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Title: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
  A Story for Children.
Author: Lewis, C. S. [Clive Staples] (1898-1963)
Date of first publication: 1950
Edition used as base for this ebook:
  New York: Macmillan, undated
  [twenty-first printing]
Date first posted: 26 January 2014
Date last updated: 26 January 2014
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1152

This ebook was produced by Al Haines


[Transcriber's note: Because of copyright considerations,
the illustrations by Pauline Baynes (1922-2008) have been
omitted from this etext.]






  THE LION, THE WITCH

  _and_

  THE WARDROBE

  _A Story for Children_


  BY C. S. LEWIS




_To Lucy Barfield_


_My dear Lucy,_

_I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized
that girls grow quicker than books.  As a result you are already too
old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will
be older still.  But some day you will be old enough to start reading
fairy tales again.  You can then take it down from some upper shelf,
dust it, and tell me what you think of it.  I shall probably be too
deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall
still be_

_your affectionate Godfather,_
  _C. S. Lewis_




  CONTENTS


  I.  _Lucy Looks into a Wardrobe_
  II.  _What Lucy Found There_
  III.  _Edmund and the Wardrobe_
  IV.  _Turkish Delight_
  V.  _Back on This Side of the Door_
  VI.  _Into the Forest_
  VII.  _A Day with the Beavers_
  VIII.  _What Happened after Dinner_
  IX.  _In the Witch's House_
  X.  _The Spell Begins to Break_
  XI.  _Aslan Is Nearer_
  XII.  _Peter's First Battle_
  XIII.  _Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time_
  XIV.  _The Triumph of the Witch_
  XV.  _Deeper Magic from_ before _the Dawn of Time_
  XVI.  _What Happened about the Statues_
  XVII.  _The Hunting of the White Stag_




CHAPTER I

_Lucy Looks into a Wardrobe_

Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and
Lucy.  This story is about something that happened to them when they
were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids.
They were sent to the house of an old Professor who lived in the heart
of the country, ten miles from the nearest railway station and two
miles from the nearest post office.  He had no wife and he lived in a
very large house with a housekeeper called Mrs. Macready and three
servants.  (Their names were Ivy, Margaret and Betty, but they do not
come into the story much.)  He himself was a very old man with shaggy
white hair, which grew over most of his face as well as on his head,
and they liked him almost at once; but on the first evening when he
came out to meet them at the front door he was so odd-looking that Lucy
(who was the youngest) was a little afraid of him, and Edmund (who was
the next youngest) wanted to laugh and had to keep on pretending he was
blowing his nose to hide it.

As soon as they had said good night to the Professor and gone upstairs
on the first night, the boys came into the girls' room and they all
talked it over.

"We've fallen on our feet and no mistake," said Peter.  "This is going
to be perfectly splendid.  That old chap will let us do anything we
like."

"I think he's an old dear," said Susan.

"Oh, come off it!" said Edmund, who was tired and pretending not to be
tired, which always made him bad-tempered.  "Don't go on talking like
that."

"Like what?" said Susan; "and anyway, it's time you were in bed."

"Trying to talk like Mother," said Edmund.  "And who are you to say
when I'm to go to bed?  Go to bed yourself."

"Hadn't we all better go to bed?" said Lucy.  "There's sure to be a row
if we're heard talking here."

"No there won't," said Peter.  "I tell you this is the sort of house
where no one's going to mind what we do.  Anyway, they won't hear us.
It's about ten minutes' walk from here down to that dining room, and
any amount of stairs and passages in between."

"What's that noise?" said Lucy suddenly.  It was a far larger house
than she had ever been in before and the thought of all those long
passages and rows of doors leading into empty rooms was beginning to
make her feel a little creepy.

"It's only a bird, silly," said Edmund.

"It's an owl," said Peter.  "This is going to be a wonderful place for
birds.  I shall go to bed now.  I say, let's go and explore to-morrow.
You might find anything in a place like this.  Did you see those
mountains as we came along?  And the woods?  There might be eagles.
There might be stags.  There'll be hawks."

"Badgers!" said Lucy.

"Snakes!" said Edmund.

"Foxes!" said Susan.

But when next morning came, there was a steady rain falling, so thick
that when you looked out of the window you could see neither the
mountains nor the woods nor even the stream in the garden.

"Of course it _would_ be raining!" said Edmund.  They had just finished
breakfast with the Professor and were upstairs in the room he had set
apart for them--a long, low room with two windows looking out in one
direction and two in another.

"Do stop grumbling, Ed," said Susan.  "Ten to one it'll clear up in an
hour or so.  And in the meantime we're pretty well off.  There's a
wireless and lots of books."

"Not for me," said Peter, "I'm going to explore in the house."

Everyone agreed to this and that was how the adventures began.  It was
the sort of house that you never seem to come to the end of, and it was
full of unexpected places.  The first few doors they tried led only
into spare bedrooms, as everyone had expected that they would; but soon
they came to a very long room full of pictures and there they found a
suit of armour; and after that was a room all hung with green, with a
harp in one corner; and then came three steps down and five steps up,
and then a kind of little upstairs hall and a door that led out onto a
balcony, and then a whole series of rooms that led into each other and
were lined with books--most of them very old books and some bigger than
a Bible in a church.  And shortly after that they looked into a room
that was quite empty except for one big wardrobe; the sort that has a
looking-glass in the door.  There was nothing else in the room at all
except a dead blue-bottle on the window-sill.

"Nothing there!" said Peter, and they all trooped out again--all except
Lucy.  She stayed behind because she thought it would be worth while
trying the door of the wardrobe, even though she felt almost sure that
it would be locked.  To her surprise it opened quite easily, and two
moth-balls dropped out.

Looking into the inside, she saw several coats hanging up--mostly long
fur coats.  There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel
of fur.  She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the
coats and rubbed her face against them, leaving the door open, of
course, because she knew that it is very foolish to shut oneself into
any wardrobe.  Soon she went further in and found that there was a
second row of coats hanging up behind the first one.  It was almost
quite dark in there and she kept her arms stretched out in front of her
so as not to bump her face into the back of the wardrobe.  She took a
step further in--then two or three steps--always expecting to feel
woodwork against the tips of her fingers.  But she could not feel it.

"This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!" thought Lucy, going still
further in and pushing the soft folds of the coats aside to make room
for her.  Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her
feet.  "I wonder is that more moth-balls?" she thought, stooping down
to feel it with her hands.  But instead of feeling the hard, smooth
wood of the floor of the wardrobe, she felt something soft and powdery
and extremely cold, "This is very queer," she said, and went on a step
or two further.

Next moment she found that what was rubbing against her face and hands
was no longer soft fur but something hard and rough and even prickly.
"Why, it is just like branches of trees!" exclaimed Lucy.  And then she
saw that there was a light ahead of her; not a few inches away where
the back of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a long way off.
Something cold and soft was falling on her.  A moment later she found
that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow
under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air.

Lucy felt a little frightened, but she felt very inquisitive and
excited as well.  She looked back over her shoulder and there, between
the dark tree-trunks, she could still see the open doorway of the
wardrobe and even catch a glimpse of the empty room from which she had
set out.  (She had, of course, left the door open, for she knew that it
is a very silly thing to shut oneself into a wardrobe.)  It seemed to
be still daylight there.  "I can always get back if anything goes
wrong," thought Lucy.  She began to walk forward, _crunch-crunch_, over
the snow and through the wood towards the other light.

In about ten minutes she reached it and found that it was a lamp-post.
As she stood looking at it, wondering why there was a lamp-post in the
middle of a wood and wondering what to do next, she heard a pitter
patter of feet coming towards her.  And soon after that a very strange
person stepped out from among the trees into the light of the lamp-post.

He was only a little taller than Lucy herself and he carried over his
head an umbrella, white with snow.  From the waist upwards he was like
a man, but his legs were shaped like a goat's (the hair on them was
glossy black) and instead of feet he had goat's hoofs.  He also had a
tail, but Lucy did not notice this at first because it was neatly
caught up over the arm that held the umbrella so as to keep it from
trailing in the snow.  He had a red woollen muffler round his neck and
his skin was rather reddish too.  He had a strange, but pleasant little
face with a short pointed beard and curly hair, and out of the hair
there stuck two horns, one on each side of his forehead.  One of his
hands, as I have said, held the umbrella: in the other arm he carried
several brown paper parcels.  What with the parcels and the snow it
looked just as if he had been doing his Christmas shopping.  He was a
Faun.  And when he saw Lucy he gave such a start of surprise that he
dropped all his parcels.

"Goodness gracious me!" exclaimed the Faun.




CHAPTER II

_What Lucy Found There_

"Good evening," said Lucy.  But the Faun was so busy picking up his
parcels that at first he did not reply.  When he had finished he made
her a little bow.

"Good evening, good evening," said the Faun.  "Excuse me--I don't want
to be inquisitive--but should I be right in thinking that you are a
Daughter of Eve?"

"My name's Lucy," said she, not quite understanding him.

"But you are--forgive me--you are what they call a girl?" asked the
Faun.

"Of course I'm a girl," said Lucy.

"You are in fact Human?"

"Of course I'm human," said Lucy, still a little puzzled.

"To be sure, to be sure," said the Faun.  "How stupid of me!  But I've
never seen a Son of Adam or a Daughter of Eve before.  I am delighted.
That is to say--" and then he stopped as if he had been going to say
something he had not intended but had remembered in time.  "Delighted,
delighted," he went on.  "Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is
Tumnus."

"I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Tumnus," said Lucy.

"And may I ask, O Lucy, Daughter of Eve," said Mr. Tumnus, "how you
have come into Narnia?"

"Narnia?  What's that?" said Lucy.

"This is the land of Narnia," said the Faun, "where we are now; all
that lies between the lamp-post and the great castle of Cair Paravel on
the eastern sea.  And you--you have come from the wild woods of the
west?"

"I--I got in through the wardrobe in the spare room," said Lucy.

"Ah!" said Mr. Tumnus in a rather melancholy voice, "if only I had
worked harder at geography when I was a little Faun, I should no doubt
know all about those strange countries.  It is too late now."

"But they aren't countries at all," said Lucy, almost laughing.  "It's
only just back there--at least--I'm not sure.  It is summer there."

"Meanwhile," said Mr. Tumnus, "it is winter in Narnia, and has been for
ever so long, and we shall both catch cold if we stand here talking in
the snow.  Daughter of Eve from the far land of Spare Oom where eternal
summer reigns around the bright city of War Drobe, how would it be if
you came and had tea with me?"

"Thank you very much, Mr. Tumnus," said Lucy.  "But I was wondering
whether I ought to be getting back."

"It's only just round the corner," said the Faun, "and there'll be a
roaring fire--and toast--and sardines--and cake."

"Well, it's very kind of you," said Lucy.  "But I shan't be able to
stay long."

"If you will take my arm, Daughter of Eve," said Mr. Tumnus, "I shall
be able to hold the umbrella over both of us.  That's the way.
Now--off we go."

And so Lucy found herself walking through the wood arm in arm with this
strange creature as if they had known one another all their lives.

They had not gone far before they came to a place where the ground
became rough and there were rocks all about and little hills up and
little hills down.  At the bottom of one small valley Mr. Tumnus turned
suddenly aside as if he were going to walk straight into an unusually
large rock, but at the last moment Lucy found he was leading her into
the entrance of a cave.  As soon as they were inside she found herself
blinking in the light of a wood fire.  Then Mr. Tumnus stooped and took
a flaming piece of wood out of the fire with a neat little pair of
tongs, and lit a lamp.  "Now we shan't be long," he said, and
immediately put a kettle on.

Lucy thought she had never been in a nicer place.  It was a little,
dry, clean cave of reddish stone with a carpet on the floor and two
little chairs ("one for me and one for a friend," said Mr. Tumnus) and
a table and a dresser and a mantelpiece over the fire and above that a
picture of an old Faun with a grey beard.  In one corner there was a
door which Lucy thought must lead to Mr. Tumnus' bedroom, and on one
wall was a shelf full of books.  Lucy looked at these while he was
setting out the tea things.  They had titles like _The Life and Letters
of Silenus_ or _Nymphs and Their Ways_ or _Men, Monks and Gamekeepers;
a Study in Popular Legend_ or _Is Man a Myth_?

"Now, Daughter of Eve!" said the Faun.

And really it was a wonderful tea.  There was a nice brown egg, lightly
boiled, for each of them, and then sardines on toast, and then buttered
toast, and then toast with honey, and then a sugar-topped cake.  And
when Lucy was tired of eating the Faun began to talk.  He had wonderful
tales to tell of life in the forest.  He told about the midnight dances
and how the Nymphs who lived in the wells and the Dryads who lived in
the trees came out to dance with the Fauns; about long hunting parties
after the milk-white Stag who could give you wishes if you caught him;
about feasting and treasure-seeking with the wild Red Dwarfs in deep
mines and caverns far beneath the forest floor; and then about summer
when the woods were green and old Silenus on his fat donkey would come
to visit them, and sometimes Bacchus himself, and then the streams
would run with wine instead of water and the whole forest would give
itself up to jollification for weeks on end.  "Not that it isn't always
winter now," he added gloomily.  Then to cheer himself up he took out
from its case on the dresser a strange little flute that looked as if
it were made of straw and began to play.  And the tune he played made
Lucy want to cry and laugh and dance and go to sleep all at the same
time.  It must have been hours later when she shook herself and said,

"Oh Mr. Tumnus--I'm so sorry to stop you, and I do love that tune--but
really, I must go home.  I only meant to stay for a few minutes."

"It's no good _now_, you know," said the Faun, laying down his flute
and shaking his head at her very sorrowfully.

"No good?" said Lucy, jumping up and feeling rather frightened.  "What
do you mean?  I've got to go home at once.  The others will be
wondering what has happened to me."  But a moment later she asked, "Mr.
Tumnus!  Whatever is the matter?" for the Faun's brown eyes had filled
with tears and then the tears began trickling down his cheeks, and soon
they were running off the end of his nose; and at last he covered his
face with his hands and began to howl.

"Mr. Tumnus!  Mr. Tumnus!" said Lucy in great distress.  "Don't!
Don't!  What is the matter?  Aren't you well?  Dear Mr. Tumnus, do tell
me what is wrong."  But the Faun continued sobbing as if his heart
would break.  And even when Lucy went over and put her arms round him
and lent him her handkerchief, he did not stop.  He merely took the
handkerchief and kept on using it, wringing it out with both hands
whenever it got too wet to be any more use, so that presently Lucy was
standing in a damp patch.

"Mr. Tumnus!" bawled Lucy in his ear, shaking him.  "Do stop.  Stop it
at once!  You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a great big Faun like
you.  What on earth are you crying about?"

"Oh--oh--oh!" sobbed Mr. Tumnus, "I'm crying because I'm such a bad
Faun."

"I don't think you're a bad Faun at all," said Lucy.  "I think you are
a very good Faun.  You are the nicest Faun I've ever met."

"Oh--oh--you wouldn't say that if you knew," replied Mr. Tumnus between
his sobs.  "No, I'm a bad Faun.  I don't suppose there ever was a worse
Faun since the beginning of the world."

"But what have you done?" asked Lucy.

"My old father, now," said Mr. Tumnus, "that's his picture over the
mantelpiece.  He would never have done a thing like this."

"A thing like what?" said Lucy.

"Like what I've done," said the Faun.  "Taken service under the White
Witch.  That's what I am.  I'm in the pay of the White Witch."

"The White Witch?  Who is she?"

"Why, it is she that has got all Narnia under her thumb.  It's she that
makes it always winter.  Always winter and never Christmas; think of
that!"

"How awful!" said Lucy.  "But what does she pay you for?"

"That's the worst of it," said Mr. Tumnus with a deep groan.  "I'm a
kidnapper for her, that's what I am.  Look at me, Daughter of Eve.
Would you believe that I'm the sort of Faun to meet a poor innocent
child in the wood, one that had never done me any harm, and pretend to
be friendly with it, and invite it home to my cave, all for the sake of
lulling it asleep and then handing it over to the White Witch?"

"No," said Lucy.  "I'm sure you wouldn't do anything of the sort."

"But I have," said the Faun.

"Well," said Lucy rather slowly (for she wanted to be truthful and yet
not to be too hard on him), "well, that was pretty bad.  But you're so
sorry for it that I'm sure you will never do it again."

"Daughter of Eve, don't you understand?" said the Faun.  "It isn't
something I _have_ done.  I'm doing it now, this very moment."

"What do you mean?" cried Lucy, turning very white.

"You are the child," said Mr. Tumnus.  "I had orders from the White
Witch that if ever I saw a Son of Adam or a Daughter of Eve in the
wood, I was to catch them and hand them over to her.  And you are the
first I ever met.  And I've pretended to be your friend and asked you
to tea, and all the time I've been meaning to wait till you were asleep
and then go and tell _her_."

"Oh but you won't, Mr. Tumnus," said Lucy.  "You won't, will you?
Indeed, indeed you really mustn't."

"And if I don't," said he, beginning to cry again, "she's sure to find
out.  And she'll have my tail cut off, and my horns sawn off, and my
beard plucked out, and she'll wave her wand over my beautiful cloven
hoofs and turn them into horrid solid hoofs like a wretched horse's.
And if she is extra and specially angry she'll turn me into stone and I
shall be only a statue of a Faun in her horrible house until the four
thrones at Cair Paravel are filled--and goodness knows when that will
happen, or whether it will ever happen at all."

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Tumnus," said Lucy.  "But please let me go home."

"Of course I will," said the Faun.  "Of course I've got to.  I see that
now.  I hadn't known what Humans were like before I met you.  Of course
I can't give you up to the Witch; not now that I know you.  But we must
be off at once.  I'll see you back to the lamp-post.  I suppose you can
find your own way from there back to Spare Oom and War Drobe?"

"I'm sure I can," said Lucy.

"We must go as quietly as we can," said Mr. Tumnus.  "The whole wood is
full of _her_ spies.  Even some of the trees are on her side."

They both got up and left the tea things on the table, and Mr. Tumnus
once more put up his umbrella and gave Lucy his arm, and they went out
into the snow.  The journey back was not at all like the journey to the
Faun's cave; they stole along as quickly as they could, without
speaking a word, and Mr. Tumnus kept to the darkest places.  Lucy was
relieved when they reached the lamp-post again.

"Do you know your way from here, Daughter of Eve?" said Tumnus.

Lucy looked very hard between the trees and could just see in the
distance a patch of light that looked like daylight.  "Yes," she said,
"I can see the wardrobe door."

"Then be off home as quick as you can," said the Faun, "and--c-can you
ever forgive me for what I meant to do?"

"Why, of course I can," said Lucy, shaking him heartily by the hand.
"And I do hope you won't get into dreadful trouble on my account."

"Farewell, Daughter of Eve," said he.  "Perhaps I may keep the
handkerchief?"

"Rather!" said Lucy, and then ran towards the far-off patch of daylight
as quickly as her legs would carry her.  And presently instead of rough
branches brushing past her she felt coats, and instead of crunching
snow under her feet she felt wooden boards, and all at once she found
herself jumping out of the wardrobe into the same empty room from which
the whole adventure had started.  She shut the wardrobe door tightly
behind her and looked around, panting for breath.  It was still raining
and she could hear the voices of the others in the passage.

