THE PRINCESS AND CURDIE - online book

A Children's Fantasy Book By George MacDonald - illustrated version.

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2IO
THE PRINCESS AND CURDIE.
To the lord chamberlain's door next, Curdie con­ducted the legserpent, and let him in.
Now his lordship had had a bedstead made for him­self, sweetly fashioned of rods of silver gilt: upon it the legserpent found him asleep, and under it he crept. But out he came on the other side, and crept over it next, and again under it, and so over it, under it, over it, five or six times, every time leaving a coil of himself behind him, until he had softly folded all his length about the lord cham­berlain and his bed. This done, he set up his head, look­ing down with curved neck right over his lordship's, and began to hiss in his face. He woke in terror unspeak­able, and would have started up; but the moment he moved, the legserpent drew his coils closer, and closer still, and drew and drew until the quaking traitor heard the joints of his beadstead grinding and gnarring. Pre­sently he persuaded himself that it was only a horrid nightmare, and began to struggle with all his strength to throw it off. Thereupon the legserpent gave his hooked nose such a bite, that his teeth met through it—but it was hardly thicker than the bowl of a spoon ; and then the vulture knew that he was in the grasp of his enemy the snake, and yielded. As soon as he was quiet the legserpent began to untwist and retwist, to uncoil and recoil himself, swinging and swaying, knotting and relaxing himself with strangest curves and convolutions,
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