near its tail. About the same
distance from its head were two little wings, which it was forever
fluttering as if trying to fly with them. Curdie thought it fancied it
did fly with them, when it was merely plodding on busily with its four
little stumps. How it managed to keep up he could not think, till once
when he missed it from the group: the same moment he caught sight of
something at a distance plunging at an awful serpentine rate through
the trees, and presently, from behind a huge ash, this same creature
fell again into the group, quietly waddling along on its four stumps.

Watching it after this, he saw that, when it was not able to keep up
any longer, and they had all got a little space ahead, it shot into the
wood away from the route, and made a great round, serpentine alone in
huge billows of motion, devouring the ground, undulating awfully,
galloping as if it were all legs together, and its four stumps nowhere.
In this mad fashion it shot ahead, and, a few minutes after, toddled in
again among the rest, walking peacefully and somewhat painfully on its
few fours.

From the time it takes to describe one of them it will be readily seen
that it would hardly do to attempt a description of each of the
forty-nine. They were not a goodly company, but well worth
contemplating, nevertheless; and Curdie had been too long used to the
goblins' creatures in the mines and on the mountain, to feel the least
uncomfortable at being followed by such a herd. On the contrary, the
marvellous vagaries of shape they manifested amused him greatly, and
shortened the journey much.

Before they were all gathered, however, it had got so dark that he
could see some of them only a part at a time, and every now and then,
as the company wandered on, he would be startled by some extraordinary
limb or feature, undreamed of by him before, thrusting itself out of
the darkness into the range of his ken. Probably there were some of his
old acquaintances among them, although such had been the conditions of
semi-darkness, in which alone he had ever seen any of them, that it was
not like he would be able to identify any of them.

On they marched solemnly, almost in silence, for either with feet or
voice the creatures seldom made any noise. By the time they reached
the outside of the wood it was morning twilight. Into the open trooped
the strange torrent of deformity, each one following Lina. Suddenly
she stopped, turned towards them, and