"Come on, mother dear! The king may break his heart before he knows
that
she is safe."
Irene clung round his neck, and he ran with her like a deer. When he
entered the gate into the court, there sat the king on his horse, with
all the people of the house about him, weeping and hanging their
heads.
The king was not weeping, but his face was white as a dead man's, and
he
looked as if the life had gone out of him. The men-at-arms he had
brought with him, sat with horror-stricken faces, but eyes flashing
with rage, waiting only for the word of the king to do something--they
did not know what, and nobody knew what.
The day before the men-at-arms belonging to the house, as soon as
they
were satisfied the princess had been carried away, rushed after the
goblins into the hole, but found that they had already so skilfully
blockaded the narrowest part, not many feet below the cellar, that
without miners and their tools they could do nothing. Not one o ? [B??]? ?\?H H[?]? HZ[?H^K[? ??YH? ??H ??Y ?]??]?XY \?H??Z???\?\??S??Z??[Y[? ?H ?[??\??[? H??[?K?????Y?H
?M??
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