est curves and convolutions, always, however,
leaving at least one coil around his victim. At last he undid himself
entirely, and crept from the bed. Then first the lord chamberlain
discovered that his tormentor had bent and twisted the bedstead, legs
and canopy and all, so about him that he was shut in a silver cage out
of which it was impossible for him to find a way. Once more, thinking
his enemy was gone, he began to shout for help. But the instant he
opened his mouth his keeper darted at him and bit him, and after three
or four such essays, he lay still.

The master of the horse Curdie gave in charge to the tapir. When the
soldier saw him enter--for he was not yet asleep--he sprang from his
bed, and flew at him with his sword. But the creature's hide was
invulnerable to his blows, and he pecked at his legs with his proboscis
until he jumped into bed again, groaning, and covered himself up; after
which the tapir contented himself with now and then paying a visit to
his toes.

As for the attorney-general, Curdie led to his door a huge spider,
about two feet long in the body, which, having made an excellent
supper, was full of webbing. The attorney-general had not gone to bed,
but sat in a chair asleep before a great mirror. He had been trying
the effect of a diamond star which he had that morning taken from the
jewel room. When he woke he fancied himself paralysed; every limb,
every finger even, was motionless: coils and coils of broad spider
ribbon bandaged his members to his body, and all to the chair. In the
glass he saw himself wound about with slavery infinite. On a footstool
a yard off sat the spider glaring at him.

Clubhead had mounted guard over the butler, where he lay tied hand and
foot under the third cask. From that cask he had seen the wine run
into a great bath, and therein he expected to be drowned. The doctor,
with his crushed leg, needed no one to guard him.

And now Curdie proceeded to the expulsion of the rest. Great men or
underlings, he treated them all alike. From room to room over the
house he went, and sleeping or waking took the man by the hand. Such
was the state to which a year of wicked rule had reduced the moral
condition of the court, that in it all he found but three with human
hands. The possessors of these he allowed to dress themselves and
depart in peace. When they perceived his mission, and how he was
backed, they yielded.

Then commenced a general hunt, to c