CHAPTER 9
The Hall of the Goblin Palace
A sound of many soft feet followed, but soon ceased. Then Curdie flewat the hole like a tiger, and tore and pulled. The sides gave way, andit was soon large enough for him to crawl through. He would not betrayhimself by rekindling his lamp, but the torches of the retreatingcompany, which he found departing in a straight line up a long avenuefrom the door of their cave, threw back light enough to afford him aglance round the deserted home of the goblins. To his surprise, hecould discover nothing to distinguish it from an ordinary natural cavein the rock, upon many of which he had come with the rest of the minersin the progress of their excavations. The goblins had talked of comingback for the rest of their household gear: he saw nothing that wouldhave made him suspect a family had taken shelter there for a singlenight. The floor was rough and stony; the walls full of projectingcorners; the roof in one place twenty feet high, in another endangeringhis forehead; while on one side a stream, no thicker than a needle, itis 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 wastoiling under heavy burdens. He could distinguish Helfer now and then,in the flickering light and shade, with his heavy chest on his bendingshoulders; while the second brother was almost buried in what lookedlike a great feather bed. 'Where do they get the feathers?' thoughtCurdie; but in a moment the troop disappeared at a turn of the way, andit was now both safe and necessary for Curdie to follow them, lest theyshould be round the next turning before he saw them again, for so hemight lose them altogether. He darted after them like a greyhound.When he reached the corner and looked cautiously round, he saw themagain at some distance down another long passage. None of thegalleries he saw that night bore signs of the work of man--or of goblineither. 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 thiscorner till they had disappeared round the next, and so followed them along way through one passage after another. The passages grew more andmore lofty, and were more and more covered in the roof with shiningstalactites.
It was a strange enough procession which he followed. But thestrangest part of it was the household animals which crowded amongstthe feet of the goblins. It was true they had no wild animals downthere--at least they did not know of any; but they had a wonderfulnumber of tame ones. I must, however, reserve any contributionstowards the natural history of these for a later position in my story.
At length, turning a corner too abruptly, he had almost rushed into themiddle of the goblin family; for there they had already set down alltheir burdens on the floor of a cave considerably larger than thatwhich they had left. They were as yet too breathless to speak, else hewould have had warning of their arrest. He started back, however,before anyone saw him, and retreating a good way, stood watching tillthe father should come out to go to the palace.
Before very long, both he and his son Helfer appeared and kept on inthe same direction as before, while Curdie followed them again withrenewed precaution. For a long time he heard no sound except somethinglike the rush of a river inside the rock; but at length what seemed thefar-off noise of a great shouting reached his ears, which, however,presently ceased. After advancing a good way farther, he thought heheard a single voice. It sounded clearer and clearer as he went on,until at last he could almost distinguish the words. In a moment ortwo, keeping after the goblins round another corner, he once morestarted back--this time in amazement.
He was at the entrance of a magnificent cavern, of an oval shape, onceprobably a huge natural reservoir of water, now the great palace hallof the goblins. It rose to a tremendous height, but the roof wascomposed of such shining materials, and the multitude of torchescarried by the goblins who crowded the floor lighted up the place sobrilliantly, that Curdie could see to the top quite well. But he hadno idea how immense the place was until his eyes had got accustomed toit, which was not for a good many minutes. The rough projections on thewalls, and the shadows thrown upwards from them by the torches, madethe sides of the chamber look as if they were crowded with statues uponbrackets and pedestals, reaching in irregular tiers from floor to roof.The walls themselves were, in many parts, of gloriously shiningsubstances, some of them gorgeously coloured besides, which powerfullycontrasted with the shadows. Curdie could not help wondering whetherhis rhymes would be of any use against such a multitude of goblins asfilled the floor of the hall, and indeed felt considerably tempted tobegin his shout of 'One, two, three!', but as there was no reason forrouting them and much for endeavouring to discover their designs, hekept himself perfectly quiet, and peering round the edge of thedoorway, 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 recedingof the upper part of the cavern-wall. Upon this sat the king and hiscourt: the king on a throne hollowed out of a huge block of greencopper ore, and his court upon lower seats around it. The king hadbeen making them a speech, and the applause which followed it was whatCurdie had heard. One of the court was now addressing the multitude.What he heard him say was to the following effect: 'Hence it appearsthat two plans have been for some time together working in the stronghead of His Majesty for the deliverance of his people. Regardless ofthe fact that we were the first possessors of the regions they nowinhabit; regardless equally of the fact that we abandoned that regionfrom the loftiest motives; regardless also of the self-evident factthat we excel them so far in mental ability as they excel us instature, they look upon us as a degraded race and make a mockery of allour finer feelings. But, the time has almost arrived when--thanks toHis Majesty's inventive genius--it will be in our power to take athorough revenge upon them once for all, in respect of their unfriendlybehaviour.'
'May it please Your Majesty--' cried a voice close by the door, whichCurdie recognized as that of the goblin he had followed.
'Who is he that interrupts the Chancellor?' cried another from near thethrone.
'Glump,' answered several voices.
'He is our trusty subject,' said the king himself, in a slow andstately voice: 'let him come forward and speak.'
A lane was parted through the crowd, and Glump, having ascended theplatform and bowed to the king, spoke as follows:
'Sire, I would have held my peace, had I not known that I only knew hownear was the moment, to which the Chancellor had just referred.