"I'm here," she shouted.  "I'm here.  I've come back, I'm all right."




CHAPTER III

_Edmund and the Wardrobe_

Lucy ran out of the empty room into the passage and found the other
three.

"It's all right," she repeated, "I've come back."

"What on earth are you talking about, Lucy?" asked Susan.

"Why?" said Lucy in amazement, "haven't you all been wondering where I
was?"

"So you've been hiding, have you?" said Peter.  "Poor old Lu, hiding
and nobody noticed!  You'll have to hide longer than that if you want
people to start looking for you."

"But I've been away for hours and hours," said Lucy.

The others all stared at one another.

"Batty!" said Edmund tapping his head.  "Quite batty."

"What do you mean, Lu?" asked Peter.

"What I said," answered Lucy.  "It was just after breakfast when I went
into the wardrobe, and I've been away for hours and hours, and had tea,
and all sorts of things have happened."

"Don't be silly, Lucy," said Susan.  "We've only just come out of that
room a moment ago, and you were there then."

"She's not being silly at all," said Peter, "she's just making up a
story for fun, aren't you, Lu?  And why shouldn't she?"

"No, Peter, I'm not," she said.  "It's--it's a magic wardrobe.  There's
a wood inside it, and it's snowing, and there's a Faun and a witch and
it's called Narnia; come and see."

The others did not know what to think, but Lucy was so excited that
they all went back with her into the room.  She rushed ahead of them,
flung open the door of the wardrobe and cried, "Now! go in and see for
yourselves."

"Why, you goose," said Susan, putting her head inside and pulling the
fur coats apart, "it's just an ordinary wardrobe, look! there's the
back of it."

Then everyone looked in and pulled the coats apart; and they all
saw--Lucy herself saw--a perfectly ordinary wardrobe.  There was no
wood and no snow, only the back of the wardrobe, with hooks on it.
Peter went in and rapped his knuckles on it to make sure that it was
solid.

"A jolly good hoax, Lu," he said as he came out again, "you have really
taken us in, I must admit.  We half believed you."

"But it wasn't a hoax at all," said Lucy, "really and truly.  It was
all different a moment ago.  Honestly it was.  I promise."

"Come, Lu," said Peter, "that's going a bit far.  You've had your joke.
Hadn't you better drop it now?"

Lucy grew very red in the face and tried to say something, though she
hardly knew what she was trying to say, and burst into tears.

For the next few days she was very miserable.  She could have made it
up with the others quite easily at any moment if she could have brought
herself to say that the whole thing was only a story made up for fun.
But Lucy was a very truthful girl and she knew that she was really in
the right; and she could not bring herself to say this.  The others who
thought she was telling a lie, and a silly lie too, made her very
unhappy.  The two elder ones did this without meaning to do it, but
Edmund could be spiteful, and on this occasion he was spiteful.  He
sneered and jeered at Lucy and kept on asking her if she'd found any
other new countries in other cupboards all over the house.  What made
it worse was that these days ought to have been delightful.  The
weather was fine and they were out of doors from morning to night,
bathing, fishing, climbing trees, birds' nesting, and lying in the
heather.  But Lucy could not properly enjoy any of it.  And so things
went on until the next wet day.

That day, when it came to the afternoon and there was still no sign of
a break in the weather, they decided to play hide-and-seek.  Susan was
"It" and as soon as the others scattered to hide, Lucy went to the room
where the wardrobe was.  She did not mean to hide in the wardrobe,
because she knew that would only set the others talking again about the
whole wretched business.  But she did want to have one more look inside
it; for by this time she was beginning to wonder herself whether Narnia
and the Faun had not been a dream.  The house was so large and
complicated and full of hiding places that she thought she would have
time to have one look into the wardrobe and then hide somewhere else.
But as soon as she reached it she heard steps in the passage outside,
and then there was nothing for it but to jump into the wardrobe and
hold the door closed behind her.  She did not shut it properly because
she knew that it is very silly to shut oneself into a wardrobe, even if
it is not a magic one.

Now the steps she had heard were those of Edmund; and he came into the
room just in time to see Lucy vanishing into the wardrobe.  He at once
decided to get into it himself--not because he thought it a
particularly good place to hide but because he wanted to go on teasing
her about her imaginary country.  He opened the door.  There were the
coats hanging up as usual, and a smell of mothballs, and darkness and
silence, and no sign of Lucy.  "She thinks I'm Susan come to catch
her," said Edmund to himself, "and so she's keeping very quiet in at
the back."  He jumped in and shut the door, forgetting what a very
foolish thing this is to do.  Then he began feeling about for Lucy in
the dark.  He had expected to find her in a few seconds and was very
surprised when he did not.  He decided to open the door again and let
in some light.  But he could not find the door either.  He didn't like
this at all and began groping wildly in every direction; he even
shouted out.  "Lucy!  Lu!  Where are you?  I know you're here."

There was no answer and Edmund noticed that his own voice had a curious
sound--not the sound you expect in a cupboard but a kind of open-air
sound.  He also noticed that he was unexpectedly cold; and then he saw
a light.

"Thank goodness," said Edmund, "the door must have swung open of its
own accord."  He forgot all about Lucy and went towards the light which
he thought was the open door of the wardrobe.  But instead of finding
himself stepping out into the spare room he found himself stepping out
from the shadow of some thick dark fir trees into an open place in the
middle of a wood.

There was crisp, dry snow under his feet and more snow lying on the
branches of the trees.  Overhead there was a pale blue sky, the sort of
sky one sees on a fine winter day in the morning.  Straight ahead of
him he saw between the tree trunks the sun, just rising, very red and
clear.  Everything was perfectly still, as if he were the only living
creature in that country.  There was not even a robin or a squirrel
among the trees, and the wood stretched as far as he could see in every
direction.  He shivered.

He now remembered that he had been looking for Lucy; and also how
unpleasant he had been to her about her "imaginary country" which now
turned out not to have been imaginary at all.  He thought that she must
be somewhere quite close and so he shouted, "Lucy!  Lucy!  I'm here
too--Edmund."

There was no answer.

"She's angry about all the things I've been saying lately," thought
Edmund.  And though he did not like to admit that he had been wrong, he
also did not much like being alone in this strange, cold, quiet place;
so he shouted again.

"I say, Lu!  I'm sorry I didn't believe you.  I see now you were right
all along.  Do come out.  Make it Pax."

Still there was no answer.

"Just like a girl," said Edmund to himself, "sulking somewhere, and
won't accept an apology."  He looked round him again and decided he did
not much like this place, and had almost made up his mind to go home,
when he heard, very far off in the wood, a sound of bells.  He listened
and the sound came nearer and nearer and at last there swept into sight
a sledge drawn by two reindeer.

The reindeer were about the size of Shetland ponies and their hair was
so white that even the snow hardly looked white compared with them;
their branching horns were gilded and shone like something on fire when
the sunrise caught them.  Their harness was of scarlet leather and
covered with bells.  On the sledge, driving the reindeer, sat a fat
dwarf who would have been about three feet high if he had been
standing.  He was dressed in polar bear's fur and on his head he wore a
red hood with a long gold tassel hanging down from its point; his huge
beard covered his knees and served him instead of a rug.  But behind
him, on a much higher seat in the middle of the sledge sat a very
different person--a great lady, taller than any woman that Edmund had
ever seen.  She also was covered in white fur up to her throat and held
a long straight golden wand in her right hand and wore a golden crown
on her head.  Her face was white--not merely pale, but white like snow
or paper or icing sugar, except for her very red mouth.  It was a
beautiful face in other respects, but proud and cold and stern.

The sledge was a fine sight as it came sweeping towards Edmund with the
bells jingling and the Dwarf cracking his whip and the snow flying up
on each side of it.

"Stop!" said the Lady, and the Dwarf pulled the reindeer up so sharp
that they almost sat down.  Then they recovered themselves and stood
champing their bits and blowing.  In the frosty air the breath coming
out of their nostrils looked like smoke.

"And what, pray, are you?" said the Lady, looking hard at Edmund.

"I'm--I'm--my name's Edmund," said Edmund rather awkwardly.  He did not
like the way she looked at him.

The Lady frowned.  "Is that how you address a Queen?" she asked,
looking sterner than ever.

"I beg your pardon, your Majesty, I didn't know," said Edmund.

"Not know the Queen of Narnia?" cried she.  "Ha!  You shall know us
better hereafter.  But I repeat--what are you?"

"Please, your Majesty," said Edmund, "I don't know what you mean.  I'm
at school--at least I was--it's the holidays now."




CHAPTER IV

_Turkish Delight_

"But what are you?" said the Queen again.  "Are you a great overgrown
dwarf that has cut off its beard."

"No, your Majesty," said Edmund, "I never had a beard, I'm a boy."

"A boy!" said she.  "Do you mean you are a Son of Adam?"

Edmund stood still, saying nothing.  He was too confused by this time
to understand what the question meant.

"I see you are an idiot, whatever else you may be," said the Queen.
"Answer me, once and for all, or I shall lose my patience.  Are you
human?"

"Yes, your Majesty," said Edmund.

"And how, pray, did you come to enter my dominions?"

"Please, your Majesty, I came in through a wardrobe."

"A wardrobe?  What do you mean?"

"I--I opened a door and just found myself here, your Majesty," said
Edmund.

"Ha!" said the Queen, speaking more to herself than to him.  "A door.
A door from the world of men!  I have heard of such things.  This may
wreck all.  But he is only one, and he is easily dealt with."  As she
spoke these words she rose from her seat and looked Edmund full in the
face, her eyes flaming; at the same moment she raised her wand.  Edmund
felt sure that she was going to do something dreadful but he seemed
unable to move.  Then, just as he gave himself up for lost, she
appeared to change her mind.

"My poor child," she said in quite a different voice, "how cold you
look!  Come and sit with me here on the sledge and I will put my mantle
around you and we will talk."

Edmund did not like this arrangement at all but he dared not disobey;
he stepped on to the sledge and sat at her feet, and she put a fold of
her fur mantle around him and tucked it well in.

"Perhaps something hot to drink?" said the Queen.  "Should you like
that?"

"Yes please, your Majesty," said Edmund, whose teeth were chattering.

The Queen took from somewhere among her wrappings a very small bottle
which looked as if it were made of copper.  Then, holding out her arm,
she let one drop fall from it on to the snow beside the sledge.  Edmund
saw the drop for a second in mid-air, shining like a diamond.  But the
moment it touched the snow there was a hissing sound and there stood a
jewelled cup full of something that steamed.  The Dwarf immediately
took this and handed it to Edmund with a bow and a smile; not a very
nice smile.  Edmund felt much better as he began to sip the hot drink.
It was something he had never tasted before, very sweet and foamy and
creamy, and it warmed him right down to his toes.

"It is dull, Son of Adam, to drink without eating," said the Queen
presently.  "What would you like best to eat?"

"Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty," said Edmund.

The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow, and
instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon,
which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best
Turkish Delight.  Each piece was sweet and light to the very centre and
Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious.  He was quite warm
now, and very comfortable.

While he was eating the Queen kept asking him questions.  At first
Edmund tried to remember that it is rude to speak with one's mouth
full, but soon he forgot about this and thought only of trying to
shovel down as much Turkish Delight as he could, and the more he ate
the more he wanted to eat, and he never asked himself why the Queen
should be so inquisitive.  She got him to tell her that he had one
brother and two sisters, and that one of his sisters had already been
in Narnia and had met a Faun there, and that no one except himself and
his brother and his sisters knew anything about Narnia.  She seemed
especially interested in the fact that there were four of them, and
kept on coming back to it.  "You are sure there are just four of you?"
she asked.  "Two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve, neither more
nor less?" and Edmund, with his mouth full of Turkish Delight, kept on
saying, "Yes, I told you that before," and forgetting to call her "Your
Majesty" but she didn't seem to mind now.

At last the Turkish Delight was all finished and Edmund was looking
very hard at the empty box and wishing that she would ask him whether
he would like some more.  Probably the Queen knew quite well what he
was thinking; for she knew, though Edmund did not, that this was
enchanted Turkish Delight and that anyone who had once tasted it would
want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on
eating it till they killed themselves.  But she did not offer him any
more.  Instead, she said to him,

"Son of Adam, I should so much like to see your brother and your two
sisters.  Will you bring them to see me?"

"I'll try," said Edmund, still looking at the empty box.

"Because, if you did come again--bringing them with you of course--I'd
be able to give you some more Turkish Delight.  I can't do it now, the
magic will only work once.  In my own house it would be another matter."

"Why can't we go to your house now?" said Edmund.  When he had first
got on to the sledge he had been afraid that she might drive away with
him to some unknown place from which he would not be able to get back,
but he had forgotten about that fear now.

"It is a lovely place, my house," said the Queen.  "I am sure you would
like it.  There are whole rooms full of Turkish Delight, and what's
more, I have no children of my own.  I want a nice boy whom I could
bring up as a Prince and who would be King of Narnia when I am gone.
While he was Prince he would wear a gold crown and eat Turkish Delight
all day long; and you are much the cleverest and handsomest young man
I've ever met.  I think I would like to make you the Prince--some day,
when you bring the others to visit me."

"Why not now?" said Edmund.  His face had become very red and his mouth
and fingers were sticky.  He did not look either clever or handsome
whatever the Queen might say.

"Oh, but if I took you there now," said she, "I shouldn't see your
brother and your sisters.  I very much want to know your charming
relations.  You are to be the Prince and--later on--the King; that is
understood.  But you must have courtiers and nobles.  I will make your
brother a Duke and your sisters Duchesses."

"There's nothing special about _them_," said Edmund, "and, anyway, I
could always bring them some other time."

"Ah, but once you were in my house," said the Queen, "you might forget
all about them.  You would be enjoying yourself so much that you
wouldn't want the bother of going to fetch them.  No.  You must go back
to your own country now and come to me another day, _with them_, you
understand.  It is no good coming without them."

"But I don't even know the way back to my own country," pleaded Edmund.

"That's easy," answered the Queen.  "Do you see that lamp?"  She
pointed with her wand and Edmund turned and saw the same lamp-post
under which Lucy had met the Faun.  "Straight on, beyond that, is the
way to the World of Men.  And now look the other way"--here she pointed
in the opposite direction--"and tell me if you can see two little hills
rising above the trees."

"I think I can," said Edmund.

"Well my house is between those two hills.  So next time you come you
have only to find the lamp-post and look for those two hills and walk
through the wood till you reach my house.  You had better keep the
river on your right when you get to it.  But remember--you must bring
the others with you.  I might have to be very angry with you if you
came alone."

"I'll do my best," said Edmund.

"And, by the way," said the Queen, "you needn't tell them about me.  It
would be fun to keep it a secret between us two, wouldn't it?  Make it
a surprise for them.  Just bring them along to the two hills--a clever
boy like you will easily think of some excuse for doing that--and when
you come to my house you could just say 'Let's see who lives here' or
something like that.  I am sure that would be best.  If your sister has
met one of the Fauns, she may have heard strange stories about
me--nasty stories that might make her afraid to come to me.  Fauns will
say anything, you know, and now--"

"Please, please," said Edmund suddenly, "please couldn't I have just
one piece of Turkish Delight to eat on the way home?"

"No, no," said the Queen with a laugh, "you must wait till next time."
While she spoke, she signalled to the Dwarf to drive on, but as the
sledge swept away out of sight, the Queen waved to Edmund calling out,
"Next time!  Next time!  Don't forget.  Come soon."

Edmund was still staring after the sledge when he heard someone calling
his own name, and looking round he saw Lucy coming towards him from
another part of the wood.

"Oh, Edmund!" she cried.  "So you've got in too!  Isn't it wonderful,
and now--"

"All right," said Edmund, "I see you were right and it is a magic
wardrobe after all.  I'll say I'm sorry if you like.  But where on
earth have you been all this time?  I've been looking for you
everywhere."

"If I'd known you had got in I'd have waited for you," said Lucy who
was too happy and excited to notice how snappishly Edmund spoke or how
flushed and strange his face was.  "I've been having lunch with dear
Mr. Tumnus, the Faun, and he's very well and the White Witch has done
nothing to him for letting me go, so he thinks she can't have found out
and perhaps everything is going to be all right after all."

"The White Witch?" said Edmund, "who's she?"

"She is a perfectly terrible person," said Lucy.  "She calls herself
the Queen of Narnia though she has no right to be queen at all, and all
the Fauns and Dryads and Naiads and dwarfs and animals--at least all
the good ones--simply hate her.  And she can turn people into stone and
do all kinds of horrible things.  And she has made a magic so that it
is always winter in Narnia--always winter, but it never gets to
Christmas.  And she drives about on a sledge, drawn by a reindeer, with
her wand in her hand and a crown on her head."

Edmund was already feeling uncomfortable from having eaten too many
sweets, and when he heard that the Lady he had made friends with was a
dangerous witch he felt even more uncomfortable.  But he still wanted
to taste that Turkish Delight again more than he wanted anything else.

"Who told you all that stuff about the White Witch?" he asked.

"Mr. Tumnus, the Faun," said Lucy.

"You can't always believe what Fauns say," said Edmund, trying to sound
as if he knew far more about them than Lucy.

"Who said so?" asked Lucy.

"Everyone knows it," said Edmund, "ask anybody you like.  But it's
pretty poor sport standing here in the snow.  Let's go home."

"Yes, let's," said Lucy.  "Oh Edmund, I _am_ glad you've got in too.
The others will have to believe in Narnia now that both of us have been
there.  What fun it will be."

But Edmund secretly thought that it would not be as good fun for him as
for her.  He would have to admit that Lucy had been right, before all
the others, and he felt sure the others would all be on the side of the
Fauns and the animals; but he was already more than half on the side of
the Witch.  He did not know what he would say, or how he would keep his
secret once they were all talking about Narnia.

By this time they had walked a good way.  Then suddenly they felt coats
around them instead of branches and next moment they were both standing
outside the wardrobe in the empty room.

"I say," said Lucy, "you do look awful, Edmund.  Don't you feel well?"

"I'm all right," said Edmund, but this was not true.  He was feeling
very sick.

"Come on then," said Lucy, "let's find the others.  What a lot we shall
have to tell them!  And what wonderful adventures we shall have now
that we're all in it together."




CHAPTER V

_Back on This Side of the Door_

Because the game of hide-and-seek was still going on, it took Edmund
and Lucy some time to find the others.  But when at last they were all
together (which happened in the long room, where the suit of armour
was) Lucy burst out,

"Peter!  Susan!  It's all true.  Edmund has seen it too.  There is a
country you can get to through the wardrobe.  Edmund and I both got in.
We met one another in there, in the wood.  Go on, Edmund; tell them all
about it."

"What's all this about, Ed?" said Peter.

And now we come to one of the nastiest things in this story.  Up to
that moment Edmund had been feeling sick, and sulky, and annoyed with
Lucy for being right, but he hadn't made up his mind what to do.  When
Peter suddenly asked him the question he decided all at once to do the
meanest and most spiteful thing he could think of.  He decided to let
Lucy down.

