I have heard them all day, and my princess has asked me several times what they could be.

Sometimes they sound like distant thunder, and sometimes like the noises you hear in the mountain from those horrid miners underneath.' 'I shouldn't wonder,' said the cook, 'if it was the miners after all.
They may have come on some hole in the mountain through which the noises reach to us.

They are always boring and blasting and breaking, you know.' As he spoke, there came a great rolling rumble beneath them, and the house quivered.

They all started up in affright, and rushing to the hall found the gentlemen-at-arms in consternation also.

They had sent to wake their captain, who said from their description that it must have been an earthquake, an occurrence which, although very rare in that country, had taken place almost within the century; and then went to bed again, strange to say, and fell fast asleep without once thinking of Curdie, or associating the noises they had heard with what he had told them.