s.
The king was not weeping, but his face was white as a dead man's, and
he looked as if the life had gone out of him. The men-at-arms he had
brought with him sat with horror-stricken faces, but eyes flashing with
rage, waiting only for the word of the king to do something--they did
not know what, and nobody knew what.

The day before, the men-at-arms belonging to the house, as soon as they
were satisfied the princess had been carried away, rushed after the
goblins into the hole, but found that they had already so skilfully
blockaded the narrowest part, not many feet below the cellar, that
without miners and their tools they could do nothing. Not one of them
knew where the mouth of the mine lay, and some of those who had set out
to find it had been overtaken by the storm and had not even yet
returned. Poor Sir Walter was especially filled with shame, and almost
hoped the king would order his head to be cut off, for to think of that
sweet little face down amongst the goblins was unendurable.

When Curdie ran in at the gate with the princess in his arms, they were
all so absorbed in their own misery and awed by the king's presence and
grief, that no one observed his arrival. He went straight up to the
king, where he sat on his horse.

'Papa! papa!' the princess cried, stretching out her arms to him; 'here
I am!'

The king started. The colour rushed to his face. He gave an
inarticulate cry. Curdie held up the princess, and the king bent down
and took her from his arms. As he clasped her to his bosom, the big
tears went dropping down his cheeks and his beard. And such a shout
arose from all the bystanders that the startled horses pranced and
capered, and the armour rang and clattered, and the rocks of the
mountain echoed back the noises. The princess greeted them all as she
nestled in her father's bosom, and the king did not set her down until
she had told them all the story. But she had more to tell about Curdie
than about herself, and what she did tell about herself none of them
could understand--except the king and Curdie, who stood by the king's
knee stroking the neck of the great white horse. And still as she told
what Curdie had done, Sir Walter and others added to what she told,
even Lootie joining in the praises of his courage and energy.

Curdie held his peace, looking quietly up in the king's face. And his
mother stood on the outskirts of the crowd listening with delight, for
her son's deeds were