u reason to think a little more of her
ere long,' he answered. 'But now,' he went on, 'I fear I must hurt
your house a little. I have great confidence, however, that I shall be
able to make up to you for it one day.'

'Never mind the house, if only you can get safe off,' she answered. 'I
don't think they will hurt this precious lamb,' she added, clasping
little Barbara to her bosom. 'For myself, it is all one; I am ready
for anything.'

'It is but a little hole for Lina I want to make,' said Curdie. 'She
can creep through a much smaller one than you would think.'

Again he took his mattock, and went to the back wall.

'They won't burn the house,' he said to himself. 'There is too good a
one on each side of it.'

The tumult had kept increasing every moment, and the city marshal had
been shouting, but Curdie had not listened to him. When now they heard
the blows of his mattock, there went up a great cry, and the people
taunted the soldiers that they were afraid of a dog and his miner. The
soldiers therefore made a rush at the door, and cut its fastenings.

The moment they opened it, out leaped Lina, with a roar so unnaturally
horrible that the sword arms of the soldiers dropped by their sides,
paralysed with the terror of that cry; the crowd fled in every
direction, shrieking and yelling with mortal dismay; and without even
knocking down with her tail, not to say biting a man of them with her
pulverizing jaws, Lina vanished--no one knew whither, for not one of
the crowd had had courage to look upon her.

The moment she was gone, Curdie advanced and gave himself up. The
soldiers were so filled with fear, shame, and chagrin, that they were
ready to kill him on the spot. But he stood quietly facing them, with
his mattock on his shoulder; and the magistrate wishing to examine him,
and the people to see him made an example of, the soldiers had to
content themselves with taking him. Partly for derision, partly to
hurt him, they laid his mattock against his back, and tied his arms to
it.

They led him up a very steep street, and up another still, all the
crowd following. The king's palace-castle rose towering above them;
but they stopped before they reached it, at a low-browed door in a
great, dull, heavy-looking building.

The city marshal opened it with a key which hung at his girdle, and
ordered Curdie to enter. The place within was dark as night, and while
he was feeling his way with his feet, the marsh