CHAPTER 11
Down to the Prisoners' Pit!
"Oh! Oh! Give me another hand and I'll do my best to help you," sputtered Nifflepok, as Handy Mandy ruthlessly continued to squeeze his fingers.
"We'll help ourselves, thank you," retorted the Goat Girl tartly. Then relenting a little, she relaxed her hold, for she could not help pitying Nifflepok and all the subjects of this cruel King. "Where are these prison pits?" she asked impatiently, for she was anxious to be alone with Nox. "If you are going to lock us up, do hurry along with it."
"Yes, yes, absolutely yes!" moaned Nifflepok, glancing nervously over his shoulder to be sure the white Ox was not going to tread on his heels. "You'll be there in no time, no time at all," he assured them earnestly. "Step over here, please." Moving a sliding door in the wall of the corridor, the King's assistant waved them toward a smooth wheelless silver carriage. It looked to Handy a lot like an old-fashioned sleigh, and as there were seats in front and a space in back large enough for the Ox, she let go Nifflepok's hand and quite willingly climbed aboard. Nox, grunting a little, stepped over the side and settled himself behind her.
"Well, goodbye," sniffed Nifflepok, rubbing his bruised fingers tenderly. "You'll find everything you need below, not that you'll be needing anything," he added mournfully as he pulled out a silver switch. "Goodbye, I'm sorry for you!" he shouted as the car with a lurch that almost loosened Handy's teeth shot down a sliding runway to the deep pits of darkness below.
Now, you and I, who are used to scenic railways and have enjoyed the thrills of chute the chutes for years, would have been less startled by the wild dizzy leaps, the swoops, curves and climbs, and the sickening drops of the Silver King's chariot. But neither the Goat Girl nor the Royal Ox had ever heard of a scenic railway, much less ridden in one, and the underground car of the Silver Monarch was more like a chute the chutes than anything else. Sometimes the two travellers were in complete darkness, at other times they whirled by the narrow, well-lighted ledges of a queer cave city, where the subjects of the Mountain King lived in cell-like apertures in the silver rock like the cliff dwellers of old. Then without warning the car would plunge to the work caverns below, past the gloomy shafts of the silver mines, or dart up to the living quarters and grottos of the King himself, caves so lavishly furnished and glowing with jewels, Handy let out little shrieks of astonishment. In the King's subterranean gardens, silver swallows bathed in the silver fountains, silver maples rustled their lacy branches in the lavender-scented breezes, silver-petalled flowers with jeweled centers grew as riotously as daisies and buttercups in the upstairs world.
The mountaineers themselves, working listless with pick and shovel in the mines, or walking soberly along the ledges beside their little cliff dwellings, seemed undersized and unhappy to the Goat Girl. Not that she caught more than a flying glimpse of them as the silver car tore by. In fact, she was so frantically busy holding on to the front rail of the car with all her various hands and catching her breath after each dizzy swoop, that her mind was in a perfect whirl. The groans and snorts of Nox were far from reassuring, but afraid to look back lest she herself be flung out, Handy clung desperately to the rail wondering when the wild ride would end and where under the mountain the silver car was taking them. The last words of Nifflepok rang unpleasantly in her ears and as they raced by a cave marked "Potters Den" the Goat Girl positively shuddered. Here, set out in vast silver pots and buried to their chins in the silver earth, were scores of the King's pale-faced prisoners. A grim-looking gardener was watering them from a milk can, and from the hungry way they lapped up the few drops that fell to them, Handy concluded that this was probably their only food.