to the foot of the opposite wall: evidently for
a long time the vault had been left open, and every sort of refuse
thrown into it. A single minute served for the survey, so little was
there to note.

Meantime, down in the angle between the back wall and the base of the
heap Lina was scratching furiously with all the eighteen great strong
claws of her mighty feet.

'Ah, ha!' said Curdie to himself, catching sight of her, 'if only they
will leave us long enough to ourselves!'

With that he ran to the door, to see if there was any fastening on the
inside. There was none: in all its long history it never had had one.
But a few blows of the right sort, now from the one, now from the other
end of his mattock, were as good as any bolt, for they so ruined the
lock that no key could ever turn in it again. Those who heard them
fancied he was trying to get out, and laughed spitefully. As soon as
he had done, he extinguished his candle, and went down to Lina.

She had reached the hard rock which formed the floor of the dungeon,
and was now clearing away the earth a little wider. Presently she
looked up in his face and whined, as much as to say, 'My paws are not
hard enough to get any farther.'

'Then get out of my way, Lina,' said Curdie, and mind you keep your
eyes shining, for fear I should hit you.'

So saying, he heaved his mattock, and assailed with the hammer end of
it the spot she had cleared.

The rock was very hard, but when it did break it broke in good-sized
pieces. Now with hammer, now with pick, he worked till he was weary,
then rested, and then set to again. He could not tell how the day
went, as he had no light but the lamping of Lina's eyes. The darkness
hampered him greatly, for he would not let Lina come close enough to
give him all the light she could, lest he should strike her. So he
had, every now and then, to feel with his hands to know how he was
getting on, and to discover in what direction to strike: the exact spot
was a mere imagination.

He was getting very tired and hungry, and beginning to lose heart a
little, when out of the ground, as if he had struck a spring of it,
burst a dull, gleamy, lead-coloured light, and the next moment he heard
a hollow splash and echo. A piece of rock had fallen out of the floor,
and dropped into water beneath. Already Lina, who had been lying a few
yards off all the time he worked, was on her feet and peering through
the hole. Curdie got down on his ha