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CHAPTER 17
The Wine Cellar
He lighted his candle and examined it. Decayed and broken as it
was, it was strongly secured in its place by hinges on the one
side, and either lock or bolt, he could not tell which, on the
other. A brief use of his pocket-knife was enough to make room for
his hand and arm to get through, and then he found a great iron
bolt - but so rusty that he could not move it.
Lina whimpered. He took his knife again, made the hole bigger, and
stood back. In she shot her small head and long neck, seized the
bolt with her teeth, and dragged it, grating and complaining, back.
A push then opened the door. it was at the foot of a short flight
of steps. They ascended, and at the top Curdie found himself in a
space which, from the echo to his stamp, appeared of some size,
though of what sort he could not at first tell, for his hands,
feeling about, came upon nothing. Presently, however, they fell on
a great thing: it was a wine cask.
He was just setting out to explore the place thoroughly, when he
heard steps coming down a stair. He stood still, not knowing
whether the door would open an inch from his nose or twenty yards
behind his back. It did neither. He heard the key turn in the
lock, and a stream of light shot in, ruining the darkness, about
fifteen yards away on his right.
A man carrying a candle in one hand and a large silver flagon in
the other, entered, and came toward him. The light revealed a row
of huge wine casks, that stretched away into the darkness of the
other end of the long vault. Curdie retreated into the recess of
the stair, and peeping round the corner of it, watched him,
thinking what he could do to prevent him from locking them in. He
came on and on, until curdie feared he would pass the recess and
see them. He was just preparing to rush out, and master him before
he should give alarm, not in the least knowing what he should do
next, when, to his relief, the man stopped at the third cask from
where he stood. He set down his light on the top of it, removed
what seemed a large vent-peg, and poured into the cask a quantity
of something from the flagon. Then he turned to the next cask,
drew some wine, rinsed the flagon, threw the wine away, drew and
rinsed and threw away again, then drew and drank, draining to the
bottom. Last of all, he filled the flagon from the cask he had
first visited, replaced then the vent-peg, took up his candle, and
turned toward the door.
'There is something wrong here!' thought Curdie.
'Speak to him, Lina,' he whispered.
The sudden howl she gave made Curdie himself start and tremble for
a moment. As to the man, he answered Lina's with another horrible
howl, forced from him by the convulsive shudder of every muscle of
his body, then reeled gasping to and fro, and dropped his candle.
But just as Curdie expected to see him fall dead he recovered
himself, and flew to the door, through which he darted, leaving it
open behind him. The moment he ran, Curdie stepped out, picked up
the candle still alight, sped after him to the door, drew out the
key, and then returned to the stair and waited. in a few minutes
he heard the sound of many feet and voices. Instantly he turned
the tap of the cask from which the man had been drinking, set the
candle beside it on the floor, went down the steps and out of the
little door, followed by Lina, and closed it behind them.
Through the hole in it he could see a little, and hear all. He
could see how the light of many candles filled the place, and could
hear how some two dozen feet ran hither and thither through the
echoing cellar; he could hear the clash of iron, probably spits and
pokers, now and then; and at last heard how, finding nothing
remarkable except the best wine running to waste, they all turned
on the butler and accused him of having fooled them with a drunken
dream. He did his best to defend himself, appealing to the
evidence of their own senses that he was as sober as they were.
They replied that a fright was no less a fright that the cause was
imaginary, and a dream no less a dream that the fright had waked
him from it.
When he discovered, and triumphantly adduced as corroboration, that
the key was gone from the door, they said it merely showed how
drunk he had been - either that or how frightened, for he had
certainly dropped it. In vain he protested that he had never taken
it out of the lock - that he never did when he went in, and
certainly had not this time stopped to do so when he came out; they
asked him why he had to go to the cellar at such a time of the day,
and said it was because he had already drunk all the wine that was
left from dinner. He said if he had dropped the key, the key was
to be found, and they must help him to find it. They told him they
wouldn't move a peg for him. He declared, with much language, he
would have them all turned out of the king's service. They said
they would swear he was drunk.
And so positive were they about it, that at last the butler himself
began to think whether it was possible they could be in the right.
For he knew that sometimes when he had been drunk he fancied things
had taken place which he found afterward could not have happened.
Certain of his fellow servants, however, had all the time a doubt
whether the cellar goblin had not appeared to him, or at least
roared at him, to protect the wine. in any case nobody wanted to
find the key for him; nothing could please them better than that
the door of the wine cellar should never more be locked. By
degrees the hubbub died away, and they departed, not even pulling
to the door, for there was neither handle nor latch to it.
As soon as they were gone, Curdie returned, knowing now that they
were in the wine cellar of the palace, as indeed, he had suspected.
Finding a pool of wine in a hollow of the floor, Lina lapped it up
eagerly: she had had no breakfast, and was now very thirsty as well
as hungry. Her master was in a similar plight, for he had but just
begun to eat when the magistrate arrived with the soldiers. If
only they were all in bed, he thought, that he might find his way
to the larder! For he said to himself that, as he was sent there
by the young princess's great-great-grandmother to serve her or her
father in some way, surely he must have a right to his food in the
Palace, without which he could do nothing. He would go at once and
reconnoitre.
So he crept up the stair that led from the cellar. At the top was
a door, opening on a long passage dimly lighted by a lamp. He told
Lina to lie down upon the stair while he went on. At the end of
the passage he found a door ajar, and, peering through, saw right
into a great stone hall, where a huge fire was blazing, and through
which men in the king's livery were constantly coming and going.
Some also in the same livery were lounging about the fire. He
noted that their colours were the same as those he himself, as
king's miner, wore; but from what he had seen and heard of the
habits of the place, he could not hope they would treat him the
better for that.
The one interesting thing at the moment, however, was the plentiful
supper with which the table was spread. It was something at least
to stand in sight of food, and he was unwilling to turn his back on
the prospect so long as a share in it was not absolutely hopeless.
Peeping thus, he soon made UP his mind that if at any moment the
hall should be empty, he would at that moment rush in and attempt
to carry off a dish. That he might lose no time by indecision, he
selected a large pie upon which to pounce instantaneously. But
after he had watched for some minutes, it did not seem at all
likely the chance would arrive before suppertime, and he was just
about to turn away and rejoin Lina, when he saw that there was not
a person in the place. Curdie never made up his mind and then
hesitated. He darted in, seized the pie, and bore it swiftly and
noiselessly to the cellar stair.
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