shall I wake?" she said to herself in an agony, but the same moment knew that it was no dream. She threw herself upon the heap, and began to cry. It was well she did not know what creatures, one of them with stone shoes on her feet, were lying in the next cave. But neither did she know who was on the other side of the slab.
At length the thought struck her, that at least she could follow the thread backward, and thus get out of the mountain, and home. She rose at once, and found the thread. But the instant she tried to feel it backward, it vanished from her touch. Forward, it led her hand up to the heap of stones—backward, it seemed nowhere. Neither could she see it as before in the light of the fire. She burst into a wailing cry, and again threw herself down on the stones.
CHAPTER XXI
THE ESCAPE
AS the princess lay and sobbed, she kept feeling the thread mechanically, following it with her finger many times up the stones in which it disappeared. By and by she began, still mechanically, to poke her finger in after it between the stones as far as she could. All at once it came into her head that she might remove some of the stones and see where the thread went next. Almost laughing at herself for never having thought of this before, she jumped to her feet. Her fear vanished: once more she was certain her grandmother's thread could not have brought her there just to leave her there; and she began to throw away the stones from the top as fast as she could, sometimes two or three at a handful, sometimes taking both hands to lift one. After clearing them away a little, she found that the thread turned and went straight downward. Hence, as the heap sloped a good deal, growing of course wider toward its base, she had to throw away a multitude of stones to follow the thread. But this was not all, for she soon found that the thread, after going straight down for a little way, turned first sideways in one direction, then sideways in another, and then shot, at various angles, hither and thither inside the heap, so that she began to be afraid that to clear the thread, she must remove the whole huge gathering. She was dismayed at the very idea, but, losing no time, set to work with a will; and with aching back, and bleeding fingers and hands, she worked on, sustained by the pleasure of seeing the heap slowly diminish, and begin to show itself on the opposite side of the fire. Another thing which helped to keep up her courage was, that as often as she uncovered a turn of the thread, instead of lying loose upon the stones, it tightened up; this made her sure that her grandmother was at the end of it somewhere.
She had got about half way down when she started, and nearly fell with fright. Close to her ear as it seemed, a voice broke out singing—
"Jabber, bother, smash!
You'll have it all in a crash.
Jabber, smash, bother!
You'll have the worst of the pother.
Smash, bother, jabber!—"
Here Curdie stopped, either because he could not find a rhyme to jabber, or because he remembered what he had forgotten when he woke up at the sound of Irene's labors, that his plan was to make the goblins think he was getting weak. But he had uttered enough to let Irene know who he was.
"It's Curdie!" she cried joyfully.
"Hush, hush!" came Curdie's voice again from somewhere. "Speak softly."
"Why, you were singing loud!" said Irene.
"Yes. But they know I am here, and they don't know you are. Who are you?"
"I'm Irene," answered the princess. "I know who you are quite well. You're Curdie."
"Why, how ever did you come here, Irene?"
"My great-great-grandmother sent me; and I think I've found out why. You can't get out, I suppose?"
"No, I can't. What are you doing?"
"Clearing away a huge heap of stones."
"There's a princess!" exclaimed Curdie, in a tone of delight, but still speaking in little more than a whisper. "I can't think how you got here, though."
"My grandmother sent me after her thread."
"I don't know what you mean," said Curdie; "but so you're there, it doesn't much matter."
"Oh, yes it does!" returned Irene. "I should never have been here but for her."
"You can tell me all about it when we get out, then. There's no time to lose now," said Curdie.
And Irene went to work, as fresh as when she began.
"There's such a lot of stones!" she said. "It will take me a long time to get them all away."
"How far on have you got?" asked Curdie.
"I've got about the half way, but the other half is ever so much bigger."
"I don't think you will have to move the lower half. Do you see a slab laid up against the wall?"
Irene looked and felt about with her hands, and soon perceived the outlines of the slab.
"Yes," she answered, "I do."
"Then, I think," rejoined Curdie, "when you have cleared the slab about half way down, or a little more, I shall be able to push it over."
"I must follow my thread," returned Irene, "whatever I do."
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Curdie.
"You will see when you get out of here," answered the princess, and then she went on harder than ever.
But she was soon satisfied that what Curdie wanted done, and what the thread wanted done, were one and the same thing. For she not only saw that by following the turns of the thread she had been clearing the face of the slab, but that, a little more than half way down, the thread went through the chink between the slab and the wall into the place where Curdie was confined, so that she could not follow it any farther until the slab was out of her way. As soon as she found this, she said in a right joyous whisper—
"Now, Curdie! I think if you were to give a great push, the slab would tumble over."
"Stand quite clear of it then," said Curdie, "and let me know when you are ready."
Irene got off the heap, and stood on one side of it.
"Now, Curdie!" she cried.
Curdie gave a great rush with his shoulder against it. Out tumbled the slab on the heap, and out crept Curdie over the top of it.
"You've saved my life, Irene!" he whispered.
"Oh, Curdie! I'm so glad! Let's get out of this horrid place as fast as we can."
"That's easier said than done," returned he.
"Oh, no! it's quite easy," said Irene. "We have only to follow my thread. I am sure that it's going to take us out now."
She had already begun to follow it over the fallen slab into the hole, while Curdie was searching the floor of the cavern for his pickaxe.
