der. It is coming nearer and nearer. What can it be?'

They all heard it now, and each seemed ready to start to his feet as he
listened. Yet all sat perfectly still. The noise came rapidly nearer.

'What can it be?' said the king again.

'I think it must be another storm coming over the mountain,' said Sir
Walter.

Then Curdie, who at the first word of the king had slipped from his
seat, and laid his ear to the ground, rose up quickly, and approaching
the king said, speaking very fast:

'Please, Your Majesty, I think I know what it is. I have no time to
explain, for that might make it too late for some of us. Will Your
Majesty give orders that everybody leave the house as quickly as
possible and get up the mountain?'

The king, who was the wisest man in the kingdom, knew well there was a
time when things must be done and questions left till afterwards. He
had faith in Curdie, and rose instantly, with Irene in his arms.
'Every man and woman follow me,' he said, and strode out into the
darkness.

Before he had reached the gate, the noise had grown to a great
thundering roar, and the ground trembled beneath their feet, and before
the last of them had crossed the court, out after them from the great
hall door came a huge rush of turbid water, and almost swept them away.
But they got safe out of the gate and up the mountain, while the
torrent went roaring down the road into the valley beneath.

Curdie had left the king and the princess to look after his mother,
whom he and his father, one on each side, caught up when the stream
overtook them and carried safe and dry.

When the king had got out of the way of the water, a little up the
mountain, he stood with the princess in his arms, looking back with
amazement on the issuing torrent, which glimmered fierce and foamy
through the night. There Curdie rejoined them.

'Now, Curdie,' said the king, 'what does it mean? Is this what you
expected?'

'It is, Your Majesty,' said Curdie; and proceeded to tell him about the
second scheme of the goblins, who, fancying the miners of more
importance to the upper world than they were, had resolved, if they
should fail in carrying off the king's daughter, to flood the mine and
drown the miners. Then he explained what the miners had done to
prevent it. The goblins had, in pursuance of their design, let loose
all the underground reservoirs and streams, expecting the water to run
down into the mine, which was lower than