unseen--they lay so close together. Could his string have led him
wrong?
He still followed winding it, and still it led him into more thickly
populated quarters, until he became quite uneasy, and indeed
apprehensive; for although he was not afraid of the _cobs_, he was
afraid of not finding his way out. But what could he do? It was of no
use to sit down and wait for the morning--the morning made no
difference
here. It was all dark, and always dark; and if his string failed him he
was helpless. He might even arrive within a yard of the mine, and
never
know it. Seeing he could do nothing better, he would at least find
where
the end of the string was, and if possible how it had come to play him
such a trick. He knew by the size of the ball that he was getting pretty
near the last of it, when he began to feel a tugging and pulling at it.
What could it mean? Turning a sharp corner, he thought he heard
strange
sounds. These grew, as he went on, to a scuffling and growling and
squeaking; and the noise increased, until, turning a second sharp
corner, he found himself in the midst of it, and the same moment
tumbled
over a wallowing mass, which he knew must be a knot of the cobs'
creatures. Before he could recover his feet, he had caught some great
Madhuri Noah
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