This prospect seemed all the more dreadful to the boy
because of his hunger at that moment.
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.
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