"Tell us, Ed," said Susan.

And Edmund gave a very superior look as if he were far older than Lucy
(there was really only a year's difference) and then a little snigger
and said, "Oh, yes, Lucy and I have been playing--pretending that all
her story about a country in the wardrobe is true.  Just for fun, of
course.  There's nothing there really."

Poor Lucy gave Edmund one look and rushed out of the room.

Edmund, who was becoming a nastier person every minute, thought that he
had scored a great success, and went on at once to say, "There she goes
again.  What's the matter with her?  That's the worst of young kids,
they always--"

"Look here," said Peter turning on him savagely, "shut up!  You've been
perfectly beastly to Lu ever since she started this nonsense about the
wardrobe and now you go playing games with her about it and setting her
off again.  I believe you did it simply out of spite."

"But it's all nonsense," said Edmund, very taken aback.

"Of course it's all nonsense," said Peter, "that's just the point.  Lu
was perfectly all right when we left home, but since we've been down
here she seems to be either going queer in the head or else turning
into a most frightful liar.  But whichever it is, what good do you
think you'll do by jeering and nagging at her one day and encouraging
her the next?"

"I thought--I thought," said Edmund; but he couldn't think of anything
to say.

"You didn't think anything at all," said Peter, "it's just spite.
You've always liked being beastly to anyone smaller than yourself;
we've seen that at school before now."

"Do stop it," said Susan; "it won't make things any better having a row
between you two.  Let's go and find Lucy."

It was not surprising that when they found Lucy, a good deal later,
everyone could see that she had been crying.  Nothing they could say to
her made any difference.  She stuck to her story and said:

"I don't care what you think, and I don't care what you say.  You can
tell the Professor or you can write to Mother or you can do anything
you like.  I know I've met a Faun in there and--I wish I'd stayed there
and you are all beasts, beasts."

It was an unpleasant evening.  Lucy was miserable and Edmund was
beginning to feel that his plan wasn't working as well as he had
expected.  The two older ones were really beginning to think that Lucy
was out of her mind.  They stood in the passage talking about it in
whispers long after she had gone to bed.

The result was that next morning they decided that they really would go
and tell the whole thing to the Professor.  "He'll write to Father if
he thinks there is really something wrong with Lu," said Peter; "it's
getting beyond us."  So they went and knocked at the study door, and
the Professor said "Come in," and got up and found chairs for them and
said he was quite at their disposal.  Then he sat listening to them
with the tips of his fingers pressed together and never interrupting,
till they had finished the whole story.  After that he said nothing for
quite a long time.  Then he cleared his throat and said the last thing
either of them expected.

"How do you know?" he asked, "that your sister's story is not true?"

"Oh, but--" began Susan, and then stopped.  Anyone could see from the
old man's face that he was perfectly serious.  Then Susan pulled
herself together and said, "But Edmund said they had only been
pretending."

"That is a point," said the Professor, "which certainly deserves
consideration; very careful consideration.  For instance--if you will
excuse me for asking the question--does your experience lead you to
regard your brother or your sister as the more reliable?  I mean, which
is the more truthful?"

"That's just the funny thing about it, Sir," said Peter.  "Up till now,
I'd have said Lucy every time."

"And what do you think, my dear?" said the Professor, turning to Susan.

"Well," said Susan, "in general, I'd say the same as Peter, but this
couldn't be true--all this about the wood and the Faun."

"That is more than I know," said the Professor, "and a charge of lying
against someone whom you have always found truthful is a very serious
thing; a very serious thing indeed."

"We were afraid it mightn't even be lying," said Susan.  "We thought
there might be something wrong with Lucy."

"Madness, you mean?" said the Professor quite coolly.  "Oh, you can
make your minds easy about that.  One has only to look at her and talk
to her to see that she is not mad."

"But then," said Susan and stopped.  She had never dreamed that a
grown-up would talk like the Professor and didn't know what to think.

"Logic!" said the Professor half to himself.  "Why don't they teach
logic at these schools?  There are only three possibilities.  Either
your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the
truth.  You know she doesn't tell lies and it is obvious that she is
not mad.  For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up,
we must assume that she is telling the truth."

Susan looked at him very hard and was quite sure from the expression on
his face that he was not making fun of them.

"But how could it be true, Sir?" said Peter.

"Why do you say that?" asked the Professor.

"Well, for one thing," said Peter, "if it was real why doesn't everyone
find this country every time they go to the wardrobe?  I mean, there
was nothing there when we looked; even Lucy didn't pretend there was."

"What has that to do with it?" said the Professor.

"Well, Sir, if things are real, they're there all the time."

"Are they?" said the Professor; and Peter did not know quite what to
say.

"But there was no time," said Susan, "Lucy had had no time to have gone
anywhere, even if there was such a place.  She came running after us
the very moment we were out of the room.  It was less than a minute,
and she pretended to have been away for hours."

"That is the very thing that makes her story so likely to be true,"
said the Professor.  "If there really is a door in this house that
leads to some other world (and I should warn you that this is a very
strange house, and even I know very little about it)--if, I say, she
had got into another world, I should not be at all surprised to find
that that other world had a separate time of its own; so that however
long you stayed there it would never take up any of our time.  On the
other hand, I don't think many girls of her age would invent that idea
for themselves.  If she had been pretending, she would have hidden for
a reasonable time before coming out and telling her story."

"But do you really mean, Sir," said Peter, "that there could be other
worlds--all over the place, just round the corner--like that?"

"Nothing is more probable," said the Professor, taking off his
spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself,
"I wonder what they do teach them at these schools."

"But what are we to do?" said Susan.  She felt that the conversation
was beginning to get off the point.

"My dear young lady," said the Professor, suddenly looking up with a
very sharp expression at both of them, "there is one plan which no one
has yet suggested and which is well worth trying."

"What's that?" said Susan.

"We might all try minding our own business," said he.  And that was the
end of that conversation.

After this things were a good deal better for Lucy.  Peter saw to it
that Edmund stopped jeering at her, and neither she nor anyone else
felt inclined to talk about the wardrobe at all.  It had become a
rather alarming subject.  And so for a time it looked as if all the
adventures were coming to an end; but that was not to be.

This house of the Professor's--which even he knew so little about--was
so old and famous that people from all over England used to come and
ask permission to see over it.  It was the sort of house that is
mentioned in guide books and even in histories; and well it might be,
for all manner of stories were told about it, some of them even
stranger than the one I am telling you now.  And when parties of
sight-seers arrived and asked to see the house, the Professor always
gave them permission, and Mrs. Macready, the housekeeper, showed them
round, telling them about the pictures and the armour, and the rare
books in the library.  Mrs. Macready was not fond of children, and did
not like to be interrupted when she was telling visitors all the things
she knew.  She had said to Susan and Peter almost on the first morning
(along with a good many other instructions) "And please remember you're
to keep out of the way whenever I'm taking a party over the house."

"Just as if any of us would want to waste half the morning trailing
round with a crowd of strange grown-ups!" said Edmund, and the other
three thought the same.  That was how the adventures began for the
second time.

A few mornings later Peter and Edmund were looking at the suit of
armour and wondering if they could take it to bits when the two girls
rushed into the room and said, "Look out!  Here comes the Macready and
a whole gang with her."

"Sharp's the word," said Peter, and all four made off through the door
at the far end of the room.  But when they had got out into the Green
Room and beyond it, into the library, they suddenly heard voices ahead
of them, and realised that Mrs. Macready must be bringing her party of
sight-seers up the back stairs--instead of up the front stairs as they
had expected.  And after that--whether it was that they lost their
heads, or that Mrs. Macready was trying to catch them, or that some
magic in the house had come to life and was chasing them into
Narnia--they seemed to find themselves being followed everywhere, until
at last Susan said, "Oh bother those trippers!  Here--let's get into
the Wardrobe Room till they've passed.  No one will follow us in
there."  But the moment they were inside they heard voices in the
passage--and then someone fumbling at the door--and then they saw the
handle turning.

"Quick!" said Peter, "there's nowhere else," and flung open the
wardrobe.  All four of them bundled inside it and sat there, panting,
in the dark.  Peter held the door closed but did not shut it; for, of
course, he remembered, as every sensible person does, that you should
never never shut yourself up in a wardrobe.




CHAPTER VI

_Into the Forest_

"I wish the Macready would hurry up and take all these people away,"
said Susan presently, "I'm getting horribly cramped."

"And what a filthy smell of camphor!" said Edmund.

"I expect the pockets of these coats are full of it," said Susan, "to
keep away moths."

"There's something sticking into my back," said Peter.

"And isn't it cold?" said Susan.

"Now that you mention it, it is cold," said Peter, "and hang it all,
it's wet too.  What's the matter with this place?  I'm sitting on
something wet.  It's getting wetter every minute."  He struggled to his
feet.

"Let's get out," said Edmund, "they've gone."

"O-o-oh!" said Susan suddenly.  And everyone asked her what was the
matter.

"I'm sitting against a tree," said Susan, "and look!  It's getting
lighter--over there."

"By jove, you're right," said Peter, "and look there--and there.  It's
trees all round.  And this wet stuff is snow.  Why, I do believe we've
got into Lucy's wood after all."

And now there was no mistaking it and all four children stood blinking
in the daylight of a winter day.  Behind them were coats hanging on
pegs, in front of them were snow-covered trees.

Peter turned at once to Lucy.

"I apologise for not believing you," he said, "I'm sorry.  Will you
shake hands?"

"Of course," said Lucy, and did.

"And now," said Susan, "what do we do next?"

"Do?" said Peter, "why, go and explore the wood, of course."

"Ugh!" said Susan, stamping her feet, "it's pretty cold.  What about
putting on some of these coats?"

"They're not ours," said Peter doubtfully.

"I am sure nobody would mind," said Susan.  "It isn't as if we wanted
to take them out of the house; we shan't take them even out of the
wardrobe."

"I never thought of that, Su," said Peter.  "Of course, now you put it
that way, I see.  No one could say you had bagged a coat as long as you
leave it in the wardrobe where you found it.  And I suppose this whole
country is in the wardrobe."

They immediately carried out Susan's very sensible plan.  The coats
were rather too big for them so that they came down to their heels and
looked more like royal robes than coats when they had put them on.  But
they all felt a good deal warmer and each thought the others looked
better in their new get-up and more suitable to the landscape.

"We can pretend we are Arctic explorers," said Lucy.

"This is going to be exciting enough without any pretending," said
Peter, as he began leading the way forward into the forest.  There were
heavy darkish clouds overhead and it looked as if there might be more
snow before night.

"I say," began Edmund presently, "oughtn't we to be bearing a bit more
to the left, that is, if we are aiming for the lamp-post."  He had
forgotten for the moment that he must pretend never to have been in the
wood before.  The moment the words were out of his mouth he realised
that he had given himself away.  Everyone stopped; everyone stared at
him.  Peter whistled.

"So you really were here," he said, "that time Lu said she'd met you in
here--and you made out she was telling lies."

There was a dead silence.  "Well, of all the poisonous little beasts--"
said Peter and shrugged his shoulders and said no more.  There seemed,
indeed, no more to say and presently the four resumed their journey;
but Edmund was saying to himself, "I'll pay you all out for this, you
pack of stuck-up, self-satisfied prigs."

"Where _are_ we going anyway?" said Susan, chiefly for the sake of
changing the subject.

"I think Lu ought to be the leader," said Peter, "goodness knows she
deserves it.  Where will you take us, Lu?"

"What about going to see Mr. Tumnus?" said Lucy.  "He's the nice Faun I
told you about."

Everyone agreed to this and off they went, walking briskly and stamping
their feet.  Lucy proved a good leader.  At first she wondered whether
she would be able to find the way, but she recognised an odd-looking
tree in one place and a stump in another and brought them on to where
the ground became uneven and into the little valley and at last to the
very door of Mr. Tumnus' cave.  But there a terrible surprise awaited
them.

The door had been wrenched off its hinges and broken to bits.  Inside,
the cave was dark and cold and had the damp feel and smell of a place
that had not been lived in for several days.  Snow had drifted in from
the doorway and was heaped on the floor, mixed with something black,
which turned out to be the charred sticks and ashes from the fire.
Someone had apparently flung it about the room and then stamped it out.
The crockery lay smashed on the floor and the picture of the Faun's
father had been slashed into shreds with a knife.

"This is a pretty good wash-out," said Edmund, "not much good coming
here."

"What's this?" said Peter, stooping down.  He had just noticed a piece
of paper which had been nailed through the carpet to the floor.

"Is there anything written on it?" asked Susan.

"Yes, I think there is," answered Peter, "but I can't read it in this
light.  Let's get out into the open air."

They all went out in the daylight and crowded round Peter as he read
out the following words:--


"The former occupant of these premises, the Faun Tumnus, is under
arrest and awaiting his trial on a charge of High Treason against her
Imperial Majesty Jadis, Queen of Narnia, Chatelaine of Cair Paravel,
Empress of the Lone Islands, etc., also of comforting her said
Majesty's enemies, harbouring spies and fraternising with Humans.

_Signed_ FENRIS ULF, Captain of the Secret Police,

LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!"


The children stared at each other.

"I don't know that I'm going to like this place after all," said Susan.

"Who is this Queen, Lu?" said Peter.  "Do you know anything about her?"

"She isn't a real queen at all," answered Lucy, "she's a horrible
witch, the White Witch.  Everyone--all the wood people--hate her.  She
has made an enchantment over the whole country so that it is always
winter here and never Christmas."

"I--I wonder if there's any point in going on," said Susan.  "I mean,
it doesn't seem particularly safe here and it looks as if it won't be
much fun either.  And it's getting colder every minute, and we've
brought nothing to eat.  What about just going home?"

"Oh, but we can't, we can't," said Lucy suddenly.  "Don't you see?  We
can't just go home, not after this.  It is all on my account that the
poor Faun has got into this trouble.  He hid me from the Witch and
showed me the way back.  That's what it means by comforting the Queen's
enemies and fraternising with Humans.  We simply must try to rescue
him."

"A lot _we_ could do!" said Edmund, "when we haven't even got anything
to eat!"

"Shut up--you!" said Peter, who was still very angry with Edmund.
"What do you think, Susan?"

"I've a horrid feeling that Lu is right," said Susan.  "I don't want to
go a step further and I wish we'd never come.  But I think we must try
to do something for Mr. Whatever-his-name is--I mean the Faun."

"That's what I feel too," said Peter.  "I'm worried about having no
food with us.  I'd vote for going back and getting something from the
larder, only there doesn't seem to be any certainty of getting into
this country again when once you've got out of it.  I think we'll have
to go on."

"So do I," said both the girls.

"If only we knew where the poor chap was imprisoned!" said Peter.

They were all still, wondering what to do next, when Lucy said, "Look!
There's a robin, with such a red breast.  It's the first bird I've seen
here.  I say!--I wonder can birds talk in Narnia?  It almost looks as
if it wanted to say something to us."  Then she turned to the Robin and
said, "Please, can you tell us where Tumnus the Faun has been taken
to?"  As she said this she took a step towards the bird.  It at once
hopped away but only as far as to the next tree.  There it perched and
looked at them very hard as if it understood all they had been saying.
Almost without noticing that they had done so, the four children went a
step or two nearer to it.  At this the Robin flew away again to the
next tree and once more looked at them very hard.  (You couldn't have
found a robin with a redder chest or a brighter eye.)

"Do you know," said Lucy, "I really believe he means us to follow him."

"I've an idea he does," said Susan, "what do you think, Peter?"

"Well, we might as well try it," answered Peter.

The Robin appeared to understand the matter thoroughly.  It kept going
from tree to tree, always a few yards ahead of them but always so near
that they could easily follow it.  In this way it led them on, slightly
down hill.  Wherever the Robin alighted a little shower of snow would
fall off the branch.  Presently the clouds parted overhead and the
winter sun came out and the snow all around them grew dazzlingly
bright.  They had been travelling in this way for about half an hour,
with the two girls in front, when Edmund said to Peter, "If you're not
still too high and mighty to talk to me, I've something to say which
you'd better listen to."

"What is it?" asked Peter.

"Hush!  Not so loud," said Edmund, "there's no good frightening the
girls.  But have you realised what we're doing?"

"What?" said Peter, lowering his voice to a whisper.

"We're following a guide we know nothing about.  How do we know which
side that bird is on?  Why shouldn't it be leading us into a trap?"

"That's a nasty idea.  Still--a robin you know.  They're good birds in
all the stories I've ever read.  I'm sure a robin wouldn't be on the
wrong side."

"If it comes to that, which _is_ the right side?  How do we know that
the fauns are in the right and the Queen (yes, I know we've been _told_
she's a witch) is in the wrong?  We don't really know anything about
either."

"The Faun saved Lucy."

"He _said_ he did.  But how do we know?  And there's another thing too.
Has anyone the least idea of the way home from here?"

"Great Scott!" said Peter, "I hadn't thought of that."

"And no chance of dinner either," said Edmund.




CHAPTER VII

_A Day with the Beavers_

While the two boys were whispering behind, both the girls suddenly
cried "Oh!" and stopped.  "The robin!" cried Lucy, "the robin.  It's
flown away."  And so it had--right out of sight.

"And now what are we to do?" said Edmund, giving Peter a look which was
as much as to say "What did I tell you?"

"Sh!  Look!" said Susan.

"What?" said Peter.

"There's something moving among the trees--over there to the left."

They all stared as hard as they could, and no one felt very comfortable.

"There it goes again," said Susan presently.

"I saw it that time too," said Peter.  "It's still there.  It's just
gone behind that big tree."

"What is it?" asked Lucy, trying very hard not to sound nervous.

"Whatever it is," said Peter, "it's dodging us.  It's something that
doesn't want to be seen."

"Let's go home," said Susan.  And then, though nobody said it out loud,
everyone suddenly realised the same fact that Edmund had whispered to
Peter at the end of the last chapter.  They were lost.

"What's it like?" said Lucy.

"It's--it's a kind of animal," said Susan; and then, "Look!  Look!
Quick!  There it is."

They all saw it this time, a whiskered furry face which had looked out
at them from behind a tree.  But this time it didn't immediately draw
back.  Instead, the animal put its paw against its mouth just as humans
put their finger on their lips when they are signalling to you to be
quiet.  Then it disappeared again.  The children all stood holding
their breaths.

A moment later the stranger came out from behind the tree, glanced all
round as if it were afraid someone was watching, said "Hush," made
signs to them to join it in the thicker bit of wood where it was
standing, and then once more disappeared.

"I know what it is," said Peter, "it's a beaver.  I saw the tail."

"It wants us to go to it," said Susan, "and it is warning us not to
make a noise."

"I know," said Peter.  "The question is are we to go to it or not?
What do you think, Lu?"

"I think it's a nice beaver," said Lucy.

"Yes, but how do we _know_?" said Edmund.

"Shan't we have to risk it?" said Susan.  "I mean, it's no good just
standing here and I feel I want some dinner."

At this moment the Beaver again popped its head out from behind the
tree and beckoned earnestly to them.

