You are an
out-of-doors labourer. You are a nobody. You carry a pickaxe. I
carry the keys at my girdle. See!'
'But you must not call one a nobody to whom the king has spoken,' said
Curdie.
'Go along with you!' cried the housekeeper, and would have shut the
door in his face, had she not been afraid that when she stepped back he
would step in ere she could get it in motion, for it was very heavy and
always seemed unwilling to shut. Curdie came a pace nearer. She
lifted the great house key from her side, and threatened to strike him
down with it, calling aloud on Mar and Whelk and Plout, the menservants
under her, to come and help her. Ere one of them could answer, however,
she gave a great shriek and turned and fled, leaving the door wide open.
Curdie looked behind him, and saw an animal whose gruesome oddity even
he, who knew so many of the strange creatures, two of which were never
the same, that used to live inside the mountain with their masters the
goblins, had never seen equalled. Its eyes were flaming with anger,
but it seemed to be at the housekeeper, for it came cowering and
creeping up and laid its head on the ground at Curdie's feet. Curdie
hardly waited to look at it, however, but ran into the house, eager to
get up the stairs before any of the men should come to annoy--he had no
fear of their preventing him. Without halt or hindrance, though the
passages were nearly dark, he reached the door of the princess's
workroom, and knocked.
'Come in,' said the voice of the princess.
Curdie opened the door--but, to his astonishment, saw no room there.
Could he have opened a wrong door? There was the great sky, and the
stars, and beneath he could see nothing only darkness! But what was
that in the sky, straight in front of him? A great wheel of fire,
turning and turning, and flashing out blue lights!
'Come in, Curdie,' said the voice again.
'I would at once, ma'am,' said Curdie, 'if I were sure I was standing
at your door.'
'Why should you doubt it, Curdie?'
'Because I see neither walls nor floor, only darkness and the great
sky.'
'That is all right, Curdie. Come in.'
Curdie stepped forward at once. He was indeed, for the very crumb of a
moment, tempted to feel before him with his foot; but he saw that would
be to distrust the princess, and a greater rudeness he could not offer
her. So he stepped straight in--I will not say without a little
tremble at the thought of finding no flo
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