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The Princess and Curdie-Part23_George MacDonald(1824-1905)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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as before. It was indeed dull without Curdie, but as often as they

looked at the emerald it was gloriously green, and with nothing to



fear or regret, and everything to hope, they required little

comforting. One morning, however, at last, Peter, who had been



consulting the gem, rather now from habit than anxiety, as a farmer

his barometer in undoubtful weather, turned suddenly to his wife,



the stone in his hand, and held it up with a look of ghastly

dismay.



'Why, that's never the emerald!' said Joan.

'It is,' answered Peter; 'but it were small blame to any one that



took it for a bit of bottle glass!'

For, all save one spot right in the centre, of intensest and most



brilliant green, it looked as if the colour had been burnt out of

it.



'Run, run, Peter!' cried his wife. 'Run and tell the old princess.

it may not be too late. The boy must be lying at death's door.'



Without a word Peter caught up his mattock, darted from the

cottage, and was at the bottom of the hill in less time than he



usually took to get halfway.

The door of the king's house stood open; he rushed in and up the



stair. But after wandering about in vain for an hour, opening door

after door, and finding no way farther up, the heart of the old man



had well-nigh failed him. Empty rooms, empty rooms! - desertion

and desolation everywhere.



At last he did come upon the door to the tower stair. Up he

darted. Arrived at the top, he found three doors, and, one after



the other, knocked at them all. But there was neither voice nor

hearing. Urged by his faith and his dread, slowly, hesitatingly,



he opened one. It revealed a bare garret room, nothing in it but

one chair and one spinning wheel. He closed it, and opened the



next - to start back in terror, for he saw nothing but a great

gulf, a moonless night, full of stars, and, for all the stars,



dark, dark! - a fathomless abyss. He opened the third door, and a

rush like the tide of a living sea invaded his ears. Multitudinous



wings flapped and flashed in the sun, and, like the ascending

column from a volcano, white birds innumerable shot into the air,



darkening the day with the shadow of their cloud, and then, with a

sharp sweep, as if bent sideways by a sudden wind, flew northward,



swiftly away, and vanished. The place felt like a tomb. There

seemed no breath of life left in it.



Despair laid hold upon him; he rushed down thundering with heavy

feet. Out upon him darted the housekeeper like an ogress-spider,



and after her came her men; but Peter rushed past them, heedless

and careless - for had not the princess mocked him? - and sped



along the road to Gwyntystorm. What help lay in a miner's mattock,

a man's arm, a father's heart, he would bear to his boy.



Joan sat up all night waiting his return, hoping and hoping. The

mountain was very still, and the sky was clear; but all night long



the miner sped northward, and the heart of his wife was troubled.

CHAPTER 31



The Sacrifice

Things in the palace were in a strange condition: the king playing



with a child and dreaming wise dreams, waited upon by a little

princess with the heart of a queen, and a youth from the mines, who



went nowhere, not even into the king's chamber, without his mattock

on his shoulder and a horrible animal at his heels; in a room



nearby the colonel of his guard, also in bed, without a soldier to

obey him; in six other rooms, far apart, six miscreants, each



watched by a beast-jailer; ministers to them all, an old woman and

a page; and in the wine cellar, forty-three animals, creatures more



grotesque than ever brain of man invented. None dared approach its

gates, and seldom one issued from them.



All the dwellers in the city were united in enmity to the palace.

It swarmed with evil spirits, they said, whereas the evil spirits



were in the city, unsuspected. One consequence of their presence

was that, when the rumour came that a great army was on the march



against Gwyntystorm, instead of rushing to their defences, to make

new gates, free portcullises and drawbridges, and bar the river,






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