"Now," said Curdie; "I think we shall be safe." "Of course we shall," returned Irene. "Why do you think so?" asked Curdie. "Because my grandmother is taking care of us." "That's all nonsense," said Curdie. "I don't know what you mean." "Then if you don't know what I mean, what right have you to call it nonsense?" asked the princess, a little offended. "I beg your pardon, Irene," said Curdie; "I did not mean to vex you." "Of course not," returned the princess. "But why do _you_ think we shall be safe?" "Because the king and queen are far too stout to get through that hole." "There may be ways round," said the other. "To be sure there might; we are not out of it yet," acknowledged Curdie. "But what do you mean by the king and queen?" asked the princess. "I should never call such creatures as those a king and a queen." "Their own people do, though," answered Curdie. The princess asked more questions, and Curdie, as they walked leisurely along, gave her a full account, not only of the character and habits of the goblins, so far as he knew them, but of his own adventures with them, beginning from the very night after that in which he had met her and Lootie upon the mountain. When he had finished, he begged Irene to tell him how it was that she had come to his rescue. So Irene too had to tell a long story, which she did in rather a roundabout manner, interrupted by many questions concerning things she had not explained. But her tale, as he did not believe more than half of it, left everything as unaccountable to him as before, and he was nearly as much perplexed as to what he must think of the princess. He could not believe that she was deliberately telling stories, and the only conclusion he could come to was that Lootie had been playing the child tricks, inventing no end of lies to frighten her for her own purposes. "But how ever did Lootie come to let you go into the mountain alone?" he asked. "Lootie knows nothing about it. I left her fast asleep--at least I think so. I hope my grandmother won't let her get into trouble, for it wasn't her fault at all, as my grandmother very well knows." "But how did you find your way to me?" persisted Curdie. "I told you already," answered Irene;--"by keeping my finger upon my grandmother's thread, as I am doing now." "You don't mean you've got the thread there?" "Of course I do. I have told you so ten times already. I have hardly--except when I was removing the stones--taken my finger off it. There!" she added, guiding Curdie's hand to the thread, "you feel it yourself--don't you?" "I feel nothing at all," replied Curdie. "Then what can be the matter with your finger? I feel it perfectly. To be sure it is very thin, and in the sunlight looks just like the thread of a spider, though there are many of them twisted together to make it--but for all that I can't think why you shouldn't feel it as well as I do."