ad been there, and Curdie had no longer any doubt that she had
been carried off at the very first of the inroad. With a pang of
despair he saw how wrong they had been in not securing the king and
queen and prince; but he determined to find and rescue the princess as
she had found and rescued him, or meet the worst fate to which the
goblins could doom him.

CHAPTER 28

Curdie's Guide

Just as the consolation of this resolve dawned upon his mind and he was
turning away for the cellar to follow the goblins into their hole,
something touched his hand. It was the slightest touch, and when he
looked he could see nothing. Feeling and peering about in the grey of
the dawn, his fingers came upon a tight thread. He looked again, and
narrowly, but still could see nothing. It flashed upon him that this
must be the princess's thread. Without saying a word, for he knew no
one would believe him any more than he had believed the princess, he
followed the thread with his finger, contrived to give Lootie the slip,
and was soon out of the house and on the mountainside--surprised that,
if the thread were indeed the grandmother's messenger, it should have
led the princess, as he supposed it must, into the mountain, where she
would be certain to meet the goblins rushing back enraged from their
defeat. But he hurried on in the hope of overtaking her first. When
he arrived, however, at the place where the path turned off for the
mine, he found that the thread did not turn with it, but went straight
up the mountain. Could it be that the thread was leading him home to
his mother's cottage? Could the princess be there? He bounded up the
mountain like one of its own goats, and before the sun was up the
thread had brought him indeed to his mother's door. There it vanished
from his fingers, and he could not find it, search as he might.

The door was on the latch, and he entered. There sat his mother by the
fire, and in her arms lay the princess, fast asleep.

'Hush, Curdie!' said his mother. 'Do not wake her. I'm so glad you're
come! I thought the cobs must have got you again!'

With a heart full of delight, Curdie sat down at a corner of the
hearth, on a stool opposite his mother's chair, and gazed at the
princess, who slept as peacefully as if she had been in her own bed.
All at once she opened her eyes and fixed them on him.

'Oh, Curdie! you're come!' she said quietly. 'I thought you would!'

Curdie rose and stood be