had closed in about her. But still on went the thread,
and on went the princess. Everything around her was getting brighter
and brighter as the sun came nearer; till at length his first rays all
at once alighted on the top of a rock before her, like some golden
creature fresh from the sky. Then she saw that the little stream ran
out of a hole in that rock, that the path did not go past the rock, and
that the thread was leading her straight up to it. A shudder ran
through her from head to foot when she found that the thread was
actually taking her into the hole out of which the stream ran. It ran
out babbling joyously, but she had to go in.

She did not hesitate. Right into the hole she went, which was high
enough to let her walk without stooping. For a little way there was a
brown glimmer, but at the first turn it all but ceased, and before she
had gone many paces she was in total darkness. Then she began to be
frightened indeed. Every moment she kept feeling the thread backwards
and forwards, and as she went farther and farther into the darkness of
the great hollow mountain, she kept thinking more and more about her
grandmother, and all that she had said to her, and how kind she had
been, and how beautiful she was, and all about her lovely room, and the
fire of roses, and the great lamp that sent its light through stone
walls. And she became more and more sure that the thread could not
have gone there of itself, and that her grandmother must have sent it.
But it tried her dreadfully when the path went down very steep, and
especially When she came to places where she had to go down rough
stairs, and even sometimes a ladder. Through one narrow passage after
another, over lumps of rock and sand and clay, the thread guided her,
until she came to a small hole through which she had to creep. Finding
no change on the other side, 'Shall I ever get back?' she thought, over
and over again, wondering at herself that she was not ten times more
frightened, and often feeling as if she were only walking in the story
of a dream. Sometimes she heard the noise of water, a dull gurgling
inside the rock. By and by she heard the sounds of blows, which came
nearer and nearer; but again they grew duller, and almost died away.
In a hundred directions she turned, obedient to the guiding thread.

At last she spied a dull red shine, and came up to the mica window, and
thence away and round about, and right, into a cavern, where glo