The Goblins For some time Curdie worked away briskly, throwing all the ore he had disengaged on one side behind him, to be ready for carrying out in the morning.

He heard a good deal of goblin-tapping, but it all sounded far away in the hill, and he paid it little heed.

Towards midnight he began to feel rather hungry; so he dropped his pickaxe, got out a lump of bread which in the morning he had laid in a damp hole in the rock, sat down on a heap of ore, and ate his supper.

Then he leaned back for five minutes' rest before beginning his work again, and laid his head against the rock.

He had not kept the position for one minute before he heard something which made him sharpen his ears.