mattock over his shoulder.
Stranger sight still was Lina lying along the threshold--only nobody
saw her just then.

A moment more and the king's lips ceased to move. His breathing had
grown regular and quiet. The princess gave a sigh of relief, and came
round to Curdie.

'We can talk a little now,' she said, leading him toward the middle of
the room. 'My father will sleep now till the doctor wakes him to give
him his medicine. It is not really medicine, though, but wine.
Nothing but that, the doctor says, could have kept him so long alive.
He always comes in the middle of the night to give it him with his own
hands. But it makes me cry to see him wake up when so nicely asleep.'

'What sort of man is your doctor?' asked Curdie.

'Oh, such a dear, good, kind gentleman!' replied the princess. 'He
speaks so softly, and is so sorry for his dear king! He will be here
presently, and you shall see for yourself. You will like him very
much.'

'Has your king-father been long ill?' asked Curdie.

'A whole year now,' she replied. 'Did you not know? That's how your
mother never got the red petticoat my father promised her. The lord
chancellor told me that not only Gwyntystorm but the whole land was
mourning over the illness of the good man.'

Now Curdie himself had not heard a word of His Majesty's illness, and
had no ground for believing that a single soul in any place he had
visited on his journey had heard of it. Moreover, although mention had
been made of His Majesty again and again in his hearing since he came
to Gwyntystorm, never once had he heard an allusion to the state of his
health. And now it dawned upon him also that he had never heard the
least expression of love to him. But just for the time he thought it
better to say nothing on either point.

'Does the king wander like this every night?' he asked.

'Every night,' answered Irene, shaking her head mournfully. 'That is
why I never go to bed at night. He is better during the day--a little,
and then I sleep--in the dressing room there, to be with him in a
moment if he should call me. It is so sad he should have only me and
not my mamma! A princess is nothing to a queen!'

'I wish he would like me,' said Curdie, 'for then I might watch by him
at night, and let you go to bed, Princess.'

'Don't you know then?' returned Irene, in wonder. 'How was it you
came? Ah! You said my grandmother sent you. But I thought you knew
that he wanted you.'