"Come on," said Peter, "let's give it a try.  All keep close together.
We ought to be a match for one beaver if it turns out to be an enemy."

So the children all got close together and walked up to the tree and in
behind it, and there, sure enough, they found the Beaver; but it still
drew back, saying to them in a hoarse throaty whisper, "Further in,
come further in.  Right in here.  We're not safe in the open!"  Only
when it had led them into a dark spot where four trees grew so close
together that their boughs met and the brown earth and pine needles
could be seen underfoot because no snow had been able to fall there,
did it begin to talk to them.

"Are you the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve?" it said.

"We're some of them," said Peter.

"S-s-s-sh!" said the Beaver, "not so loud please.  We're not safe even
here."

"Why, who are you afraid of?" said Peter.  "There's no one here but
ourselves."

"There are the trees," said the Beaver.  "They're always listening.
Most of them are on our side, but there _are_ trees that would betray
us to _her_; you know who I mean," and it nodded its head several times.

"If it comes to talking about sides," said Edmund, "how do we know
you're a friend?"

"Not meaning to be rude, Mr. Beaver," added Peter, "but you see, we're
strangers."

"Quite right, quite right," said the Beaver.  "Here is my token."  With
these words it held up to them a little white object.  They all looked
at it in surprise, till suddenly Lucy said, "Oh, of course.  It's my
handkerchief--the one I gave to poor Mr. Tumnus."

"That's right," said the Beaver.  "Poor fellow, he got wind of the
arrest before it actually happened and handed this over to me.  He said
that if anything happened to him I must meet you here and take you on
to--"  Here the Beaver's voice sank into silence and it gave one or two
very mysterious nods.  Then signalling to the children to stand as
close around it as they possibly could, so that their faces were
actually tickled by its whiskers, it added in a low whisper--

"They say Aslan is on the move--perhaps has already landed."

And now a very curious thing happened.  None of the children knew who
Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken
these words everyone felt quite different.  Perhaps it has sometimes
happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don't
understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous
meaning--either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a
nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which
makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are
always wishing you could get into that dream again.  It was like that
now.  At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump
in his inside.  Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror.  Peter
felt suddenly brave and adventurous.  Susan felt as if some delicious
smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her.  And
Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and
realise that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of
summer.

"And what about Mr. Tumnus," said Lucy; "where is he?"

"S-s-s-sh," said the Beaver, "not here.  I must bring you where we can
have a real talk and also dinner."

No one except Edmund felt any difficulty about trusting the Beaver now
and everyone, including Edmund, was very glad to hear the word
"dinner."  They therefore all hurried along behind their new friend who
led them at a surprisingly quick pace, and always in the thickest parts
of the forest, for over an hour.  Everyone was feeling very tired and
very hungry when suddenly the trees began to get thinner in front of
them and the ground to fall steeply down hill.  A minute later they
came out under the open sky (the sun was still shining) and found
themselves looking down on a fine sight.

They were standing on the edge of a steep, narrow valley at the bottom
of which ran--at least it would have been running if it hadn't been
frozen--a fairly large river.  Just below them a dam had been built
across this river; and when they saw it everyone suddenly remembered
that of course beavers are always making dams and felt quite sure that
Mr. Beaver had made this one.  They also noticed that he now had a sort
of modest expression on his face--the sort of look people have when you
are visiting a garden they've made or reading a story they've written.
So it was only common politeness when Susan said, "What a lovely dam!"
And Mr. Beaver didn't say "Hush" this time but "Merely a trifle!
Merely a trifle!  And it isn't really finished!"

Above the dam there was what ought to have been a deep pool but was now
of course a level floor of dark green ice.  And below the dam, much
lower down, was more ice, but instead of being smooth this was all
frozen into the foamy and wavy shapes in which the water had been
rushing along at the very moment when the frost came.  And where the
water had been trickling over and spurting through the dam there was
now a glittering wall of icicles, as if the side of the dam had been
covered all over with flowers and wreaths and festoons of the purest
sugar.  And out in the middle, and partly on the top of the dam, was a
funny little house shaped rather like an enormous bee-hive and from a
hole in the roof smoke was going up, so that when you saw it
(especially if you were hungry) you at once thought of cooking and
became hungrier than you were before.

That was what the others chiefly noticed, but Edmund noticed something
else.  A little lower down the river there was another small river
which came down another small valley to join it.  And looking up that
valley, Edmund could see two small hills, and he was almost sure they
were the two hills which the White Witch had pointed out to him when he
parted from her at the lamp-post that other day.  And then between
them, he thought, must be her palace, only a mile off or less.  And he
thought about Turkish Delight and about being a King ("And I wonder how
Peter will like that?" he asked himself) and horrible ideas came into
his head.

"Here we are," said Mr. Beaver, "and it looks as if Mrs. Beaver is
expecting us.  I'll lead the way.  But be careful and don't slip."

The top of the dam was wide enough to walk on, though not (for humans)
a very nice place to walk because it was covered with ice, and though
the frozen pool was level with it on one side, there was a nasty drop
to the lower river on the other.  Along this route Mr. Beaver led them
in single file right out to the middle where they could look a long way
up the river and a long way down it.  And when they had reached the
middle they were at the door of the house.

"Here we are, Mrs. Beaver," said Mr. Beaver, "I've found them.  Here
are the Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve"--and they all went in.

The first thing Lucy noticed as she went in was a burring sound, and
the first thing she saw was a kind-looking old she-beaver sitting in
the corner with a thread in her mouth working busily at her sewing
machine and it was from it that the sound came.  She stopped her work
and got up as soon as the children came in.

"So you've come at last!" she said, holding out both her wrinkled old
paws.  "At last!  To think that ever I should live to see this day!
The potatoes are on boiling and the kettle's singing and I daresay, Mr.
Beaver, you'll get us some fish."

"That I will," said Mr. Beaver and he went out of the house (Peter went
with him) and across the ice of the deep pool to where he had a little
hole in the ice which he kept open every day with his hatchet.  They
took a pail with them, Mr. Beaver sat down quietly at the edge of the
hole (he didn't seem to mind it's being so chilly) looked hard into it,
then suddenly shot in his paw, and before you could say Jack Robinson
had whisked out a beautiful trout.  Then he did it all over again until
they had a fine catch of fish.

Meanwhile the girls were helping Mrs. Beaver to fill the the kettle and
lay the table and cut the bread and put the plates in the oven to heat
and draw a huge jug of beer for Mr. Beaver from a barrel which stood in
one corner of the house, and to put on the frying pan and get the
dripping hot.  Lucy thought the Beavers had a very snug little home
though it was not at all like Mr. Tumnus's cave.  There were no books
or pictures and instead of beds there were bunks, like on board ship,
built into the wall.  And there were hams and strings of onions hanging
from the roof and against the walls were gum boots and oilskins and
hatchets and pairs of shears and spades and trowels and things for
carrying mortar in and fishing rods and fishing nets and sacks.  And
the cloth on the table tho' very clean was very rough.

Just as the frying pan was nicely hissing Peter and Mr. Beaver came in
with the fish which Mr. Beaver had already opened with his knife and
cleaned out in the open air.  You can think how good the new-caught
fish smelled while they were frying and how the hungry children longed
for them to be done and how very much hungrier still they had become
before Mrs. Beaver said, "Now we're nearly ready."  Susan drained the
potatoes and then put them all back in the empty pot to dry on the side
of the range while Lucy was helping Mrs. Beaver to dish up the trout,
so that in a very few minutes everyone was drawing up stools (it was
all three-legged stools in the Beavers' house except for Mrs. Beaver's
own special rocking chair beside the fire) and preparing to enjoy
themselves.  There was a jug of creamy milk for the children (Mr.
Beaver stuck to beer) and a great big lump of deep yellow butter in the
middle of the table from which everyone took as much as he wanted to go
with his potatoes and all the children thought--and I agree with
them--that there's nothing to beat good freshwater fish if you eat it
when it has been alive half an hour ago and has come out of the pan
half a minute ago.  And when they had finished the fish Mrs. Beaver
brought unexpectedly out of the oven a great and gloriously sticky
marmalade roll, steaming hot, and at the same time moved the kettle on
to the fire, so that when they had finished the marmalade roll the tea
was made and ready to be poured out.  And when each person had got his
(or her) cup of tea, each person shoved back his (or her) stool so as
to be able to lean against the wall and gave a long sigh of contentment.

"And now," said Mr. Beaver pushing away his empty beer mug and pulling
his cup of tea towards him, "if you'll just wait till I've got my pipe
lit up and going nicely--why, now we can get to business.  It's snowing
again," he added, cocking his eye at the window.  "That's all the
better, because it means we shan't have any visitors; and if anyone
should have been trying to follow you, why he won't find any tracks."




CHAPTER VIII

_What Happened after Dinner_

"And now," said Lucy, "do please tell us what's happened to Mr. Tumnus."

"Ah, that's bad," said Mr. Beaver shaking his head.  "That's a very,
very bad business.  There's no doubt he was taken off by the police.  I
got that from a bird who saw it done."

"But where's he been taken to?" asked Lucy.

"Well, they were heading northwards when they were last seen and we all
know what that means."

"No, we don't," said Susan.  But Mr. Beaver shook his head in a very
gloomy fashion.

"I'm afraid it means they were taking him to her house," said Mr.
Beaver.

"But what'll they do to him, Mr. Beaver?" gasped Lucy.

"Well," said Mr. Beaver, "you can't exactly say for sure.  But there's
not many taken in there that ever comes out again.  Statues.  All full
of statues they say it is--in the courtyard and up the stairs and in
the hall.  People she's turned--" (he paused and shuddered) "turned
into stone."

"But, Mr. Beaver," said Lucy, "can't we--I mean we _must_ do something
to save him.  It's too dreadful and it's all on my account."

"I don't doubt you'd save him if you could, dearie," said Mrs. Beaver,
"but you've no chance of getting into that House against her will and
ever coming out alive."

"Couldn't we have some stratagem?" said Peter.  "I mean couldn't we
dress up as something, or pretend to be--oh, pedlars or anything--or
watch till she was gone out--or--oh, hang it all, there must be _some_
way.  This Faun saved my sister at his own risk, Mr. Beaver.  We can't
just leave him to be--to be--to have that done to him."

"It's no good, Son of Adam," said Mr. Beaver, "no good _your_ trying,
of all people.  But now that Aslan is on the move--"

"Oh, yes!  Tell us about Aslan!" said several voices at once; for once
again that strange feeling--like the first signs of spring, like good
news, had come over them.

"Who is Aslan?" asked Susan.

"Aslan?" said Mr. Beaver, "Why don't you know?  He's the King.  He's
the Lord of the whole wood, but not often here, you understand.  Never
in my time or my father's time.  But the word has reached us that he
has come back.  He is in Narnia at this moment.  He'll settle the White
Queen all right.  It is he, not you, that will save Mr. Tumnus."

"She won't turn him into stone too?" said Edmund.

"Lord love you, Son of Adam, what a simple thing to say!" answered Mr.
Beaver with a great laugh.  "Turn _him_ into stone?  If she can stand
on her two feet and look him in the face it'll be the most she can do
and more than I expect of her.  No, no.  He'll put all to rights as it
says in an old rhyme in these parts:--

  Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
  At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
  When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death
  And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.

You'll understand when you see him."

"But shall we see him?" asked Susan.

"Why, Daughter of Eve, that's what I brought you here for.  I'm to lead
you where you shall meet him," said Mr. Beaver.

"Is--is he a man?" asked Lucy.

"Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly.  "Certainly not.  I tell you he
is the King of the wood and the son of the great
Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea.  Don't you know who is the King of Beasts?
Aslan is a lion--_the_ Lion, the great Lion."

"Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man.  Is he--quite safe?  I
shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver, "if there's
anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking,
they're either braver than most or else just silly."

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver.  "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you?
Who said anything about safe?  'Course he isn't safe.  But he's good.
He's the King, I tell you."

"I'm longing to see him," said Peter, "even if I do feel frightened
when it comes to the point."

"That's right, Son of Adam," said Mr. Beaver bringing his paw down on
the table with a crash that made all the cups and saucers rattle.  "And
so you shall.  Word has been sent that you _are_ to meet him, to-morrow
if you can, at the Stone Table."

"Where's that?" said Lucy.

"I'll show you," said Mr. Beaver.  "It's down the river, a good step
from here.  I'll take you to it!"

"But meanwhile what about poor Mr. Tumnus?" said Lucy.

"The quickest way you can help him is by going to meet Aslan," said Mr.
Beaver, "once he's with us, then we can begin doing things.  Not that
we don't need you too.  For that's another of the old rhymes:--

  When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone
  Sits at Cair Paravel in throne,
  The evil time will be over and done.

So things must be drawing near their end now he's come and you've come.
We've heard of Aslan coming into these parts before--long ago, nobody
can say when.  But there's never been any of your race here before."

"That's what I don't understand, Mr. Beaver," said Peter, "I mean isn't
the Witch herself human?"

"She'd like us to believe it," said Mr. Beaver, "and it's on that that
she bases her claim to be Queen.  But she's no Daughter of Eve.  She
comes of your father Adam's--" (here Mr. Beaver bowed) "your father
Adam's first wife, her they called Lilith.  And she was one of the
Jinn.  That's what she comes from on one side.  And on the other she
comes of the giants.  No, no, there isn't a drop of real Human blood in
the Witch."

"That's why she's bad all through, Mr. Beaver," said Mrs. Beaver.

"True enough, Mrs. Beaver," replied he, "there may be two views about
Humans (meaning no offence to the present company).  But there's no two
views about things that look like Humans and aren't."

"I've known good dwarfs," said Mrs. Beaver.

"So've I, now you come to speak of it," said her husband, "but precious
few, and they were the ones least like men.  But in general, take my
advice, when you meet anything that's going to be Human and isn't yet,
or used to be Human once and isn't now, or ought to be Human and isn't,
you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.  And that's why the
Witch is always on the lookout for any Humans in Narnia.  She's been
watching for you this many a year, and if she knew there were four of
you she'd be more dangerous still."

"What's that to do with it?" asked Peter.

"Because of another prophecy," said Mr. Beaver.  "Down at Cair
Paravel--that's the castle on the sea coast down at the mouth of this
river which ought to be the capital of the whole country if all was as
it should be--down at Cair Paravel there are four thrones and it's a
saying in Narnia time out of mind that when two Sons of Adam and two
Daughters of Eve sit in those four thrones, then it will be the end not
only of the White Witch's reign but of her life, and that is why we had
to be so cautious as we came along, for if she knew about you four,
your lives wouldn't be worth a shake of my whiskers!"

All the children had been attending so hard to what Mr. Beaver was
telling them that they had noticed nothing else for a long time.  Then
during the moment of silence that followed his last remark, Lucy
suddenly said:

"I say--where's Edmund?"

There was a dreadful pause, and then everyone began asking "Who saw him
last?  How long has he been missing?  Is he outside?"  And then all
rushed to the door and looked out.  The snow was falling thickly and
steadily, the green ice of the pool had vanished under a thick white
blanket, and from where the little house stood in the centre of the dam
you could hardly see either bank.  Out they went, plunging well over
their ankles into the soft new snow, and went round the house in every
direction.  "Edmund!  Edmund!" they called till they were hoarse.  But
the silently falling snow seemed to muffle their voices and there was
not even an echo in answer.

"How perfectly dreadful!" said Susan as they at last came back in
despair.  "Oh, how I wish we'd never come."

"What on earth are we to do, Mr. Beaver?" said Peter.

"Do?" said Mr. Beaver who was already putting on his snow boots, "do?
We must be off at once.  We haven't a moment to spare!"

"We'd better divide into four search parties," said Peter, "and all go
in different directions.  Whoever finds him must come back here at once
and--"

"Search parties, Son of Adam?" said Mr. Beaver; "what for?"

"Why, to look for Edmund of course!"

"There's no point in looking for him," said Mr. Beaver.

"What do you mean?" said Susan, "he can't be far away yet.  And we've
got to find him.  What do you mean when you say there's no use looking
for him?"

"The reason there's no use looking," said Mr. Beaver, "is that we know
already where he's gone!"  Everyone stared in amazement.  "Don't you
understand?" said Mr. Beaver.  "He's gone to _her_, to the White Witch.
He has betrayed us all."

"Oh surely--oh really!" said Susan, "he can't have done that."

"Can't he?" said Mr. Beaver looking very hard at the three children,
and everything they wanted to say died on their lips for each felt
suddenly quite certain inside that this was exactly what Edmund had
done.

"But will he know the way?" said Peter.

"Has he been in this country before?" asked Mr. Beaver, "has he ever
been here alone?"

"Yes," said Lucy almost in a whisper, "I'm afraid he has."

"And did he tell you what he'd done or who he'd met?"

"Well, no, he didn't," said Peter.

"Then mark my words," said Mr. Beaver, "he has already met the White
Witch and joined her side, and been told where she lives.  I didn't
like to mention it before (he being your brother and all) but the
moment I set eyes on that brother of yours I said to myself
'Treacherous.'  He had the look of one who has been with the Witch and
eaten her food.  You can always tell them if you've lived long in
Narnia, something about their eyes."

"All the same," said Peter in a rather choking sort of voice, "we'll
still have to go and look for him.  He is our brother after all, even
if he is rather a little beast, and he's only a kid."

"Go to the Witch's house?" said Mrs. Beaver.  "Don't you see that the
only chance of saving either him or yourselves is to keep away from
her?"

"How do you mean?" said Lucy.

"Why all she wants is to get all four of you (she's thinking all the
time of those four thrones at Cair Paravel).  Once you were all four
inside her house her job would be done--and there'd be four new statues
in her collection before you'd had time to speak.  But she'll keep him
alive as long as he's the only one she's got, because she'll want to
use him as a decoy; as bait to catch the rest of you with."

"Oh, can _no_ one help us?" wailed Lucy.

"Only Aslan," said Mr. Beaver, "we must go on and meet him.  That's our
only chance now."

"It seems to me, my dears," said Mrs. Beaver, "that it is very
important to know just _when_ he slipped away.  How much he can tell
her depends on how much he heard.  For instance, had we started talking
of Aslan before he left?  If not, then we may do very well, for she
won't know that Aslan has come to Narnia, or that we are meeting him
and will be quite off her guard as far as _that_ is concerned."

"I don't remember his being here when we were talking about Aslan--"
began Peter, but Lucy interrupted him.

"Oh yes, he was," she said miserably; "don't you remember, it was he
who asked whether the Witch couldn't turn Aslan into stone too?"

"So he did, by Jove," said Peter, "just the sort of thing he would say,
too!"

"Worse and worse," said Mr. Beaver, "and the next thing is this.  Was
he still here when I told you that the place for meeting Aslan was the
Stone Table?"

And of course no one knew the answer to this question.

"Because, if he was," continued Mr. Beaver, "then she'll simply sledge
down in that direction and get between us and the Stone Table and catch
us on our way down.  In fact we shall be cut off from Aslan."

"But that isn't what she'll do first," said Mrs. Beaver, "not if I know
her.  The moment that Edmund tells her that we're all here she'll set
out to catch us this very night, and if he's been gone about half an
hour, she'll be here in about another twenty minutes."

