they went, but nowhere was she to be
found. Neither was one of the servants to be seen. But Curdie, who
had kept to the lower part of the house, which was now quiet enough,
began to hear a confused sound as of a distant hubbub, and set out to
find where it came from. The noise grew as his sharp ears guided him
to a stair and so to the wine cellar. It was full of goblins, whom the
butler was supplying with wine as fast as he could draw it.

While the queen and her party had encountered the men-at-arms, Harelip
with another company had gone off to search the house. They captured
every one they met, and when they could find no more, they hurried away
to carry them safe to the caverns below. But when the butler, who was
amongst them, found that their path lay through the wine cellar, he
bethought himself of persuading them to taste the wine, and, as he had
hoped, they no sooner tasted than they wanted more. The routed
goblins, on their way below, joined them, and when Curdie entered they
were all, with outstretched hands, in which were vessels of every
description from sauce pan to silver cup, pressing around the butler,
who sat at the tap of a huge cask, filling and filling. Curdie cast
one glance around the place before commencing his attack, and saw in
the farthest corner a terrified group of the domestics unwatched, but
cowering without courage to attempt their escape. Amongst them was the
terror-stricken face of Lootie; but nowhere could he see the princess.
Seized with the horrible conviction that Harelip had already carried
her off, he rushed amongst them, unable for wrath to sing any more, but
stamping and cutting with greater fury than ever.

'Stamp on their feet; stamp on their feet!' he shouted, and in a moment
the goblins were disappearing through the hole in the floor like rats
and mice.

They could not vanish so fast, however, but that many more goblin feet
had to go limping back over the underground ways of the mountain that
morning.

Presently, however, they were reinforced from above by the king and his
party, with the redoubtable queen at their head. Finding Curdie again
busy amongst her unfortunate subjects, she rushed at him once more with
the rage of despair, and this time gave him a bad bruise on the foot.
Then a regular stamping fight got up between them, Curdie, with the
point of his hunting-knife, keeping her from clasping her mighty arms
about him, as he watched his opportunity of get