'Hold fast!' said Tom again, and into the passage they went. If it had not been for the cat's eyes, which shone like two yellow carriage-lamps, they might more than once have missed their way, for it was as dark as pitch during the first part of the journey. Hilda, as she clung close to the cat's back, could see that they were passing rapidly through what seemed to be a series of caves, one opening into another, and growing always higher and broader as they went on. At first the air felt damp and cold; but as they sped onwards it grew warmer and drier; and now the wall of the caverns began to throw back gleams of many-coloured light, as if from gigantic jewels sticking there; and presently the light increased, without seeming to come from anywhere in particular; and the great vault overhead seemed to soar aloft, until only a misty brightness was visible, like the sky at sunset-time, when it is feathered with gorgeous clouds. It was a new and marvellous country, with gold and silver filagree instead of foliage, and fields of emerald, and rivers of sapphires, and distant mountains of amethyst. By and by the cat came to two lofty pillars of plain white alabaster, and there he stopped. 'Now, Hilda,' he said, 'you must go the rest of the way alone. Pass between those pillars, and then you will be in the kingdom of the Gnomes. Ask the first Gnome you meet to show you the place where the King ploughs; and when you have found him, ask him where the Golden Ivy-seed is. But be very careful to do everything that he bids you, no matter how strange or disagreeable it may be; for, if you disobey him, your brother Hector cannot be saved.' Though Hilda did not much like the idea of going on through this strange land all by herself, still, since it was for Hector's sake, she never dreamed of refusing; only she made up her mind to do everything the King bade her, whatever happened. So off she started, and after passing between the alabaster pillars she came to a road on which the gold-dust lay an inch thick; for it seldom rains in the centre of the earth. Pretty soon she met a little brown Gnome, running along on all-fours, and turning somersaults, as all Gnomes do. 'Will you show me the place where the King ploughs?' asked Hilda. 'What do you want of him?' asked the Gnome. 'I want to ask him to tell me where the Golden Ivy-seed is,' Hilda replied. 'He ploughs in the emerald field on the other side of the mountain of amethyst,' said the Gnome; 'but, unless you can go on all-fours and turn somersaults better than you seem able to do, you will never get on in this country.' But Hilda had never walked on all-fours, much less turned somersaults, since she was a baby a year old; so she trudged along the dusty golden road just as she was, and all the Gnomes who met her threw somersaults and said: 'See how upright she walks! She will never come to anything!'