its
last look reminded him of the princess--he did not know why. He
remembered how hard he had laboured to set her beyond danger, and yet
what dangers she had had to encounter for his sake: they had been
saviours to each other--and what had he done now? He had stopped
saving, and had begun killing! What had he been sent into the world
for? Surely not to be a death to its joy and loveliness. He had done
the thing that was contrary to gladness; he was a destroyer! He was
not the Curdie he had been meant to be!

Then the underground waters gushed from the boy's heart. And with the
tears came the remembrance that a white pigeon, just before the
princess went away with her father, came from somewhere--yes, from the
grandmother's lamp, and flew round the king and Irene and himself, and
then flew away: this might be that very pigeon! Horrible to think! And
if it wasn't, yet it was a white pigeon, the same as this. And if she
kept a great Many pigeons--and white ones, as Irene had told him, then
whose pigeon could he have killed but the grand old princess's?

Suddenly everything round about him seemed against him. The red sunset
stung him; the rocks frowned at him; the sweet wind that had been
laving his face as he walked up the hill dropped--as if he wasn't fit
to be kissed any more. Was the whole world going to cast him out?
Would he have to stand there forever, not knowing what to do, with the
dead pigeon in his hand? Things looked bad indeed. Was the whole
world going to make a work about a pigeon--a white pigeon? The sun
went down. Great clouds gathered over the west, and shortened the
twilight. The wind gave a howl, and then lay down again. The clouds
gathered thicker. Then came a rumbling. He thought it was thunder.
It was a rock that fell inside the mountain. A goat ran past him down
the hill, followed by a dog sent to fetch him home. He thought they
were goblin creatures, and trembled. He used to despise them. And
still he held the dead pigeon tenderly in his hand.

It grew darker and darker. An evil something began to move in his
heart. 'What a fool I am!' he said to himself. Then he grew angry,
and was just going to throw the bird from him and whistle, when a
brightness shone all round him. He lifted his eyes, and saw a great
globe of light--like silver at the hottest heat: he had once seen
silver run from the furnace. It shone from somewhere above the roofs
of the castle: it must be t