was the deliberation. The general consent, however, was that as

soon as the priests should have expelled the demons, they would
depose the king, and attired in all his regal insignia, shut him in

a cage for public show; then choose governors, with the lord
chancellor at their head, whose first duty should be to remit every

possible tax; and the magistrates, by the mouth of the city
marshal, required all able-bodied citizens, in order to do their

part toward the carrying out of these and a multitude of other
reforms, to be ready to take arms at the first summons.

Things needful were prepared as speedily as possible, and a mighty
ceremony, in the temple, in the market place, and in front of the

palace, was performed for the expulsion of the demons. This over,
the leaders retired to arrange an attack upon the palace.

But that night events occurred which, proving the failure of their
first, induced the abandonment of their second, intent. Certain of

the prowling order of the community, whose numbers had of late been
steadily on the increase, reported frightful things. Demons of

indescribable ugliness had been espied careering through the
midnight streets and courts. A citizen - some said in the very act

of housebreaking, but no one cared to look into trifles at such a
crisis - had been seized from behind, he could not see by what, and

soused in the river. A well-knownreceiver of stolen goods had had
his shop broken open, and when he came down in the morning had

found everything in ruin on the pavement. The wooden image of
justice over the door of the city marshal had had the arm that held

the sword bitten off. The gluttonous magistrate had been pulled
from his bed in the dark, by beings of which he could see nothing

but the flaming eyes, and treated to a bath of the turtle soup that
had been left simmering by the side of the kitchen fire. Having

poured it over him, they put him again into his bed, where he soon
learned how a mummy must feel in its cerements.

Worst of all, in the market place was fixed up a paper, with the
king's own signature, to the effect that whoeverhenceforth should

show inhospitality to strangers, and should be convicted of the
same, should be instantly" target="_blank" title="ad.立即，立刻">instantly expelled the city; while a second, in the

butchers' quarter, ordained that any dog which henceforth should
attack a stranger should be immediately destroyed. It was plain,

said the butchers, that the clergy were of no use; they could not
exorcise demons! That afternoon, catching sight of a poor old

fellow in rags and tatters, quietly walking up the street, they
hounded their dogs upon him, and had it not been that the door of

Derba's cottage was standing open, and was near enough for him to
dart in and shut it ere they reached him, he would have been torn

in pieces.
And thus things went on for some days.

CHAPTER 29
Barbara

In the meantime, with Derba to minister to his wants, with Curdie
to protect him, and Irene to nurse him, the king was getting

rapidly stronger. Good food was what he most wanted and of that,
at least of certain kinds of it, there was plentiful store in the

palace. Everywhere since the cleansing of the lower regions of it,
the air was clean and sweet, and under the honest hands of the one

housemaid the king's chamber became a pleasure to his eyes. With
such changes it was no wonder if his heart grew lighter as well as

his brain clearer.
But still evil dreams came and troubled him, the lingering result

of the wicked medicines the doctor had given him. Every night,
sometimes twice or thrice, he would wake up in terror, and it would

be minutes ere he could come to himself. The consequence was that
he was always worse in the morning, and had loss to make up during

the day. While he slept, Irene or Curdie, one or the other, must
still be always by his side.

One night, when it was Curdie's turn with the king, he heard a cry
somewhere in the house, and as there was no other child, concluded,

notwithstanding the distance of her grandmother's room, that it
must be Barbara. Fearing something might be wrong, and noting the

king's sleep more quiet than usual, he ran to see. He found the
child in the middle of the floor, weepingbitterly, and Derba

slumbering peacefully in bed. The instant she saw him the
night-lost thing ceased her crying, smiled, and stretched out her

arms to him. Unwilling to wake the old woman, who had been working
hard all day, he took the child, and carried her with him. She

clung to him so, pressing her tear-wet radiant face against his,
that her little arms threatened to choke him.

When he re-entered the chamber, he found the king sitting up in
bed, fighting the phantoms of some hideous dream. Generally upon

such occasions, although he saw his watcher, he could not
dissociate him from the dream, and went raving on. But the moment

his eyes fell upon little Barbara, whom he had never seen before,
his soul came into them with a rush, and a smile like the dawn of

an eternal day overspread his countenance; the dream was nowhere,
and the child was in his heart. He stretched out his arms to her,

the child stretched out hers to him, and in five minutes they were
both asleep, each in the other's embrace.

From that night Barbara had a crib in the king's chamber, and as
often as he woke, Irene or Curdie, whichever was watching, took the

sleeping child and laid her in his arms, upon which, invariably and
instantly" target="_blank" title="ad.立即，立刻">instantly, the dream would vanish. A great part of the day too she

would be playing on or about the king's bed; and it was a delight
to the heart of the princess to see her amusing herself with the

crown, now sitting upon it, now rolling it hither and thither about
the room like a hoop. Her grandmother entering once while she was

pretending to make porridge in it, held up her hands in
horror-struck amazement; but the king would not allow her to

interfere, for the king was now Barbara's playmate, and his crown
their plaything.

The colonel of the guard also was growing better. Curdie went
often to see him. They were soon friends, for the best people

understand each other the easiest, and the grim old warrior loved
the miner boy as if he were at once his son and his angel. He was

very anxious about his regiment. He said the officers were mostly
honest men, he believed, but how they might be doing without him,

or what they might resolve, in ignorance of the real state of
affairs, and exposed to every misrepresentation, who could tell?

Curdie proposed that he should send for the major, offering to be
the messenger. The colonel agreed, and Curdie went - not without

his mattock, because of the dogs.
But the officers had been told by the master of the horse that

their colonel was dead, and although they were amazed he should be
buried without the attendance of his regiment, they never doubted

the information. The handwriting itself of their colonel was
insufficient, counteracted by the fresh reports daily current, to

destroy the lie. The major regarded the letter as a trap for the
next officer in command, and sent his orderly to arrest the

messenger. But Curdie had had the wisdom not to wait for an
answer.

The king's enemies said that he had first poisoned the good colonel
of the guard, and then murdered the master of the horse, and other

faithful councillors; and that his oldest and most attached
domestics had but escaped from the palace with their lives - not

all of them, for the butler was missing. Mad or wicked, he was not
only unfit to rule any longer, but worse than unfit to have in his

power and under his influence the young princess, only hope of
Gwyntystorm and the kingdom.

The moment the lord chancellor reached his house in the country and
had got himself clothed, he began to devise how yet to destroy his

master; and the very next morning set out for the neighbouring
kingdom of Borsagrass to invite invasion, and offer a compact with

its monarch.
CHAPTER 30

Peter
At the cottage in the mountain everything for a time went on just