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 talking wildly.

In the evening he came to himself, but felt very weak, and his leg was exceedingly painful.

Wondering where he was, and seeing one of the men-at-arms in the room, he began to question him and soon recalled the events of the preceding night.

As he was himself unable to watch any more, he told the soldier all he knew about the goblins, and begged him to tell his companions, and stir them up to watch with tenfold vigilance; but whether it was that he did not talk quite coherently, or that the whole thing appeared incredible, certainly the man concluded that Curdie was only raving still, and tried to coax him into holding his tongue.