"No; he's been gone a good while. I haven't heard a blow for an hour. Besides, it wasn't like that." "Then I suppose it must have been a stone carried down the brook inside." "Perhaps. It will have more room by and by." Curdie kept quite still. After a little while, hearing nothing but the sounds of their preparations for departure, mingled with an occasional word of direction, and anxious to know whether the removal of the stone had made an opening into the goblins' house, he put in his hand to feel. It went in a good way, and then came in contact with something soft. He had but a moment to feel it over, it was so quickly withdrawn: it was one of the toeless goblin-feet. The owner of it gave a cry of fright. "What's the matter, Helfer?" asked his mother. "A beast came out of the wall, and licked my foot." "Nonsense! There are no wild beasts in our country," said his father. "But it was, father. I felt it." "Nonsense, I say. Will you malign your native realms and reduce them to a level with the country up-stairs? That is swarming with wild beasts of every description." "But I did feel it, father." "I tell you to hold your tongue. You are no patriot." Curdie suppressed his laughter, and lay still as a mouse--but no stiller, for every moment he kept nibbling away with his fingers at the edges of the hole. He was slowly making it bigger, for here the rock had been very much shattered with the blasting. There seemed to be a good many in the family, to judge from the mass of confused talk which now and then came through the hole; but when all were speaking together, and just as if they had bottle-brushes--each at least one--in their throats, it was not easy to make out much that was said. At length he heard once more what the father-goblin was saying. "Now then," he said, "get your bundles on your backs. Here, Helfer, I'll help you up with your chest." "I wish it _was_ my chest, father." "Your turn will come in good time enough! Make haste. I _must_ go to the meeting at the palace to-night. When that's over, we can come back and clear out the last of the things before our enemies return in the morning. Now light your torches, and come along. What a distinction it is to provide our own light, instead of being dependent on a thing hung up in the air--a most disagreeable contrivance--intended no doubt to blind us when we venture out under its baleful influence! Quite glaring and vulgar, I call it, though no doubt useful to poor creatures who haven't the wit to make light for themselves!" Curdie could hardly keep himself from calling through to know whether they made the fire to light their torches by. But a moment's reflection showed him that they would have said they did, inasmuch as they struck two stones together, and the fire came. CHAPTER IX THE HALL OF THE GOBLIN PALACE