"You're right, Mrs. Beaver," said her husband, "we must all get away
from here.  There's not a moment to lose."




CHAPTER IX

_In the Witch's House_

And now of course you want to know what had happened to Edmund.  He had
eaten his share of the dinner, but he hadn't really enjoyed it because
he was thinking all the time about Turkish Delight--and there's nothing
that spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory
of bad magic food.  And he had heard the conversation and hadn't
enjoyed it much either, because he kept on thinking that the others
were taking no notice of him and trying to give him the cold shoulder.
They weren't, but he imagined it.  And then he had listened until Mr.
Beaver told them about Aslan and until he had heard the whole
arrangement for meeting Aslan at the Stone Table.  It was then that he
began very quietly to edge himself under the curtain which hung over
the door.  For the mention of Aslan gave him a mysterious and horrible
feeling just as it gave the others a mysterious and lovely feeling.

Just as Mr. Beaver had been repeating the rhyme about _Adam's flesh and
Adam's bone_ Edmund had been very quietly turning the door handle; and
just before Mr. Beaver had begun telling them that the White Witch
wasn't really human at all but half a Jinn and half a giantess, Edmund
had got outside into the snow and cautiously closed the door behind him.

You mustn't think that even now Edmund was quite so bad that he
actually wanted his brother and sisters to be turned into stone.  He
did want Turkish Delight and to be a Prince (and later a King) and to
pay Peter out for calling him a beast.  As for what the Witch would do
with the others, he didn't want her to be particularly nice to
them--certainly not to put them on the same level as himself--but he
managed to believe, or to pretend he believed, that she wouldn't do
anything very bad to them, "Because," he said to himself, "all these
people who say nasty things about her are her enemies and probably half
of it isn't true.  She was jolly nice to me, anyway, much nicer than
they are.  I expect she is the rightful Queen really.  Anyway, she'll
be better than that awful Aslan!"  At least, that was the excuse he
made in his own mind for what he was doing.  It wasn't a very good
excuse, however, for deep down inside him he really knew that the White
Witch was bad and cruel.

The first thing he realised when he got outside and found the snow
falling all around him, was that he had left his coat behind in the
Beavers' house.  And of course there was no chance of going back to get
it now.  The next thing he realised was that the daylight was almost
gone, for it had been nearly three o'clock when they sat down to dinner
and the winter days were short.  He hadn't reckoned on this; but he had
to make the best of it.  So he turned up his collar and shuffled across
the top of the dam (luckily it wasn't so slippery since the snow had
fallen) to the far side of the river.

It was pretty bad when he reached the far side.  It was growing darker
every minute and what with that and the snowflakes swirling all round
him he could hardly see three feet ahead.  And then too there was no
road.  He kept slipping into deep drifts of snow, and skidding on
frozen puddles, and tripping over fallen tree-trunks, and sliding down
steep banks, and barking his shins against rocks, till he was wet and
cold and bruised all over.  The silence and the loneliness were
dreadful.  In fact I really think he might have given up the whole plan
and gone back and owned up and made friends with the others, if he
hadn't happened to say to himself, "When I'm King of Narnia the first
thing I shall do will be to make some decent roads."  And of course
that set him off thinking about being a King and all the other things
he would do and this cheered him up a good deal.  He had just settled
in his mind what sort of palace he would have and how many cars and all
about his private cinema and where the principal railways would run and
what laws he would make against beavers and dams and was putting the
finishing touches to some schemes for keeping Peter in his place, when
the weather changed.  First the snow stopped.  Then a wind sprang up
and it became freezing cold.  Finally, the clouds rolled away and the
moon came out.  It was a full moon and, shining on all that snow, it
made everything almost as bright as day--only the shadows were rather
confusing.

He would never have found his way if the moon hadn't come out by the
time he got to the other river--you remember he had seen (when they
first arrived at the Beavers') a smaller river flowing into the great
one lower down.  He now reached this and turned to follow it up.  But
the little valley down which it came was much steeper and rockier than
the one he had just left and much overgrown with bushes, so that he
could not have managed it at all in the dark.  Even as it was, he got
wet through for he had to stoop to go under branches and great loads of
snow came sliding off on to his back.  And every time this happened he
thought more and more how he hated Peter--just as if all this had been
Peter's fault.

But at last he came to a part where it was more level and the valley
opened out.  And there, on the other side of the river, quite close to
him, in the middle of a little plain between two hills, he saw what
must be the White Witch's house.  And the moon was shining brighter
than ever.  The house was really a small castle.  It seemed to be all
towers; little towers with long pointed spires on them, sharp as
needles.  They looked like huge dunce's caps or sorcerer's caps.  And
they shone in the moonlight and their long shadows looked strange on
the snow!  Edmund began to be afraid of the house.

But it was too late to think of turning back now.  He crossed the river
on the ice and walked up to the house.  There was nothing stirring; not
the slightest sound anywhere.  Even his own feet made no noise on the
deep newly fallen snow.  He walked on and on, past corner after corner
of the house, and past turret after turret to find the door.  He had to
go right round to the far side before he found it.  It was a huge arch
but the great iron gates stood wide open.

Edmund crept up to the arch and looked inside into the courtyard, and
there he saw a sight that nearly made his heart stop beating.  Just
inside the gate, with the moonlight shining on it, stood an enormous
lion crouched as if it was ready to spring.  And Edmund stood in the
shadow of the arch, afraid to go on and afraid to go back, with his
knees knocking together.  He stood there so long that his teeth would
have been chattering with cold even if they had not been chattering
with fear.  How long this really lasted I don't know, but it seemed to
Edmund to last for hours.

Then at last he began to wonder why the lion was standing so still--for
it hadn't moved one inch since he first set eyes on it.  Edmund now
ventured a little nearer, still keeping in the shadow of the arch as
much as he could.  He now saw from the way the lion was standing that
it couldn't have been looking at him at all.  ("But supposing it turns
its head?" thought Edmund.)  In fact it was staring at something
else--namely a little dwarf who stood with his back to it about four
feet away.  "Aha!" thought Edmund.  "When it springs at the dwarf then
will be my chance to escape."  But still the lion never moved, nor did
the dwarf.  And now at last Edmund remembered what the others had said
about the White Witch turning people into stone.  Perhaps this was only
a stone lion.  And as soon as he had thought of that he noticed that
the lion's back and the top of its head were covered with snow.  Of
course it must be only a statue!  No living animal would have let
itself get covered with snow.  Then very slowly and with his heart
beating as if it would burst, Edmund ventured to go up to the lion.
Even now he hardly dared to touch it, but at last he put out his hand,
very quickly, and did.  It was cold stone.  He had been frightened of a
mere statue!

The relief which Edmund felt was so great that in spite of the cold he
suddenly got warm all over right down to his toes, and at the same time
there came into his head what seemed a perfectly lovely idea.
"Probably," he thought, "this is the great Lion Aslan that they were
all talking about.  She's caught him already and turned him into stone.
So _that's_ the end of all their fine ideas about him!  Pooh!  Who's
afraid of Aslan?"

And he stood there gloating over the stone lion, and presently he did
something very silly and childish.  He took a stump of lead pencil out
of his pocket and scribbled a moustache on the lion's upper lip and
then a pair of spectacles on its eyes.  Then he said, "Yah!  Silly old
Aslan!  How do you like being a stone?  You thought yourself mighty
fine, didn't you?"  But in spite of the scribbles on it the face of the
great stone beast still looked so terrible, and sad, and noble, staring
up in the moonlight that Edmund didn't really get any fun out of
jeering at it.  He turned away and began to cross the courtyard.

As he got into the middle of it he saw that there were dozens of
statues all about--standing here and there rather as the pieces stand
on a chess board when it is half way through the game.  There were
stone satyrs, and stone wolves, and bears and foxes and cat-a-mountains
of stone.  There were lovely stone shapes that looked like women but
who were really the spirits of trees.  There was the great shape of a
centaur and a winged horse and a long lithe creature that Edmund took
to be a dragon.  They all looked so strange standing there perfectly
lifelike and also perfectly still, in the bright cold moonlight, that
it was eerie work crossing the courtyard.  Right in the very middle
stood a huge shape like a man, but as tall as a tree, with a fierce
face and a shaggy beard and a great club in its right hand.  Even
though he knew that it was only a stone giant and not a live one,
Edmund did not like going past it.

He now saw that there was a dim light showing from a doorway on the far
side of the courtyard.  He went to it, there was a flight of stone
steps going up to an open door.  Edmund went up them.  Across the
threshold lay a great wolf:

"It's all right, it's all right," he kept saying to himself, "it's only
a stone wolf.  It can't hurt me," and he raised his leg to step over
it.  Instantly the huge creature rose, with all the hair bristling
along its back, opened a great, red mouth and said in a growling voice,

"Who's there?  Who's there?  Stand still, stranger, and tell me who you
are."

"If you please, Sir," said Edmund, trembling so that he could hardly
speak, "my name is Edmund, and I'm the Son of Adam that Her Majesty met
in the wood the other day and I've come to bring her the news that my
brother and sisters are now in Narnia--quite close, in the Beavers'
house.  She--she wanted to see them."

"I will tell Her Majesty," said the Wolf.  "Meanwhile, stand still on
the threshold, as you value your life."  Then it vanished into the
house.

Edmund stood and waited, his fingers aching with cold and his heart
pounding in his chest, and presently the grey Wolf, Fenris Ulf, the
Chief of the Witch's Secret Police, came bounding back and said, "Come
in!  Come in!  Fortunate favourite of the Queen--or else not so
fortunate."

And Edmund went in, taking great care not to tread on the Wolf's paws.

He found himself in a long gloomy hall with many pillars, full, as the
courtyard had been, of statues.  The one nearest the door was a little
Faun with a very sad expression on its face, and Edmund couldn't help
wondering if this might be Lucy's friend.  The only light came from a
single lamp and close behind this sat the White Witch.

"I'm come, your Majesty," said Edmund rushing eagerly forward.

"How dare you come alone?" said the Witch in a terrible voice.  "Did I
not tell you to bring the others with you?"

"Please, your Majesty," said Edmund, "I've done the best I can.  I've
brought them quite close.  They're in the little house on top of the
dam just up the river--with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver."

A slow cruel smile came over the Witch's face.

"Is this all your news?" she asked.

"No, your Majesty," said Edmund, and proceeded to tell her all he had
heard before leaving the Beavers' house.

"What!  Aslan?" cried the Queen, "Aslan!  Is this true?  If I find you
have lied to me--"

"Please, I'm only repeating what they said," stammered Edmund.

But the Queen, who was no longer attending to him, clapped her hands.
Instantly the same dwarf whom Edmund had seen with her before appeared.

"Make ready our sledge," ordered the Witch, "and use the harness
without bells."




CHAPTER X

_The Spell Begins to Break_

Now we must go back to Mr. and Mrs. Beaver and the three other
children.  As soon as Mr. Beaver said "There's no time to lose"
everyone began bundling themselves into coats, except Mrs. Beaver who
started picking up sacks and laying them on the table and said: "Now,
Mr. Beaver, just reach down that ham.  And here's a packet of tea, and
there's sugar, and some matches.  And if someone will get two or three
loaves out of the crock over there in the corner."

"What are you doing, Mrs. Beaver?" exclaimed Susan.

"Packing a load for each of us, dearie," said Mrs. Beaver very coolly.
"You didn't think we'd set out on a journey with nothing to eat, did
you?"

"But we haven't time!" said Susan, buttoning the collar of her coat.
"She may be here any minute."

"That's what I say," chimed in Mr. Beaver.

"Get along with you all," said his wife.  "Think it over, Mr. Beaver.
She can't be here for a quarter of an hour at least."

"But don't we want as big a start as we can possibly get," said Peter,
"if we're to reach the Stone Table before her?"

"You've got to remember _that_, Mrs. Beaver," said Susan.  "As soon as
she has looked in here and finds we're gone she'll be off at top speed."

"That she will," said Mrs. Beaver.  "But we can't get there before her
whatever we do, for she'll be on a sledge and we'll be walking."

"Then--have we no hope?" said Susan.

"Now don't you get fussing, there's a dear," said Mrs. Beaver, "but
just get half a dozen clean handkerchiefs out of that drawer.  'Course
we've got a hope.  We can't get there _before_ her but we can keep
under cover and go by ways she won't expect and perhaps we'll get
through."

"That's true enough, Mrs. Beaver," said her husband.  "But it's time we
were out of this."

"And don't you start fussing either, Mr. Beaver," said his wife.
"There.  That's better.  There's four loads and the smallest for the
smallest of us: that's you, my dear," she added looking at Lucy.

"Oh, do please come on," said Lucy.

"Well, I'm nearly ready now," answered Mrs. Beaver at last allowing her
husband to help her into her snow boots.  "I suppose the sewing
machine's too heavy to bring?"

"Yes.  It _is_," said Mr. Beaver.  "A great deal too heavy.  And you
don't think you'll be able to use it while we're on the run, I suppose?"

"I can't abide the thought of that Witch fiddling with it," said Mrs.
Beaver, "and breaking it or stealing it, as likely as not."

"Oh, please, please, please, do hurry!" said the three children.  And
so at last they all got outside and Mr. Beaver locked the door ("It'll
delay her a bit," he said) and they set off, all carrying their loads
over their shoulders.

The snow had stopped and the moon had come out when they began their
journey.  They went in single file--first Mr. Beaver, then Lucy, then
Peter, then Susan, and Mrs. Beaver last of all.  Mr. Beaver led them
across the dam and onto the right bank of the river and then along a
very rough sort of path among the trees right down by the river-bank.
The sides of the valley, shining in the moonlight, towered up far above
them on either hand.  "Best keep down here as much as possible," he
said.  "She'll have to keep to the top, for you couldn't bring a sledge
down here."

It would have been a pretty enough scene to look at it through a window
from a comfortable armchair; and even as things were, Lucy enjoyed it
at first.  But as they went on walking and walking--and walking--and as
the sack she was carrying felt heavier and heavier, she began to wonder
how she was going to keep up at all.  And she stopped looking at the
dazzling brightness of the frozen river with all its waterfalls of ice
and at the white masses of the tree-tops and the great glaring moon and
the countless stars and could only watch the little short legs of Mr.
Beaver going pad-pad-pad-pad through the snow in front of her as if
they were never going to stop.  Then the moon disappeared and the snow
began to fall once more.  And at last Lucy was so tired that she was
almost asleep and walking at the same time when suddenly she found that
Mr. Beaver had turned away from the river bank to the right and was
leading them steeply uphill into the very thickest bushes.  And then as
she came fully awake she found that Mr. Beaver was just vanishing into
a little hole in the bank which had been almost hidden under the bushes
until you were quite on top of it.  In fact, by the time she realised
what was happening, only his short flat tail was showing.

Lucy immediately stooped down and crawled in after him.  Then she heard
noises of scrambling and puffing and panting behind her and in a moment
all five of them were inside.

"Wherever is this?" said Peter's voice, sounding tired and pale in the
darkness.  (I hope you know what I mean by a voice sounding pale.)

"It's an old hiding-place for beavers in bad times," said Mr. Beaver,
"and a great secret.  It's not much of a place but we must get a few
hours' sleep."

"If you hadn't all been in such a plaguey fuss when we were starting,
I'd have brought some pillows," said Mrs. Beaver.

It wasn't nearly such a nice cave as Mr. Tumnus's, Lucy thought--just a
hole in the ground but dry and earthy.  It was very small so that when
they all lay down they were all a bundle of fur and clothes together,
and what with that and being warmed up by their long walk they were
really rather snug.  If only the floor of the cave had been a little
smoother!  Then Mrs. Beaver handed round in the dark a little flask out
of which everyone drank something--it made one cough and splutter a
little and stung the throat but it also made you feel deliciously warm
after you'd swallowed it--and everyone went straight to sleep.

It seemed to Lucy only the next minute (though really it was hours and
hours later) when she woke up feeling a little cold and dreadfully
stiff and thinking how she would like a hot bath.  Then she felt a set
of long whiskers tickling her cheek and saw the cold daylight coming in
through the mouth of the cave.  But immediately after that she was very
wide awake indeed, and so was everyone else.  In fact they were all
sitting up with their mouths and eyes wide open, listening to a sound
which was the very sound they'd all been thinking of (and sometimes
imagining they heard) during their walk last night.  It was a sound of
jingling bells.

Mr. Beaver was out of the cave like a flash the moment he heard it.
Perhaps you think, as Lucy thought for a moment, that this was a very
silly thing for him to do?  But it was really a very sensible one.  He
knew he could scramble to the top of the bank among bushes and brambles
without being seen; and he wanted above all things to see which way the
Witch's sledge went.  The others all sat in the cave waiting and
wondering.  They waited nearly five minutes.  Then they heard something
that frightened them very much.  They heard voices.  "Oh," thought
Lucy, "he's been seen.  She's caught him!"

Great was their surprise when, a little later, they heard Mr. Beaver's
voice calling to them from just outside the cave.

"It's all right," he was shouting.  "Come out, Mrs. Beaver.  Come out,
Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve.  It's all right!  It isn't _her_!"
This was bad grammar of course, but that is how beavers talk when they
are excited; I mean, in Narnia--in our world they usually don't talk at
all.

So Mrs. Beaver and the children came bundling out of the cave, all
blinking in the daylight, and with earth all over them, and looking
very frowsty and unbrushed and uncombed and with the sleep in their
eyes.

"Come on!" cried Mr. Beaver, who was almost dancing with delight.
"Come and see!  This is a nasty knock for the Witch!  It looks as if
her power was already crumbling."

"What _do_ you mean, Mr. Beaver?" panted Peter as they all scrambled up
the steep bank of the valley together.

"Didn't I tell you," answered Mr. Beaver, "that she'd made it always
winter and never Christmas?  Didn't I tell you?  Well, just come and
see!"

And then they were all at the top and did see.

It _was_ a sledge, and it _was_ reindeer with bells on their harness.
But they were far bigger than the Witch's reindeer, and they were not
white but brown.  And on the sledge sat a person whom everyone knew the
moment they set eyes on him.  He was a huge man in a bright red robe
(bright as holly-berries) with a hood that had fur inside it and a
great white beard that fell like a foamy waterfall over his chest.
Everyone knew him because, though you see people of his sort only in
Narnia, you see pictures of them and hear them talked about even in our
world--the world on this side of the wardrobe door.  But when you
really see them in Narnia it is rather different.  Some of the pictures
of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly.
But now that the children actually stood looking at him they didn't
find it quite like that.  He was so big, and so glad, and so real, that
they all became quite still.  They felt very glad, but also solemn.

"I've come at last," said he.  "She has kept me out for a long time,
but I have got in at last.  Aslan is on the move.  The Witch's magic is
weakening."

And Lucy felt running through her that deep shiver of gladness which
you only get if you are being solemn and still.

"And now," said Father Christmas, "for your presents.  There is a new
and better sewing machine for you, Mrs. Beaver.  I will drop it in your
house as I pass."