In all probability, before another day is past, the enemy will havebroken through into my house--the partition between being even now notmore than a foot in thickness.'
'Not quite so much,' thought Curdie to himself.
'This very evening I have had to remove my household effects; thereforethe sooner we are ready to carry out the plan, for the execution ofwhich His Majesty has been making such magnificent preparations, thebetter. I may just add, that within the last few days I have perceiveda small outbreak in my dining-room, which, combined with observationsupon the course of the river escaping where the evil men enter, hasconvinced me that close to the spot must be a deep gulf in its channel.This discovery will, I trust, add considerably to the otherwise immenseforces at His Majesty's disposal.'
He ceased, and the king graciously acknowledged his speech with a bendof his head; whereupon Glump, after a bow to His Majesty, slid downamongst the rest of the undistinguished multitude. Then the Chancellorrose and resumed.
'The information which the worthy Glump has given us,' he said, 'mighthave been of considerable import at the present moment, but for thatother design already referred to, which naturally takes precedence.His Majesty, unwilling to proceed to extremities, and well aware thatsuch measures sooner or later result in violent reactions, hasexcogitated a more fundamental and comprehensive measure, of which Ineed say no more. Should His Majesty be successful--as who dares todoubt?--then a peace, all to the advantage of the
goblin kingdom, willbe established for a generation at least, rendered absolutely secure bythe pledge which His Royal Highness the prince will have and hold forthe good behaviour of her relatives. Should His Majesty fail--whichwho shall dare even to imagine in his most secret thoughts?--then willbe the time for carrying out with rigour the design to which Glumpreferred, and for which our preparations are even now all butcompleted. The failure of the former will render the latterimperative.'
Curdie, perceiving that the assembly was drawing to a close and thatthere was little chance of either plan being more fully discovered, nowthought it prudent to make his escape before the goblins began todisperse, and slipped quietly away.
There was not much danger of meeting any goblins, for all the men atleast were left behind him in the palace; but there was considerabledanger of his taking a wrong turning, for he had now no light, and hadtherefore to depend upon his memory and his hands. After he had leftbehind him the glow that issued from the door of Glump's new abode, hewas utterly without guide, so far as his eyes were concerned.
He was most anxious to get back through the hole before the goblinsshould return to fetch the remains of their furniture. It was not thathe was in the least afraid of them, but, as it was of the utmostimportance that he should thoroughly discover what the plans they werecherishing were, he must not occasion the slightest suspicion that theywere watched by a miner.
He hurried on, feeling his way along the walls of rock. Had he notbeen very courageous, he must have been very anxious, for he could notbut know that if he lost his way it would be the most difficult thingin the world to find it again. Morning would bring no light into theseregions; and towards him least of all, who was known as a specialrhymester and persecutor, could goblins be expected to exercisecourtesy. Well might he wish that he had brought his lamp andtinder-box with him, of which he had not thought when he crept soeagerly after the goblins! He wished it all the more when, after awhile, he found his way blocked up, and could get no farther. It wasof no use to turn back, for he had not the least idea where he hadbegun to go wrong. Mechanically, however, he kept feeling about thewalls that hemmed him in. His hand came upon a place where a tinystream of water was running down the face of the rock. 'What a stupidI 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 longavenue that led up to the cave. In a moment he had thrown himself onthe floor, and wriggled backwards through the hole. The floor on theother 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 ofthe hole, but he did manage to shove it in again. He sat down on theore-heap and thought.
He was pretty sure that the latter plan of the goblins was to inundatethe mine by breaking outlets for the water accumulated in the naturalreservoirs of the mountain, as well as running through portions of it.While the part hollowed by the miners remained shut off from thatinhabited by the goblins, they had had no opportunity of injuring themthus; but now that a passage was broken through, and the goblins' partproved the higher in the mountain, it was clear to Curdie that the minecould be destroyed in an hour. Water was always the chief danger towhich the miners were exposed. They met with a little choke-dampsometimes, but never with the explosive firedamp so common incoal-mines. Hence they were careful as soon as they saw any appearanceof water. As the result of his reflections while the goblins were busyin their old home, it seemed to Curdie that it would be best to buildup the whole of this gang, filling it with stone, and clay or lie, sothat there should be no smallest channel for the water to get into.There was not, however, any immediate danger, for the execution of thegoblins' plan was contingent upon the failure of that unknown designwhich was to take precedence of it; and he was most anxious to keep thedoor of communication open, that he might if possible discover what theformer plan was. At the same time they could not resume theirintermitted labours for the inundation without his finding it out; whenby putting all hands to the work, the one existing outlet might in asingle night be rendered impenetrable to any weight of water; for byfilling the gang entirely up, their embankment would be buttressed bythe sides of the mountain itself.
As soon as he found that the goblins had again retired, he lighted hislamp, and proceeded to fill the hole he had made with such stones as hecould withdraw when he pleased. He then thought it better, as he mighthave occasion to be up a good many nights after this, to go home andhave some sleep.
How pleasant the night air felt upon the outside of the mountain afterwhat he had gone through in the inside of it! He hurried up the hillwithout meeting a single goblin on the way, and called and tapped atthe window until he woke his father, who soon rose and let him in. Hetold him the whole story; and, just as he had expected, his fatherthought it best to work that lode no farther, but at the same time topretend occasionally to be at work there still in order that thegoblins might have no suspicions. Both father and son then went to bedand slept soundly until the morning.
The Princess and the Goblin Page 9