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He hurried on, feeling his way along the walls of rock. Had he not
been very courageous, he must have been very anxious, for he could
not but know that if he lost his way it would be the most difficult
thing in the world to find it again. Morning would bring no light
into these regions; and towards him least of all, who was known as
a special rhymester and persecutor, could goblins be expected to
exercise courtesy. Well might he wish that he had brought his lamp
and tinder-box with him, of which he had not thought when he crept
so eagerly after the goblins! He wished it all the more when,
after a while, he found his way blocked up, and could get no
farther. It was of no use to turn back, for he had not the least
idea where he had begun to go wrong. Mechanically, however, he
kept feeling about the walls that hemmed him in. His hand came
upon a place where a tiny stream of water was running down the face
of the rock. 'What a stupid I am!' he said to himself. 'I am
actually at the end of my journey! And there are the goblins
coming back to fetch their things!' he added, as the red glimmer of
their torches appeared at the end of the long avenue that led up to
the cave. In a moment he had thrown himself on the floor, and
wriggled backwards through the hole. The floor on the other side
was several feet lower, which made it easier to get back. It was
all he could do to lift the largest stone he had taken out of the
hole, but he did manage to shove it in again. He sat down on the
ore-heap and thought.
He was pretty sure that the latter plan of the goblins was to
inundate the mine by breaking outlets for the water accumulated in
the natural reservoirs of the mountain, as well as running through
portions of it. While the part hollowed by the miners remained
shut off from that inhabited by the goblins, they had had no
opportunity of injuring them thus; but now that a passage was
broken through, and the goblins' part proved the higher in the
mountain, it was clear to Curdie that the mine could be destroyed
in an hour. Water was always the chief danger to which the miners
were exposed. They met with a little choke-damp sometimes, but
never with the explosive firedamp so common in coal-mines. Hence
they were careful as soon as they saw any appearance of water.
As the result of his reflections while the goblins were busy in
their old home, it seemed to Curdie that it would be best to build
up the whole of this gang, filling it with stone, and clay or lie,
so that there should be no smallest channel for the water to get
into. There was not, however, any immediate danger, for the
execution of the goblins' plan was contingent upon the failure of
that unknown design which was to take precedence of it; and he was
most anxious to keep the door of communication open, that he might
if possible discover what the former plan was. At the same time
they could not resume their intermitted labours for the inundation
without his finding it out; when by putting all hands to the work,
the one existing outlet might in a single night be rendered
impenetrable to any weight of water; for by filling the gang
entirely up, their embankment would be buttressed by the sides of
the mountain itself.
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