After about an hour, the door opened, and the baker's man appeared
with a pail in his hand. He went to a pump that stood in the
street, and having filled his pail returned with it into the shop.
Curdie stole after him, found the door on the latch, opened it very
gently, peeped in, saw nobody, and entered. Remembering perfectly
from what shelf the baker's wife had taken the loaf she said was
the best, and seeing just one upon it, he seized it, laid the price
of it on the counter, and sped softly out, and up the street. Once
more in the dungeon beside Lina, his first thought was to fasten up
the door again, which would have been easy, so many iron fragments
of all sorts and sizes lay about; but he bethought himself that if
he left it as it was, and they came to find him, they would
conclude at once that they had made their escape by it, and would
look no farther so as to discover the hole. He therefore merely
pushed the door close and left it. Then once more carefully
arranging the earth behind the shutter, so that it should again
fall with it, he returned to the cellar.
And now he had to convey the loaf to the princess. If he could
venture to take it himself, well; if not, he would send Lina. He
crept to the door of the servants' hall, and found the sleepers
beginning to stir. One said it was time to go to bed; another,
that he would go to the cellar instead, and have a mug of wine to
waken him up; while a third challenged a fourth to give him his
revenge at some game or other.
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