The cave was lighted by a hole in the roof of rocks, and as George could cry no more, and had raged enough against himself and the wicked Misdral, there was nothing further for him to do but to look about his prison, and examine the stalactites which surrounded him on all sides.  One of them looked like a pulpit, a second like a camel, a third made him laugh, for it had a face with a bottle-nose, like that of the chief wine cooper at the castle.  On one of the columns he thought he discerned the figure of a weeping woman, and this made his eyes fill with tears again.  But he did not mean to cry any more, so he turned his attention to the ceiling.  Some of the stalactites that hung from it looked like great icicles, and some of them looked like damp, grey clothes hung out to dry.  This recalled the appearance of the wash hanging in the garden behind the palace—­a long stocking, or an unusually large shirt descending below the rest of the clothes—­and he remembered how, in the fall, after the harvest, the clothes-lines used to be tied to the plum-trees, and the ends decorated with branches still bearing the blue, juicy fruit, and then his hunger became so ravenous that he buckled his belt tighter round his waist and groaned aloud.

Night fell.  The cave grew dark, and he tried to sleep, but could not, although the drops of water splashed soothingly, and monotonously from the roof into the pools below.

The later it grew, the more he was tormented by his hunger, and the flapping of the bats, which he could not see in the dark.  He longed for it to be morning, and more than once, in his great need, he lifted his hands and prayed for deliverance, and yet more passionately for a piece of bread, and the coming of day.  Then he sat lost in thought, and bit his nails, for the sake of having something to chew.  He was aroused by a splash in one of the puddles on the Hoor.  It must be a fish!  He sat up to listen, and it seemed as if some one called to him gently.  He pricked up his ears sharply, and then!—­no, he had not deceived himself, for the friendly words came distinctly from below:  “George, my poor boy, are you awake?”

How they comforted him, and how quickly he sprang up in answer to the question!  At last he was saved.  That was as certain to him as that twice two makes four, although it might have been otherwise.

Over the pool, from which the small voice had sounded, appeared now a dim light, a beautiful goldfish lifted its head out of the water, opened its round mouth, and said, in a scarcely audible tone,—­for a real fish finds it difficult to speak, because it has no lungs,—­that George’s godmother, the fairy Clementine, had sent it.  Its mistress was by no means pleased with George’s disobedience; but, as he was otherwise a good boy, and she was pledged to aid the Greylocks, she would help him out of his difficulty this time.

The boy cried:  “Take me home take me home, take me to my mother!”