he came to himself, there was perfect silence about him, and utter darkness, but for the merest glimmer in one tiny spot. He crawled to it, and found that they had heaved[121] a slab58 against the mouth of the hole, past the edge of which a poor little gleam found its way from the fire. He could not move it a hair's breadth, for they had piled a great heap of stones against it. He crawled back to where he had been lying, in the faint hope of finding his pickaxe. But after a vain search, he was at last compelled to acknowledge himself in an evil plight59. He sat down and tried to think, but soon fell fast asleep.
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1
watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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dodging
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| n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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apprehensive
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| adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的 | |
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tugging
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| n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 ) | |
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growling
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| n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼 | |
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10
squeaking
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| v.短促地尖叫( squeak的现在分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者 | |
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11
scramble
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| v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料 | |
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12
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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13
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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14
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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scampering
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的现在分词 ) | |
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16
untied
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| 松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决 | |
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glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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18
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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mica
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| n.云母 | |
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flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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24
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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26
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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27
whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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insinuate
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| vt.含沙射影地说，暗示 | |
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30
wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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31
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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32
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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33
meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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34
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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35
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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36
discomfiture
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| n.崩溃；大败；挫败；困惑 | |
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perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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38
projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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39
cavern
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| n.洞穴，大山洞 | |
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40
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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41
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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42
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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43
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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44
strutting
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| 加固，支撑物 | |
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45
grimaces
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| n.（表蔑视、厌恶等）面部扭曲，鬼脸( grimace的名词复数 )v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的第三人称单数 ) | |
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46
dominions
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| 统治权( dominion的名词复数 )； 领土； 疆土； 版图 | |
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47
scoffing
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| n. 嘲笑, 笑柄, 愚弄 v. 嘲笑, 嘲弄, 愚弄, 狼吞虎咽 | |
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48
swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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49
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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50
slaty
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| 石板一样的，石板色的 | |
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51
courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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52
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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53
appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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54
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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55
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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56
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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57
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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58
slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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