"If you please, sir," said Mrs. Beaver, making a curtsey.  "It's locked
up."

"Locks and bolts make no difference to me," said Father Christmas.
"And as for you, Mr. Beaver, when you get home you will find your dam
finished and mended and all the leaks stopped and a new sluice gate
fitted."

Mr. Beaver was so pleased that he opened his mouth very wide and then
found he couldn't say anything at all.

"Peter, Adam's Son," said Father Christmas.

"Here, Sir," said Peter.

"These are your presents," was the answer, "and they are tools not
toys.  The time to use them is perhaps near at hand.  Bear them well."
With these words he handed to Peter a shield and a sword.  The shield
was the colour of silver and across it there ramped a red lion, as
bright as a ripe strawberry at the moment when you pick it.  The hilt
of the sword was of gold and it had a sheath and a sword belt and
everything it needed, and it was just the right size and weight for
Peter to use.  Peter was silent and solemn as he received these gifts
for he felt they were a very serious kind of present.

"Susan, Eve's Daughter," said Father Christmas.  "These are for you,"
and he handed her a bow and a quiver full of arrows and a little ivory
horn.  "You must use the bow only in great need," he said, "for I do
not mean you to fight in the battle.  It does not easily miss.  And
when you put this horn to your lips and blow it, then, wherever you
are, I think help of some kind will come to you."

Last of all he said, "Lucy, Eve's Daughter," and Lucy came forward.  He
gave her a little bottle of what looked like glass (but people said
afterwards that it was made of diamond) and a small dagger.  "In this
bottle," he said, "there is a cordial made of the juice of one of the
fire-flowers that grow in the mountains of the sun.  If you or any of
your friends are hurt, a few drops of this will restore you.  And the
dagger is to defend yourself at great need.  For you also are not to be
in the battle."

"Why, Sir," said Lucy.  "I think--I don't know--but I think I could be
brave enough."

"That is not the point," he said.  "But battles are ugly when women
fight.  And now"--here he suddenly looked less grave--"here is
something for the moment for you all!" and he brought out (I suppose
from the big bag at his back, but nobody quite saw him do it) a large
tray containing five cups and saucers, a bowl of lump sugar, a jug of
cream, and a great big teapot all sizzling and piping hot.  Then he
cried out "A Merry Christmas!  Long live the true King!" and cracked
his whip and he and the reindeer and the sledge and all were out of
sight before anyone realised that they had started.

Peter had just drawn his sword out of its sheath and was showing it to
Mr. Beaver when Mrs. Beaver said:

"Now then, now then!  Don't stand talking there till the tea's got
cold.  Just like men.  Come and help to carry the tray down and we'll
have breakfast.  What a mercy I thought of bringing the bread-knife."

So down the steep bank they went and back to the cave, and Mr. Beaver
cut some of the bread and ham into sandwiches and Mrs. Beaver poured
out the tea and everyone enjoyed himself.  But long before they had
finished enjoying themselves Mr. Beaver said, "Time to be moving on
now."




CHAPTER XI

_Aslan Is Nearer_

Edmund meanwhile had been having a most disappointing time.  When the
Dwarf had gone to get the sledge ready he expected that the Witch would
start being nice to him, as she had been at their last meeting.  But
she said nothing at all.  And when at last Edmund plucked up his
courage to say, "Please, your Majesty, could I have some Turkish
Delight?  You--you--said--" she answered, "Silence, fool!"  Then she
appeared to change her mind and said, as if to herself, "And yet it
will not do to have the brat fainting on the way," and once more
clapped her hands.  Another dwarf appeared.  "Bring the human creature
food and drink," she said.  The Dwarf went away and presently returned
bringing an iron bowl with some water in it and an iron plate with a
hunk of dry bread on it.  He grinned in a repulsive manner as he set
them down the floor beside Edmund and said:

"Turkish Delight for the little Prince.  Ha!  Ha!  Ha!"

"Take it away," said Edmund sulkily.  "I don't want dry bread."  But
the Witch suddenly turned on him with such a terrible expression on her
face that he apologised and began to nibble at the bread, though it was
so stale he could hardly get it down.

"You may be glad enough of it before you taste bread again," said the
Witch.

While he was still chewing away the first dwarf came back and announced
that the sledge was ready.  The White Witch rose and went out, ordering
Edmund to go with her.  The snow was again falling as they came into
the courtyard but she took no notice of that and made Edmund sit beside
her on the sledge.  But before they drove off she called Fenris Ulf and
he came bounding like an enormous dog to the side of the sledge.

"Take with you the swiftest of your wolves and go at once to the house
of the Beavers," said the Witch, "and kill whatever you find there.  If
they are already gone, then make all speed to the Stone Table, but do
not be seen.  Wait for me there in hiding.  I meanwhile must go many
miles to the West before I find a place where I can drive across the
river.  You may overtake these humans before they reach the Stone
Table.  You will know what to do if you find them!"

"I hear and obey, O Queen," growled the Wolf; and immediately he shot
away into the snow and darkness, as quickly as a horse can gallop.  In
a few minutes he had called another wolf and was with him down on the
dam and sniffing at the Beavers' house.  But of course they found it
empty.  It would have been a dreadful thing for the Beavers and the
children if the night had remained fine, for the wolves would then have
been able to follow their trail--and ten to one would have overtaken
them before they had got to the cave.  But now that the snow had begun
again the scent was cold and even the footprints were covered up.

Meanwhile the Dwarf whipped up the reindeer and the Witch and Edmund
drove out under the archway and on and away into the darkness and the
cold.  This was a terrible journey for Edmund who had no coat.  Before
they had been going a quarter of ah hour all the front of him was
covered with snow--he soon stopped trying to shake it off because, as
quickly as he did that, a new lot gathered, and he was so tired.  Soon
he was wet to the skin.  And oh, how miserable he was.  It didn't look
now as if the Witch intended to make him a King!  All the things he had
said to make himself believe that she was good and kind and that her
side was really the right side sounded to him silly now.  He would have
given anything to meet the others at this moment--even Peter!  The only
way to comfort himself now was to try to believe that the whole thing
was a dream and that he might wake up at any moment.  And as they went
on, hour after hour, it did come to seem like a dream.

This lasted longer than I could describe even if I wrote pages and
pages about it.  But I will skip on to the time when the snow had
stopped and the morning had come and they were racing along in the
daylight.  And still they went on and on, with no sound but the
everlasting swish of the snow and the creaking of the reindeer's
harness.  And then at last the Witch said, "What have we here?  Stop!"
and they did.

How Edmund hoped she was going to say something about breakfast!  But
she had stopped for quite a different reason.  A little way off at the
foot of a tree sat a merry party, a squirrel and his wife with their
children and two satyrs and a dwarf and an old dog-fox, all on stools
round a table.  Edmund couldn't quite see what they were eating, but it
smelled lovely and there seemed to be decorations of holly and he
wasn't at all sure that he didn't see something like a plum pudding.
At the moment when the sledge stopped, the Fox, who was obviously the
oldest person present, had just risen to its feet, holding a glass in
its right paw as if it was going to say something.  But when the whole
party saw the sledge stopping and who was in it, all the gaiety went
out of their faces.  The father squirrel stopped eating with his fork
half-way to his mouth and one of the satyrs stopped with its fork
actually in its mouth, and the baby squirrels squealed with terror.

"What is the meaning of this?" asked the Witch Queen.  Nobody answered.

"Speak, vermin!" she said again.  "Or do you want my dwarf to find you
a tongue with his whip?  What is the meaning of all this gluttony, this
waste, this self indulgence?  Where did you get all these things?"

"Please, your Majesty," said the Fox, "we were given them.  And if I
might make so bold as to drink your Majesty's very good health--"

"Who gave them to you?" said the Witch.

"F-F-F-Father Christmas," stammered the Fox.

"What?" roared the Witch, springing from the sledge and taking a few
strides nearer to the terrified animals.  "He has not been here!  He
cannot have been here!  How dare you--but no.  Say you have been lying
and you shall even now be forgiven."

At that moment one of the young squirrels lost its head completely.

"He has--he has--he has!" it squeaked beating its little spoon on the
table.  Edmund saw the Witch bite her lips so that a drop of blood
appeared on her white cheek.  Then she raised her wand.  "Oh don't,
don't, please don't," shouted Edmund, but even while he was shouting
she had waved her wand and instantly where the merry party had been
there were only statues of creatures (one with its stone fork fixed
forever half-way to its stone mouth) seated round a stone table on
which there were stone plates and a stone plum pudding.

"As for you," said the Witch, giving Edmund a stunning blow on the face
as she re-mounted the sledge, "let that teach you to ask favour for
spies and traitors.  Drive on!"  And Edmund for the first time in this
story felt sorry for someone besides himself.  It seemed so pitiful to
think of those little stone figures sitting there all the silent days
and all the dark nights, year after year, till the moss grew on them
and at last even their faces crumbled away.

Now they were steadily racing on again.  And soon Edmund noticed that
the snow which splashed against them as they rushed through it was much
wetter than it had been all last night.  At the same time he noticed
that he was feeling much less cold.  It was also becoming foggy.  In
fact every minute it grew both foggier and warmer.  And the sledge was
not running nearly as well as it had been running up till now.  At
first he thought this was because the reindeer were tired, but soon he
saw that that couldn't be the real reason.  The sledge jerked, and
skidded, and kept on jolting as if it had struck against stones.  And
however the Dwarf whipped the poor reindeer the sledge went slower and
slower.  There also seemed to be a curious noise all round them but the
noise of their driving and jolting and the Dwarf's shouting at the
reindeer prevented Edmund from hearing what it was, until suddenly the
sledge stuck so fast that it wouldn't go on at all.  When that happened
there was a moment's silence.  And in that silence Edmund could at last
listen to the other noise properly.  A strange, sweet, rustling,
chattering noise--and yet not so strange, for he knew he'd heard it
before--if only he could remember where!  Then all at once he did
remember.  It was the noise of running water.  All round them, though
out of sight, there were streams chattering, murmuring, bubbling,
splashing and even (in the distance) roaring.  And his heart gave a
great leap (though he hardly knew why) when he realised that the frost
was over.  And much nearer there was a drip-drip-drip from the branches
of all the trees.  And then, as he looked at one tree he saw a great
load of snow slide off it and for the first time since he had entered
Narnia he saw the dark green of a fir tree.  But he hadn't time to
listen or watch any longer for the Witch said:

"Don't sit staring, fool!  Get out and help."

And of course Edmund had to obey.  He stepped out into the snow--but it
was really only slush by now--and began helping the Dwarf to get the
sledge out of the muddy hole it had got into.  They got it out in the
end, and by being very cruel to the reindeer the Dwarf managed to get
it on the move again, and they drove a little further.  And now the
snow was really melting in earnest and patches of green grass were
beginning to appear in every direction.  Unless you have looked at a
world of snow as long as Edmund had been looking at it, you will hardly
be able to imagine what a relief those green patches were after the
endless white.  Then the sledge stopped again.

"It's no good, your Majesty," said the Dwarf.  "We can't sledge in this
thaw."

"Then we must walk," said the Witch.

"We shall never overtake them walking," growled the dwarf.  "Not with
the start they've got."

"Are you my councillor or my slave?" said the Witch.  "Do as you're
told.  Tie the hands of the human creature behind it and keep hold of
the end of the rope.  And take your whip.  And cut the harness of the
reindeer; they'll find their own way home."

The Dwarf obeyed, and in a few minutes Edmund found himself being
forced to walk as fast as he could with his hands tied behind him.  He
kept on slipping in the slush and mud and wet grass, and every time he
slipped the Dwarf gave him a curse and sometimes a flick with the whip.
The Witch walked behind the dwarf and kept on saying, "Faster!  Faster!"

Every moment the patches of green grew bigger and the patches of snow
grew smaller.  Every moment more and more of the trees shook off their
robes of snow.  Soon, wherever you looked, instead of white shapes you
saw the dark green of firs or the black prickly branches of bare oaks
and beeches and elms.  Then the mist turned from white to gold and
presently cleared away altogether.  Shafts of delicious sunlight struck
down onto the forest floor and overhead you could see a blue sky
between the tree-tops.

Soon there were more wonderful things happening.  Coming suddenly round
a corner into a glade of silver birch trees Edmund saw the ground
covered in all directions with little yellow flowers--celandines.  The
noise of water grew louder.  Presently they actually crossed a stream.
Beyond it they found snowdrops growing.

"Mind your own business!" said the Dwarf when he saw that Edmund had
turned his head to look at them; and he gave the rope a vicious jerk.

But of course this didn't prevent Edmund from seeing.  Only five
minutes later he noticed a dozen crocuses growing round the foot of an
old tree--gold and purple and white.  Then came a sound even more
delicious than the sound of the water.  Close beside the path they were
following a bird suddenly chirped from the branch of a tree.  It was
answered by the chuckle of another bird a little further off.  And
then, as if that had been a signal, there was chattering and chirruping
in every direction, and then a moment of full song, and within five
minutes the whole wood was ringing with birds' music, and wherever
Edmund's eyes turned he saw birds alighting on branches, or sailing
overhead or having their little quarrels.

"Faster!  Faster!" said the Witch.

There was no trace of the fog now.  The sky became bluer and bluer and
now there were white clouds hurrying across it from time to time.  In
the wide glades there were primroses.  A light breeze sprang up which
scattered drops of moisture from the swaying branches and carried cool,
delicious scents against the faces of the travellers.  The trees began
to come fully alive.  The larches and birches were covered with green,
the laburnums with gold.  Soon the beech trees had put forth their
delicate, transparent leaves.  As the travellers walked under them the
light also became green.  A bee buzzed across their path.

"This is no thaw," said the Dwarf, suddenly stopping.  "This is
_spring_.  What are we to do?  Your winter has been destroyed, I tell
you!  This is Aslan's doing."

"If either of you mention that name again," said the Witch, "he shall
instantly be killed."




CHAPTER XII

_Peter's First Battle_

While the Dwarf and the White Witch were saying this, miles away the
Beaver and the children were walking on hour after hour into what
seemed a delicious dream.  Long ago they had left the coats behind
them.  And by now they had even stopped saying to one another, "Look!
There's a kingfisher!" or "I say, bluebells!" or "What was that lovely
smell?" or "Just listen to that thrush!"  They walked on in silence
drinking it all in, passing through patches of warm sunlight into cool,
green thickets and out again into wide mossy glades where tall elms
raised the leafy roof far overhead, and then into dense masses of
flowering currant and among hawthorn bushes where the sweet smell was
almost overpowering.

They had been just as surprised as Edmund when they saw the winter
vanishing and the whole wood passing in a few hours or so from January
to May.  They hadn't even known for certain (as the Witch did) that
this was what would happen when Aslan came to Narnia.  But they all
knew that it was her spells which had produced the endless winter; and
therefore they all knew when this magic spring began that something had
gone wrong, and badly wrong, with the Witch's schemes.  And after the
thaw had been going on for some time they all realised that the Witch
would no longer be able to use her sledge.  After that they didn't
hurry so much and they allowed themselves more rests and longer ones.
They were pretty tired by now of course; but not what I'd call bitterly
tired--only slow and feeling very dreamy and quiet inside as one does
when one is coming to the end of a long day in the open.  Susan had a
slight blister on one heel.

They had left the course of the big river some time ago; for one had to
turn a little to the right (that meant a little to the South) to reach
the place of the Stone Table.  Even if this had not been their way,
they couldn't have kept to the river valley once the thaw began, for
with all that melting snow the river was soon in flood--a wonderful,
roaring, thundering yellow flood--and their path would have been under
water.

And now the sun got low and the light got redder and the shadows got
longer and the flowers began to think about closing.

"Not long now," said Mr. Beaver, and began leading them uphill across
some very deep, springy moss (it felt nice under their tired feet) in a
place where only tall trees grew, very wide apart.  The climb, coming
at the end of the long day, made them all pant and blow.  And just as
Lucy was wondering whether she could really get to the top without
another long rest, suddenly they _were_ at the top.  And this is what
they saw.

They were on a green open space from which you could look down on the
forest spreading as far as one could see in every direction--except
right ahead.  There, far to the East, was something twinkling and
moving.  "By gum!" whispered Peter to Susan.  "The sea!"  In the very
middle of this open hilltop was the Stone Table.  It was a great grim
slab of grey stone supported on four upright stones.  It looked very
old; and it was cut all over with strange lines and figures that might
be the letters of an unknown language.  They gave you a curious feeling
when you looked at them.  The next thing they saw was a pavilion
pitched on one side of the open place.  A wonderful pavilion it
was--and especially now when the light of the setting sun fell upon
it--with sides of what looked like yellow silk and cords of crimson and
tent-pegs of ivory; and high above it on a pole a banner, which bore a
red rampant lion, fluttered in the breeze which was blowing in their
faces from the far-off sea.  While they were looking at this they heard
a sound of music on their right; and turning in that direction they saw
what they had come to see.

Aslan stood in the centre of a crowd of creatures who had grouped
themselves around him in the shape of a half-moon.  There were
Tree-Women there and Well-Women (Dryads and Naiads as they used to be
called in our world) who had stringed instruments; it was they who had
made the music.  There were four great centaurs.  The horse part of
them was like huge English farm horses, and the man part was like stern
but beautiful giants.  There was also a unicorn, and a bull with the
head of a man, and a pelican, and an eagle, and a great dog.  And next
to Aslan stood two leopards of whom one carried his crown and the other
his standard.

But as for Aslan himself, the Beavers and the children didn't know what
to do or say when they saw him.  People who have not been in Narnia
sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same
time.  If the children had ever thought so, they were cured of it now.
For when they tried to look at Aslan's face they just caught a glimpse
of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes; and
then they found they couldn't look at him and went all trembly.

"Go on," whispered Mr. Beaver.

"No," whispered Peter, "you first."

"No, Sons of Adam before animals," whispered Mr. Beaver back again.

"Susan," whispered Peter, "what about you?  Ladies first."

"No, you're the eldest," whispered Susan.  And of course the longer
they went on doing this the more awkward they felt.  Then at last Peter
realised that it was up to him.  He drew his sword and raised it to the
salute and hastily saying to the others "Come on.  Pull yourselves
together," he advanced to the Lion and said:

"We have come--Aslan."

"Welcome, Peter, Son of Adam," said Aslan.  "Welcome, Susan and Lucy,
Daughters of Eve.  Welcome He-Beaver and She-Beaver."

His voice was deep and rich and somehow took the fidgets out of them.
They now felt glad and quiet and it didn't seem awkward to them to
stand and say nothing.

"But where is the fourth?" asked Aslan.

"He has tried to betray them and joined the White Witch, O Aslan," said
Mr. Beaver.  And then something made Peter say:

"That was partly my fault, Aslan.  I was angry with him and I think
that helped him to go wrong."

And Aslan said nothing either to excuse Peter or to blame him but
merely stood looking at him with his great golden eyes.  And it seemed
to all of them that there was nothing to be said.

"Please--Aslan," said Lucy, "can anything be done to save Edmund?"

