<SPAN name="chap20"></SPAN>
<h3> CHAPTER 20 </h3>
<h3> Irene's Clue </h3>
<p>That same morning early, the princess woke in a terrible fright. There
was a hideous noise in her room—creatures snarling and hissing and
rocketing about as if they were fighting. The moment she came to
herself, she remembered something she had never thought of again—what
her grandmother told her to do when she was frightened. She
immediately took off her ring and put it under her pillow. As she did
so she fancied she felt a finger and thumb take it gently from under
her palm. 'It must be my grandmother!' she said to herself, and the
thought gave her such courage that she stopped to put on her dainty
little slippers before running from the room. While doing this she
caught sight of a long cloak of sky-blue, thrown over the back of a
chair by the bedside. She had never seen it before but it was
evidently waiting for her. She put it on, and then, feeling with the
forefinger of her right hand, soon found her grandmother's thread,
which she proceeded at once to follow, expecting it would lead her
straight up the old stair. When she reached the door she found it went
down and ran along the floor, so that she had almost to crawl in order
to keep a hold of it. Then, to her surprise, and somewhat to her
dismay, she found that instead of leading her towards the stair it
turned in quite the opposite direction. It led her through certain
narrow passages towards the kitchen, turning aside ere she reached it,
and guiding her to a door which communicated with a small back yard.
Some of the maids were already up, and this door was standing open.
Across the yard the thread still ran along the ground, until it brought
her to a door in the wall which opened upon the Mountainside. When she
had passed through, the thread rose to about half her height, and she
could hold it with ease as she walked. It led her straight up the
mountain.</p>
<p>The cause of her alarm was less frightful than she supposed. The
cook's great black cat, pursued by the housekeeper's terrier, had
bounced against her bedroom door, which had not been properly fastened,
and the two had burst into the room together and commenced a battle
royal. How the nurse came to sleep through it was a mystery, but I
suspect the old lady had something to do with it.</p>
<p>It was a clear warm morning. The wind blew deliciously over the
Mountainside. Here and there she saw a late primrose but she did not
stop to call upon them. The sky was mottled with small clouds.</p>
<p>The sun was not yet up, but some of their fluffy edges had caught his
light, and hung out orange and gold-coloured fringes upon the air. The
dew lay in round drops upon the leaves, and hung like tiny diamond
ear-rings from the blades of grass about her path.</p>
<p>'How lovely that bit of gossamer is!' thought the princess, looking at
a long undulating line that shone at some distance from her up the
hill. It was not the time for gossamers though; and Irene soon
discovered that it was her own thread she saw shining on before her in
the light of the morning. It was leading her she knew not whither; but
she had never in her life been out before sunrise, and everything was
so fresh and cool and lively and full of something coming, that she
felt too happy to be afraid of anything.</p>
<p>After leading her up a good distance, the thread turned to the left,
and down the path upon which she and Lootie had met Curdie. But she
never thought of that, for now in the morning light, with its far
outlook over the country, no path could have been more open and airy
and cheerful. She could see the road almost to the horizon, along
which she had so often watched her king-papa and his troop come
shining, with the bugle-blast cleaving the air before them; and it was
like a companion to her. Down and down the path went, then up, and
then down and then up again, getting rugged and more rugged as it went;
and still along the path went the silvery thread, and still along the
thread went Irene's little rosy-tipped forefinger. By and by she came
to a little stream that jabbered and prattled down the hill, and up the
side of the stream went both path and thread. And still the path grew
rougher and steeper, and the mountain grew wilder, till Irene began to
think she was going a very long way from home; and when she turned to
look back she saw that the level country had vanished and the rough
bare mountain had closed in about her. But still on went the thread,
and on went the princess. Everything around her was getting brighter
and brighter as the sun came nearer; till at length his first rays all
at once alighted on the top of a rock before her, like some golden
creature fresh from the sky. Then she saw that the little stream ran
out of a hole in that rock, that the path did not go past the rock, and
that the thread was leading her straight up to it. A shudder ran
through her from head to foot when she found that the thread was
actually taking her into the hole out of which the stream ran. It ran
out babbling joyously, but she had to go in.</p>
<p>She did not hesitate. Right into the hole she went, which was high
enough to let her walk without stooping. For a little way there was a
brown glimmer, but at the first turn it all but ceased, and before she
had gone many paces she was in total darkness. Then she began to be
frightened indeed. Every moment she kept feeling the thread backwards
and forwards, and as she went farther and farther into the darkness of
the great hollow mountain, she kept thinking more and more about her
grandmother, and all that she had said to her, and how kind she had
been, and how beautiful she was, and all about her lovely room, and the
fire of roses, and the great lamp that sent its light through stone
walls. And she became more and more sure that the thread could not
have gone there of itself, and that her grandmother must have sent it.
But it tried her dreadfully when the path went down very steep, and
especially When she came to places where she had to go down rough
stairs, and even sometimes a ladder. Through one narrow passage after
another, over lumps of rock and sand and clay, the thread guided her,
until she came to a small hole through which she had to creep. Finding
no change on the other side, 'Shall I ever get back?' she thought, over
and over again, wondering at herself that she was not ten times more
frightened, and often feeling as if she were only walking in the story
of a dream. Sometimes she heard the noise of water, a dull gurgling
inside the rock. By and by she heard the sounds of blows, which came
nearer and nearer; but again they grew duller, and almost died away.
In a hundred directions she turned, obedient to the guiding thread.</p>
<p>At last she spied a dull red shine, and came up to the mica window, and
thence away and round about, and right, into a cavern, where glowed the
red embers of a fire. Here the thread began to rise. It rose as high
as her head and higher still. What should she do if she lost her hold?
She was pulling it down: She might break it! She could see it far up,
glowing as red as her fire-opal in the light of the embers.</p>
<p>But presently she came to a huge heap of stones, piled in a slope
against the wall of the cavern. On these she climbed, and soon
recovered the level of the thread only however to find, the next
moment, that it vanished through the heap of stones, and left her
standing on it, with her face to the solid rock. For one terrible
moment she felt as if her grandmother had forsaken her. The thread
which the spiders had spun far over the seas, which her grandmother had
sat in the moonlight and spun again for her, which she had tempered in
the rose-fire and tied to her opal ring, had left her—had gone where
she could no longer follow it—had brought her into a horrible cavern,
and there left her! She was forsaken indeed!</p>
<p>'When shall I wake?' she said to herself in an agony, but the same
moment knew that it was no dream. She threw herself upon the heap, and
began to cry. It was well she did not know what creatures, one of them
with stone shoes on her feet, were lying in the next cave. But neither
did she know who was on the other side of the slab.</p>
<p>At length the thought struck her that at least she could follow the
thread backwards, and thus get out of the mountain, and home. She rose
at once, and found the thread. But the instant she tried to feel it
backwards, it vanished from her touch. Forwards, it led her hand up to
the heap of stones—backwards it seemed nowhere. Neither could she see
it as before in the light of the fire. She burst into a wailing cry,
and again threw herself down on the stones.</p>
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