“I don’t feel quite sure whether I can trust you,” said Curdie.
“We are the king’s own men-at-arms,” said the captain courteously, for he was taken with Curdie’s appearance and courage.
“Well, I will tell you all about it—if you will promise to listen to me and not do anything rash.”
“I call that cool!” said one of the party, laughing. “He will tell us what mischief he was about, if we promise to do as pleases him.”
“I was about no mischief,” said Curdie.
But ere he could say more he turned faint, and fell senseless on the grass. Then first they discovered that the bolt they had shot, taking him for one of the goblin creatures, had wounded him.
They carried him into the house and laid him down in the hall. The report spread that they had caught a robber, and the servants crowded in to see the villain. Amongst the rest came the nurse. The moment she saw him she exclaimed with indignation:
“I declare it’s the same young rascal of a miner that was rude to me and the princess on the mountain. He actually wanted to kiss the princess. I took good care of that—the wretch! And he was prowling about, was he? Just like his impudence!” The princess being fast asleep, she could misrepresent at her pleasure.
When he heard this, the captain, although he had considerable doubt of its truth, resolved to keep Curdie a prisoner until they could search into the affair. So, after they had brought him round a little, and attended to his wound, which was rather a bad one, they laid him, still exhausted from the loss of blood, upon a mattress in a disused room—one of those already so often mentioned—and locked the door, and left him. He passed a troubled night, and in the morning they found him