"All shall be done," said Aslan.  "But it may be harder than you
think."  And then he was silent again for some time.  Up to that moment
Lucy had been thinking how royal and strong and peaceful his face
looked; now it suddenly came into her head that he looked sad as well.
But next minute that expression was quite gone.  The Lion shook his
mane and clapped his paws together ("Terrible paws," thought Lucy, "If
he didn't know how to velvet them!") and said:

"Meanwhile, let the feast be prepared.  Ladies, take these Daughters of
Eve to the pavilion and minister to them."

When the girls had gone Aslan laid his paw--and though it was velveted
it was very heavy--on Peter's shoulder and said, "Come, Son of Adam,
and I will show you a far-off sight of the castle where you are to be
King."

And Peter with his sword still drawn in his hand went with the Lion to
the eastern edge of the hill-top.  There a beautiful sight met their
eyes.  The sun was setting behind their backs.  That meant that the
whole country below them lay in the evening light--forest and hills and
valleys and, winding away like a silver snake, the lower part of the
great river.  And beyond all this, miles away, was the sea, and beyond
the sea the sky, full of clouds which were just turning rose colour
with the reflection of the sunset.  But just where the land of Narnia
met the sea--in fact, at the mouth of the great river--there was
something on a little hill, shining.  It was shining because it was a
castle and of course the sunlight was reflected from all the windows
which looked towards Peter and the sunset; but to Peter it looked like
a great star resting on the seashore.

"That, O Man," said Aslan, "is Cair Paravel of the four thrones, in one
of which you must sit as King.  I show it to you because you are the
first-born and you will be High King over all the rest."

And once more Peter said nothing, for at that moment a strange noise
woke the silence suddenly.  It was like a bugle, but richer.

"It is your sister's horn," said Aslan to Peter in a low voice; so low
as to be almost a purr, if it is not disrespectful to think of a lion
purring.

For a moment Peter did not understand.  Then, when he saw all the other
creatures start forward and heard Aslan say with a wave of his paw,
"Back!  Let the Prince win his spurs," he did understand, and set off
running as hard as he could to the pavilion.  And there he saw a
dreadful sight.

The Naiads and Dryads were scattering in every direction.  Lucy was
running towards him as fast as her short legs would carry her and her
face was as white as paper.  Then he saw Susan make a dash for a tree,
and swing herself up, followed by a huge grey beast.  At first Peter
thought it was a bear.  Then he saw that it looked like an Alsatian,
though it was far too big to be a dog.  Then he realised that it was a
wolf--a wolf standing on its hind legs, with its front paws against the
tree-trunk snapping and snarling.  All the hair on its back stood up on
end.  Susan had not been able to get higher than the second big branch.
One of her legs hung down so that her foot was only an inch or two
above the snapping teeth.  Peter wondered why she did not get higher or
at least take a better grip; then he realised that she was just going
to faint and that if she fainted she would fall off.

Peter did not feel very brave; indeed, he felt he was going to be sick.
But that made no difference to what he had to do.  He rushed straight
up to the monster and aimed a slash of his sword at its side.  That
stroke never reached the Wolf.  Quick as lightning it turned round, its
eyes flaming, and its mouth wide open in a howl of anger.  If it had
not been so angry that it simply had to howl it would have got him by
the throat at once.  As it was--though all this happened too quickly
for Peter to think at all--he had just time to duck down and plunge his
sword, as hard as he could, between the brute's forelegs into its
heart.  Then came a horrible, confused moment like something in a
nightmare.  He was tugging and pulling and the Wolf seemed neither
alive nor dead, and its bared teeth knocked against his forehead, and
everything was blood and heat and hair.  A moment later he found that
the monster lay dead and he had drawn his sword out of it and was
straightening his back and rubbing the sweat off his face and out of
his eyes.  He felt tired all over.

Then, after a bit, Susan came down the tree.  She and Peter felt pretty
shaky when they met and I won't say there wasn't kissing and crying on
both sides.  But in Narnia no one thinks any the worse of you for that.

"Quick!  Quick!" shouted the voice of Aslan, "Centaurs!  Eagles!  I see
another wolf in the thickets.  There--behind you.  He has just darted
away.  After him, all of you!  He will be going to his mistress.  Now
is your chance to find the Witch and rescue the fourth Son of Adam."
And instantly with a thunder of hoofs and a beating of wings a dozen or
so of the swiftest creatures disappeared into the gathering darkness.

Peter, still out of breath, turned and saw Aslan close at hand.

"You have forgotten to clean your sword," said Aslan.

It was true.  Peter blushed when he looked at the bright blade and saw
it all smeared with the Wolf's hair and blood.  He stooped down and
wiped it quite clean on the grass, and then wiped it quite dry on his
coat.

"Hand it to me and kneel, Son of Adam," said Aslan.  And when Peter had
done so he struck him with the flat of the blade and said, "Rise up,
Sir Peter Fenris-Bane.  And, whatever happens, never forget to wipe
your sword."




CHAPTER XIII

_Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time_

Now we must go back to Edmund.  When he had been made to walk far
further than he had ever known that anybody _could_ walk, the Witch at
last halted in a dark valley all overshadowed with fir trees and yew
trees.  Edmund simply sank down and lay on his face, doing nothing at
all and not even caring what was going to happen next provided they
would let him lie still.  He was too tired even to notice how hungry
and thirsty he was.  The Witch and the Dwarf were talking close beside
him in low tones.

"No," said the Dwarf, "it is no use now, O Queen.  They must have
reached the Stone Table by now."

"Perhaps the Wolf will smell us out and bring us news," said the Witch.

"It cannot be good news if he does," said the Dwarf.

"Four thrones in Cair Paravel," said the Witch.  "How if only three
were filled?  That would not fulfil the prophecy."

"What difference would that make now that _he_ is here?" said the
Dwarf.  He did not dare, even now, to mention the name of Aslan to his
mistress.

"He may not stay long.  And then--we would fall upon the three at Cair."

"Yet it might be better," said the Dwarf, "to keep this one" (here he
kicked Edmund) "for bargaining with."

"Yes!  And have him rescued," said the Witch scornfully.

"Then," said the Dwarf, "we had better do what we have to do at once."

"I would like to have done it on the Stone Table itself," said the
Witch.  "That is the proper place.  That is where it has always been
done before."

"It will be a long time now before the Stone Table can again be put to
its proper use," said the Dwarf.

"True," said the Witch; and then, "Well, I will begin."

At that moment with a rush and a snarl a Wolf rushed up to them.

"I have seen them.  They are all at the Stone Table, with _him_.  They
have killed my captain, Fenris Ulf.  I was hidden in the thickets and
saw it all.  One of the Sons of Adam killed him.  Fly!  Fly!"

"No," said the Witch.  "There need be no flying.  Go quickly.  Summon
all our people to meet me here as speedily as they can.  Call out the
giants and the werewolves and the spirits of those trees who are on our
side.  Call the Ghouls, and the Boggles, the Ogres and the Minotaurs.
Call the Cruels, the Hags, the Spectres, and the people of the
Toadstools.  We will fight.  What?  Have I not still my wand?  Will not
their ranks turn into stone even as they come on?  Be off quickly, I
have a little thing to finish here while you are away."

The great brute bowed its head, turned, and galloped away.

"Now!" said she, "we have no table--let me see.  We had better put it
against the trunk of a tree."

Edmund found himself being roughly forced to his feet.  Then the Dwarf
set him with his back against a tree and bound him fast.  He saw the
Witch take off her outer mantle.  Her arms were bare underneath it and
terribly white.  Because they were so very white he could not see much
else, it was so dark in this valley under the dark trees.

"Prepare the victim," said the Witch.  And the Dwarf undid Edmund's
collar and folded back his shirt at the neck.  Then he took Edmund's
hair and pulled his head back so that he had to raise his chin.  After
that Edmund heard a strange noise--whizz--whizz--whizz.  For a moment
he couldn't think what it was.  Then he realised.  It was the sound of
a knife being sharpened!

At that very moment he heard loud shouts from every direction--a
drumming of hoofs and a beating of wings--a scream from the
Witch--confusion all round him.  And then he found he was being untied.
Strong arms were round him and he heard big, kind voices saying things
like "Let him lie down--give him some wine--drink this--steady
now--you'll be all right in a minute."

Then he heard the voices of people who were talking not to him but to
one another.  And they were saying things like "Who's got the Witch?--I
thought you had her--I didn't see her after I knocked the knife out of
her hand--I was after the Dwarf--Do you mean to say she's escaped?--A
chap can't mind everything at once--What's that?  Oh sorry it's only an
old stump!"  But just at this point Edmund went off in a dead faint.

Presently the centaurs and unicorns and deer and birds (they were of
course the rescue party which Aslan had sent in the last chapter) all
set off to go back to the Stone Table, carrying Edmund with them.  But
if they could have seen what happened in that valley after they had
gone, I think they might have been surprised.

It was perfectly still and presently the moon grew bright, if you had
been there you would have seen the moonlight shining on an old
tree-stump and on a fair sized boulder.  But if you had gone on looking
you would gradually have begun to think there was something odd about
both the stump and the boulder.  And next you would have thought that
the stump did look really remarkably like a little fat man crouching on
the ground.  And if you had watched long enough you would have seen the
stump walk across to the boulder and the boulder sit up and begin
talking to the stump; for in reality the stump and the boulder were
simply the Witch and the Dwarf.  For it was part of her magic that she
could make things look like what they weren't, and she had the presence
of mind to do so at the very moment when the knife was knocked out of
her hand.  She had kept hold of her wand also, so it had been kept
safe, too.

When the other children woke up next morning (they had been sleeping on
piles of cushions in the pavilion) the first thing they heard--from
Mrs. Beaver--was that their brother had been rescued and brought into
camp late last night; and was at that moment with Aslan.  As soon as
they had breakfasted they all went out, and there they saw Aslan and
Edmund walking together in the dewy grass, apart from the rest of the
court.  There is no need to tell you (and no one ever heard) what Aslan
was saying but it was a conversation which Edmund never forgot.  As the
others drew nearer Aslan turned to meet them bringing Edmund with him.

"Here is your brother," he said, "and--there is no need to talk to him
about what is past."

Edmund shook hands with each of the others and said to each of them in
turn, "I'm sorry," and everyone said "That's all right."  And then
everyone wanted very hard to say something which would make it quite
clear that they were all friends with him again--something ordinary and
natural--and of course no one could think of anything in the world to
say.  But before they had time to feel really awkward one of the
leopards approached Aslan and said:

"Sire, there is a messenger from the enemy who craves audience."

"Let him approach," said Aslan.

The leopard went away and soon returned leading the Witch's Dwarf.

"What is your message, Son of Earth?" asked Aslan.

"The Queen of Narnia and Empress of the Lone Islands desires a safe
conduct to come and speak with you," said the Dwarf, "on a matter which
is as much to your advantage as to hers."

"Queen of Narnia, indeed!" said Mr. Beaver.  "Of all the cheek--"

"Peace, Beaver," said Aslan.  "All names will soon be restored to their
proper owners.  In the meantime we will not dispute about noises.  Tell
your mistress, Son of Earth, that I grant her safe conduct on condition
that she leaves her wand behind her at that great oak."

This was agreed to and two leopards went back with the Dwarf to see
that the conditions were properly carried out.  "But supposing she
turns the two leopards into stone?" whispered Lucy to Peter.  I think
the same idea had occurred to the leopards themselves; at any rate, as
they walked off their fur was all standing up on their backs and their
tails were bristling--like a cat's when it sees a strange dog.

"It'll be all right," whispered Peter in reply.  "He wouldn't send them
if it weren't."

A few minutes later the Witch herself walked out on to the top of the
hill and came straight across and stood before Aslan.  The three
children, who had not seen her before, felt shudders running down their
backs at the sight of her face; and there were low growls among all the
animals present.  Though it was bright sunshine everyone felt suddenly
cold.  The only two people present who seemed to be quite at their ease
were Aslan and the Witch herself.  It was the oddest thing to see those
two faces--the golden face and the dead-white face--so close together.
Not that the Witch looked Aslan exactly in his eyes; Mrs. Beaver
particularly noticed this.

"You have a traitor there, Aslan," said the Witch.  Of course everyone
present knew that she meant Edmund.  But Edmund had got past thinking
about himself after all he'd been through and after the talk he'd had
that morning.  He just went on looking at Aslan.  It didn't seem to
matter what the Witch said.

"Well," said Aslan.  "His offence was not against you."

"Have you forgotten the Deep Magic?" asked the Witch.

"Let us say I have forgotten it," answered Aslan gravely.  "Tell us of
this Deep Magic."

"Tell you?" said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller.  "Tell
you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us?
Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the
trunk of the World Ash Tree?  Tell you what is engraved on the sceptre
of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea?  You at least know the magic which the
Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning.  You know that every
traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I
have a right to a kill."

"Oh," said Mr. Beaver.  "So _that's_ how you came to imagine yourself a
Queen--because you were the Emperor's hangman.  I see."

"Peace, Beaver," said Aslan, with a very low growl.

"And so," continued the Witch, "that human creature is mine.  His life
is forfeit to me.  His blood is my property."

"Come and take it then," said the Bull with the man's head in a great
bellowing voice.

"Fool," said the Witch with a savage smile that was almost a snarl, "do
you really think your master can rob me of my rights by mere force?  He
knows the Deep Magic better than that.  He knows that unless I have
blood as the Law says all Narnia will be overturned and perish in fire
and water."

"It is very true," said Aslan; "I do not deny it."

"Oh, Aslan!" whispered Susan in the Lion's ear, "can't we--I mean, you
won't, will you?  Can't we do something about the Deep Magic?  Isn't
there something you can work against it?"

"Work against the Emperor's magic?" said Aslan turning to her with
something like a frown on his face.  And nobody ever made that
suggestion to him again.

Edmund was on the other side of Aslan, looking all the time at Aslan's
face.  He felt a choking feeling and wondered if he ought to say
something; but a moment later he felt that he was not expected to do
anything except to wait, and do what he was told.

"Fall back, all of you," said Aslan, "and I will talk to the Witch
alone."

They all obeyed.  It was a terrible time this--waiting and wondering
while the Lion and the Witch talked earnestly together in low voices.
Lucy said, "Oh, Edmund!" and began to cry.  Peter stood with his back
to the others looking out at the distant sea.  The Beavers stood
holding each other's paws with their heads bowed.  The centaurs stamped
uneasily with their hoofs.  But everyone became perfectly still in the
end, so that you noticed even small sounds like a bumble bee flying
past, or the birds in the forest down below them, or the wind rustling
the leaves.  And still the talk between Aslan and the White Witch went
on.

At last they heard Aslan's voice.  "You can all come back," he said.
"I have settled the matter.  She has renounced the claim on your
brother's blood."  And all over the hill there was a noise as if
everyone had been holding his breath and had now begun breathing again,
and then a murmur of talk.  They began to come back to Aslan's throne.

The Witch was just turning away with a look of fierce joy on her face
when she stopped and said,

"But how do I know this promise will be kept?"

"Wow!" roared Aslan half rising from his throne; and his great mouth
opened wider and wider and the roar grew louder and louder, and the
Witch, after staring for a moment with her lips wide apart, picked up
her skirts and fairly ran for her life.




CHAPTER XIV

_The Triumph of the Witch_

As soon as the Witch had gone Aslan said, "We must move from this place
at once, it will be wanted for other purposes.  We shall encamp
to-night at the Fords of Beruna."

Of course everyone was dying to ask him how he had arranged matters
with the Witch; but his face was stern and everyone's ears were still
ringing with the sound of his roar and so nobody dared.

After a meal, which was taken in the open air on the hill-top (for the
sun had got strong by now and dried the grass) they were busy for a
while taking the pavilion down and packing things up.  Before two
o'clock they were on the march and set off in a North-Westerly
direction, walking at an easy pace for they had not far to go.

During the first part of the journey Aslan explained to Peter his plan
of campaign.  "As soon as she has finished her business in these
parts," he said, "the Witch and her crew will almost certainly fall
back to her house and prepare for a siege.  You may or may not be able
to cut her off and prevent her from reaching it."  He then went on to
outline two plans of battle--one for fighting the Witch and her people
in the wood and another for assaulting her castle.  And all the time he
was advising Peter how to conduct the operations, saying things like,
"You must put your centaurs in such and such a place" or "You must post
scouts to see that she doesn't do so-and-so," till at last Peter said,

"But you will be there yourself, Aslan."

"I can give you no promise of that," answered the Lion.  And he
continued giving Peter his instructions.

For the last part of the journey it was Susan and Lucy who saw most of
him.  He did not talk very much and seemed to them to be sad.

It was still afternoon when they came down to a place where the river
valley had widened out and the river was broad and shallow.  This was
the Fords of Beruna and Aslan gave orders to halt on this side of the
water.  But Peter said,

"Wouldn't it be better to camp on the far side--for fear she should try
a night attack or anything?"

Aslan who seemed to have been thinking about something else roused
himself with a shake of his magnificent mane and said, "Eh?  What's
that?" Peter said it all over again.

"No," said Aslan in a dull voice, as if it didn't matter.  "No.  She
will not make an attack to-night."  And then he sighed deeply.  But
presently he added, "All the same it was well thought of.  That is how
a soldier ought to think.  But it doesn't really matter."  So they
proceeded to pitch their camp.

Aslan's mood affected everyone that evening.  Peter was feeling
uncomfortable too at the idea of fighting the battle on his own; the
news that Aslan might not be there had come as a great shock to him.
Supper that evening was a quiet meal.  Everyone felt how different it
had been last night or even that morning.  It was as if the good times,
having just begun, were already drawing to their end.

This feeling affected Susan so much that she couldn't get to sleep when
she went to bed.  And after she had lain counting sheep and turning
over and over she heard Lucy give a long sigh and turn over just beside
her in the darkness.

"Can't you get to sleep either?" said Susan.

"No," said Lucy.  "I thought you were asleep.  I say, Susan?"

"What?"

"I've a most horrible feeling--as if something were hanging over us."

"Have you?  Because, as a matter of fact, so have I."

"Something about Aslan," said Lucy.  "Either some dreadful thing that
is going to happen to him, or something dreadful that he's going to do."

"There's been something wrong with him all afternoon," said Susan.
"Lucy!  What was that he said about not being with us at the battle?
You don't think he could be stealing away and leaving us to-night, do
you?"

"Where is he now?" said Lucy.  "Is he here in the pavilion?"

"I don't think so."

"Susan!  Let's go outside and have a look round.  We might see him."

"All right.  Let's," said Susan, "we might just as well be doing that
as lying awake here."

Very quietly the two girls groped their way among the other sleepers
and crept out of the tent.  The moonlight was bright and everything was
quite still except for the noise of the river chattering over the
stones.  Then Susan suddenly caught Lucy's arm and said, "Look!"  On
the far side of the camping ground, just where the trees began, they
saw the Lion slowly walking away from them into the wood.  Without a
word they both followed him.

