"What were they?" asked his father. "Your mother may be able to
throw
some light upon them."
Then Curdie made a clean breast of it, and told them everything.
They all sat silent for some time, pondering the strange tale. At last
Curdie's mother spoke.
"You confess, my boy," she said, "there is something about the whole
affair you do not understand?"
"Yes, of course, mother," he answered, "I cannot understand how a
child
knowing nothing about the mountain, or even that I was shut up in it,
should come all that way alone, straight to where I was; and then, after
getting me out of the hole, lead me out of the mountain, too, where I
should not have known a step of the way if it had been as light as in
the open air."
"Then you have no right to say that what she told you was not true. She
did take you out, and she must have had something to guide her: why
not
Madhuri Noah
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