CHAPTER XXI
THE ESCAPE
AS the princess lay and sobbed, she kept feeling the thread
mechanically, following it with her finger many times up the stones in
which it disappeared. By and by she began, still mechanically, to poke
her finger in after it between the stones as far as she could. All at
once it came into her head that she might remove some of the stones
and
see where the thread went next. Almost laughing at herself for never
having thought of this before, she jumped to her feet. Her fear
vanished: once more she was certain her grandmother's thread could
not
have brought her there just to leave her there; and she began to throw
away the stones from the top as fast as she could, sometimes two or
three at a handful, sometimes taking both hands to lift one. After
clearing them away a little, she found that the thread turned and went
Madhuri Noah
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