He led them up the steep slope out of the river valley and then
slightly to the left--apparently by the very same route which they had
used that afternoon in coming from the Hill of the Stone Table.  On and
on he led them, into dark shadows and out into pale moonlight, getting
their feet wet with the heavy dew.  He looked somehow different from
the Aslan they knew.  His tail and his head hung low and he walked
slowly as if he were very, very tired.  Then, when they were crossing a
wide open place where there were no shadows for them to hide in, he
stopped and looked round.  It was no good trying to run away so they
came towards him.  When they were closer he said,

"Oh, children, children, why are you following me?"

"We couldn't sleep," said Lucy--and then felt sure that she need say no
more and that Aslan knew all they had been thinking.

"Please, may we come with you--wherever you're going?" said Susan.

"Well--" said Aslan and seemed to be thinking.  Then he said, "I should
be glad of company to-night.  Yes, you may come, if you will promise to
stop when I tell you, and after that leave me to go on alone."

"Oh, thank you, thank you.  And we will," said the two girls.

Forward they went again and one of the girls walked on each side of the
Lion.  But how slowly he walked!  And his great, royal head drooped so
that his nose nearly touched the grass.  Presently he stumbled and gave
a low moan.

"Aslan!  Dear Aslan!" said Lucy, "what is wrong?  Can't you tell us?"

"Are you ill, dear Aslan?" asked Susan.

"No," said Aslan.  "I am sad and lonely.  Lay your hands on my mane so
that I can feel you are there and let us walk like that."

And so the girls did what they would never have dared to do without his
permission but what they had longed to do ever since they first saw
him--buried their cold hands in the beautiful sea of fur and stroked it
and, so doing, walked with him.  And presently they saw that they were
going with him up the slope of the hill on which the Stone Table stood.
They went up at the side where the trees came furthest up, and when
they got to the last tree (it was one that had some bushes about it)
Aslan stopped and said,

"Oh, children, children.  Here you must stop.  And whatever happens, do
not let yourselves be seen.  Farewell."

And both the girls cried bitterly (though they hardly knew why) and
clung to the Lion and kissed his mane and his nose and his paws and his
great, sad eyes.  Then he turned from them and walked out onto the top
of the hill.  And Lucy and Susan, crouching in the bushes, looked after
him and this is what they saw.

A great crowd of people were standing all round the Stone Table and
though the moon was shining many of them carried torches which burned
with evil-looking red flames and black smoke.  But such people!  Ogres
with monstrous teeth, and wolves, and bull-headed men; spirits of evil
trees and poisonous plants; and other creatures whom I won't describe
because if I did the grown-ups would probably not let you read this
book--Cruels and Hags and Incubuses, Wraiths, Horrors, Efreets,
Sprites, Orknies, Wooses, and Ettins.  In fact here were all those who
were on the Witch's side and whom the Wolf had summoned at her command.
And right in the middle, standing by the Table, was the Witch herself.

A howl and a gibber of dismay went up from the creatures when they
first saw the great Lion pacing towards them, and for a moment the
Witch herself seemed to be struck with fear.  Then she recovered
herself and gave a wild, fierce laugh.

"The fool!" she cried.  "The fool has come.  Bind him fast."

Lucy and Susan held their breaths waiting for Aslan's roar and his
spring upon his enemies.  But it never came.  Four hags, grinning and
leering, yet also (at first) hanging back and half afraid of what they
had to do, had approached him.  "Bind him, I say!" repeated the White
Witch.  The hags made a dart at him and shrieked with triumph when they
found that he made no resistance at all.  Then others--evil dwarfs and
apes--rushed in to help them and between them they rolled the huge Lion
round on his back and tied all his four paws together, shouting and
cheering as if they had done something brave, though, had the Lion
chosen, one of those paws could have been the death of them all.  But
he made no noise, even when the enemies, straining and tugging, pulled
the cords so tight that they cut into his flesh.  Then they began to
drag him towards the Stone Table.

"Stop!" said the Witch.  "Let him first be shaved."

Another roar of mean laughter went up from her followers as an ogre
with a pair of shears came forward and squatted down by Aslan's head.
Snip-snip-snip went the shears and masses of curling gold began to fall
to the ground.  Then the ogre stood back and the children, watching
from their hiding-place, could see the face of Aslan looking all small
and different without its mane.  The enemies also saw the difference.

"Why, he's only a great cat after all!" cried one.

"Is _that_ what we were afraid of?" said another.

And they surged round Aslan jeering at him, saying things like "Puss,
Puss!  Poor Pussy," and "How many mice have you caught to-day, Cat?"
and "Would you like a saucer of milk, Pussums?"

"Oh how _can_ they?" said Lucy, tears streaming down her cheeks.  "The
brutes, the brutes!" for now that the first shock was over the shorn
face of Aslan looked to her braver, and more beautiful, and more
patient than ever.

"Muzzle him!" said the Witch.  And even now, as they worked about his
face putting on the muzzle, one bite from his jaws would have cost two
or three of them their hands.  But he never moved.  And this seemed to
enrage all that rabble.  Everyone was at him now.  Those who had been
afraid to come near him even after he was bound began to find their
courage, and for a few minutes the two girls could not even see him--so
thickly was he surrounded by the whole crowd of creatures kicking him,
hitting him, spitting on him, jeering at him.

At last the rabble had had enough of this.  They began to drag the
bound and muzzled Lion to the Stone Table, some pulling and some
pushing.  He was so huge that even when they got him there it took all
their efforts to hoist him onto the surface of it.  Then there was more
tying and tightening of cords.

"The cowards!  The cowards!" sobbed Susan.  "Are they _still_ afraid of
him, even now?"

When once Aslan had been tied (and tied so that he was really a mass of
cords) on the flat stone, a hush fell on the crowd.  Four Hags, holding
four torches, stood at the corners of the Table.  The Witch bared her
arms as she had bared them the previous night when it had been Edmund
instead of Aslan.  Then she began to whet her knife.  It looked to the
children, when the gleam of the torchlight fell on it, as if the knife
were made of stone not of steel and it was of a strange and evil shape.

At last she drew near.  She stood by Aslan's head.  Her face was
working and twitching with passion, but his looked up at the sky, still
quiet, neither angry nor afraid, but a little sad.  Then, just before
she gave the blow, she stooped down and said in a quivering voice,

"And now, who has won?  Fool, did you think that by all this you would
save the human traitor?  Now I will kill you instead of him as our pact
was and so the Deep Magic will be appeased.  But when you are dead what
will prevent me from killing him as well?  And who will take him out of
my hand _then_?  Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you
have lost your own life and you have not saved his.  In that knowledge,
despair and die."

The children did not see the actual moment of the killing.  They
couldn't bear to look and had covered their eyes.




CHAPTER XV

_Deeper Magic from_ before _the Dawn of Time_

While the two girls still crouched in the bushes with their hands over
their faces, they heard the voice of the Witch calling out.

"Now!  Follow me all and we will set about what remains of this war!
It will not take us long to crush the human vermin and the traitors now
that the great Fool, the great Cat, lies dead."

At this moment the children were for a few seconds in very great
danger.  For with wild cries and a noise of skirling pipes and shrill
horns blowing, the whole of that vile rabble came sweeping off the
hill-top and down the slope right past their hiding-place.  They felt
the Spectres go by them like a cold wind and they felt the ground shake
beneath them under the galloping feet of the Minotaurs; and overhead
there went a flurry of foul wings and a blackness of vultures and giant
bats.  At any other time they would have trembled with fear; but now
the sadness and shame and horror of Aslan's death so filled their minds
that they hardly thought of it.

As soon as the wood was silent again Susan and Lucy crept out into the
open hill-top.  The moon was getting low and thin clouds were passing
across her, but still they could see the shape of the great Lion lying
dead in his bonds.  And down they both knelt in the wet grass and
kissed his cold face and stroked his beautiful fur--what was left of
it--and cried till they could cry no more.  And then they looked at
each other and held each other's hands for mere loneliness and cried
again; and then again were silent.  At last Lucy said,

"I can't bear the look of that horrible muzzle.  I wonder could we take
it off?"

So they tried.  And after a lot of working at it (for their fingers
were cold and it was now the darkest part of the night) they succeeded.
And when they saw his face without it they burst out crying again and
kissed it and fondled it and wiped away the blood and the foam as well
as they could.  And it was all more lonely and hopeless and horrid than
I know how to describe.

"I wonder could we untie him as well?" said Susan presently.  But the
enemies, out of pure spitefulness had drawn the cords so tight that the
girls could make nothing of the knots.

I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan
and Lucy were that night; but if you have been--if you've been up all
night and cried till you have no more tears left in you--you will know
that there comes in the end a sort of quietness.  You feel as if
nothing was ever going to happen again.  At any rate that was how it
felt to these two.  Hours and hours seemed to go by in this dead calm,
and they hardly noticed that they were getting colder and colder.  But
at last Lucy noticed two other things.  One was that the sky on the
East side of the hill was a little less dark than it had been an hour
ago.  The other was some tiny movement going on in the grass at her
feet.  At first she took no interest in this.  What did it matter?
Nothing mattered now!  But at last she saw that whatever-it-was had
begun to move up the upright stones of the Stone Table.  And now
whatever-they-were were moving about on Aslan's body.  She peered
closer.  They were little grey things.

"Ugh!" said Susan from the other side of the Table.  "How beastly!
There are horrid little mice crawling over him.  Go away, you little
beasts."  And she raised her hand to frighten them away.

"Wait!" said Lucy who had been looking at them more closely still.
"Can you see what they're doing?"

Both girls bent down and stared.

"I do believe!" said Susan.  "But how queer.  They're nibbling away at
the cords!"

"That's what I thought," said Lucy.  "I think they're friendly mice.
Poor little things--they don't realise he's dead.  They think it'll do
some good untying him."

It was quite definitely lighter by now.  Each of the girls noticed for
the first time the white face of the other.  They could see the mice
nibbling away; dozens and dozens, even hundreds, of little field mice.
And at last, one by one, the ropes were all gnawed through.

The sky in the East was whitish by now and the stars were getting
fainter--all except one very big one low down on the Eastern horizon.
They felt colder than they had been all night.  The mice crept away
again.

The girls cleared away the remains of the gnawed ropes.  Aslan looked
more like himself without them.  Every moment his dead face looked
nobler, as the light grew and they could see it better.

In the wood behind them a bird gave a chuckling sound.  It had been so
still for hours and hours that it startled them.  Then another bird
answered it.  Soon there were birds singing all over the place.

It was quite definitely early morning now, not late night.

"I'm so cold," said Lucy.

"So am I," said Susan.  "Let's walk about a bit."

They walked to the Eastern edge of the hill and looked down.  The one
big star had almost disappeared.  The country all looked dark grey, but
beyond, at the very end of the world, the sea showed pale.  The sky
began to turn red.  They walked to and fro more times than they could
count between the dead Aslan and the Eastern ridge, trying to keep
warm; and oh, how tired their legs felt.  Then at last, as they stood
for a moment looking out towards the sea and Cair Paravel (which they
could now just make out) the red turned to gold along the line where
the sea and the sky met and very slowly up came the edge of the sun.
At that moment they heard from behind them a loud noise--a great
cracking, deafening noise as if a giant had broken a giant's plate.

"What's that?" said Lucy, clutching Susan's arm.

"I--I feel afraid to turn round," said Susan; "something awful is
happening."

"They're doing something worse to _him_," said Lucy.  "Come on!"  And
she turned, pulling Susan round with her.

The rising of the sun had made everything look so different--all the
colours and shadows were changed--that for a moment they didn't see the
important thing.  Then they did.  The Stone Table was broken into two
pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was
no Aslan.

"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the two girls rushing back to the Table.

"Oh, it's _too_ bad," sobbed Lucy; "they might have left the body
alone."

"Who's done it?" cried Susan.  "What does it mean?  Is it more magic?"

"Yes!" said a great voice behind their backs.  "It is more magic."
They looked round.  There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had
seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again)
stood Aslan himself.

"Oh, Aslan!" cried both the children, staring up at him, almost as much
frightened as they were glad.

"Aren't you dead then, dear Aslan?" said Lucy.

"Not now," said Aslan.

"You're not--not a--?" asked Susan in a shaky voice.  She couldn't
bring herself to say the word _ghost_.

Aslan stooped his golden head and licked her forehead.  The warmth of
his breath and a rich sort of smell that seemed to hang about his hair
came all over her.

"Do I look it?" he said.

"Oh, you're real, you're real!  Oh, Aslan!" cried Lucy and both girls
flung themselves upon him and covered him with kisses.

"But what does it all mean?" asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.

"It means," said Aslan, "that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic,
there is a magic deeper still which she did not know.  Her knowledge
goes back only to the dawn of Time.  But if she could have looked a
little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time
dawned, she would have read there a different incantation.  She would
have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery
was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself
would start working backwards.  And now--

"Oh yes.  Now?" said Lucy jumping up and clapping her hands.

"Oh, children," said the Lion, "I feel my strength coming back to me.
Oh, children, catch me if you can!"  He stood for a second, his eyes
very bright, his limbs quivering, lashing himself with his tail.  Then
he made a leap high over their heads and landed on the other side of
the Table.  Laughing, though she didn't know why, Lucy scrambled over
it to reach him.  Aslan leaped again.  A mad chase began.  Round and
round the hill-top he led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now
letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now
tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and
catching them again, and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of
them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and
legs.  It was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia; and
whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a
kitten Lucy could never make up her mind.  And the funny thing was that
when all three finally lay together panting in the sun the girls no
longer felt in the least tired or hungry or thirsty.

"And now," said Aslan presently, "to business.  I feel I am going to
roar.  You had better put your fingers in your ears."

And they did.  And Aslan stood up and when he opened his mouth to roar
his face became so terrible that they did not dare to look at it.  And
they saw all the trees in front of him bend before the blast of his
roaring as grass bends in a meadow before the wind.  Then he said,

"We have a long journey to go.  You must ride on me."  And he crouched
down and the children climbed onto his warm, golden back and Susan sat
first holding on tightly to his mane and Lucy sat behind holding on
tightly to Susan.  And with a great heave he rose underneath them and
then shot off, faster than any horse could go, downhill and into the
thick of the forest.

That ride was perhaps the most wonderful thing that happened to them in
Narnia.  Have you ever had a gallop on a horse?  Think of that; and
then take away the heavy noise of the hoofs and the jingle of the
harness and imagine instead the almost noiseless padding of the great
paws.  Then imagine instead of the black or grey or chestnut back of
the horse the soft roughness of golden fur, and the mane flying back in
the wind.  And then imagine you are going about twice as fast as the
fastest racehorse.  But this is a mount that doesn't need to be guided
and never grows tired.  He rushes on and on, never missing his footing,
never hesitating, threading his way with perfect skill between
tree-trunks, jumping over bush and briar and the smaller streams,
wading the larger, swimming the largest of all.  And you are riding not
on a road nor in a park nor even on the downs but right across Narnia,
in spring, down solemn avenues of beech and across sunny glades of oak,
through wild orchards of snow-white cherry trees, past roaring
waterfalls and mossy rocks and echoing caverns, up windy slopes alight
with gorse bushes and across the shoulders of heathery mountains and
along giddy ridges and down, down, down again into wild valleys and out
into acres of blue flowers.

It was nearly mid-day when they found themselves looking down a steep
hillside at a castle--a little toy castle it looked from where they
stood--which seemed to be all pointed towers.  But the Lion was rushing
down at such a speed that it grew larger every moment and before they
had time even to ask themselves what it was they were already on a
level with it.  And now it no longer looked like a toy castle but rose
frowning in front of them.  No face looked over the battlements and the
gates were fast shut.  And Aslan, not at all slacking his pace, rushed
straight as a bullet towards it.

"The Witch's home!" he cried.  "Now, children, hold tight."

Next moment the whole world seemed to turn upside down, and the
children felt as if they had left their insides behind them; for the
Lion had gathered himself together for a greater leap than any he had
yet made and jumped--or you may call it flying rather than
jumping--right over the castle wall.  The two girls, breathless but
unhurt, found themselves tumbling off his back in the middle of a wide
stone courtyard full of statues.




CHAPTER XVI

_What Happened about the Statues_

"What an extraordinary place!" cried Lucy.  "All those stone
animals--and people too!  It's--it's like a museum."

"Hush," said Susan, "Aslan's doing something."

He was indeed.  He had bounded up to the stone lion and breathed on
him.  Then without waiting a moment he whisked round--almost as if he
had been a cat chasing its tail--and breathed also on the stone dwarf,
which (as you remember) was standing a few feet from the lion with his
back to it.  Then he pounced on a tall stone Dryad which stood beyond
the dwarf, turned rapidly aside to deal with a stone rabbit on his
right, and rushed on to two centaurs.  But at that moment Lucy said,

"Oh, Susan!  Look!  Look at the lion."

I expect you've seen someone put a lighted match to a bit of newspaper
which is propped up in a grate against an unlit fire.  And for a second
nothing seems to have happened; and then you notice a tiny streak of
flame creeping along the edge of the newspaper.  It was like that now.
For a second after Aslan had breathed upon him the stone lion looked
just the same.  Then a tiny streak of gold began to run along his white
marble back--then it spread--then the colour seemed to lick all over
him as the flame licks all over a bit of paper--then, while his
hind-quarters were still obviously stone the lion shook his mane and
all the heavy, stony folds rippled into living hair.  Then he opened a
great red mouth, warm and living, and gave a prodigious yawn.  And now
his hind legs had come to life.  He lifted one of them and scratched
himself.  Then, having caught sight of Aslan, he went bounding after
him and frisking round him whimpering with delight and jumping up to
lick his face.

Of course the children's eyes turned to follow the lion; but the sight
they saw was so wonderful that they soon forgot about _him_.
Everywhere the statues were coming to life.  The courtyard looked no
longer like a museum; it looked more like a zoo.  Creatures were
running after Aslan and dancing round him till he was almost hidden in
the crowd.  Instead of all that deadly white the courtyard was now a
blaze of colours; glossy chestnut sides of centaurs, indigo horns of
unicorns, dazzling plumage of birds, reddy-brown of foxes, dogs, and
satyrs, yellow stockings and crimson hoods of dwarfs; and the
birch-girls in silver, and the beech-girls in fresh, transparent green,
and the larch-girls in green so bright that it was almost yellow.  And
instead of the deadly silence the whole place rang with the sound of
happy roarings, brayings, yelpings, barkings, squealings, cooings,
neighings, stampings, shouts, hurrahs, songs and laughter.

"Ooh!" said Susan in a different tone.  "Look!  I wonder--I mean, is it
safe?"

Lucy looked and saw that Aslan had just breathed on the feet of the
stone giant.

"It's all right!" shouted Aslan joyously.  "Once the feet are put
right, all the rest of him will follow."

"That wasn't exactly what I meant," whispered Susan to Lucy.  But it
was too late to do anything about it now even if Aslan would have
listened to her.  The change was already creeping up the Giant's legs.
Now he was moving his feet.  A moment later he lifted the club off his
shoulder, rubbed his eyes and said,

"Bless me!  I must have been asleep.  Now!  Where's that dratted little
Witch that was running about on the ground.  Somewhere just by my feet
it was."  But when everyone had shouted up to him to explain what had
really happened, and when the Giant had put his hand to his ear and got
them to repeat it all again so that at last he understood, then he
bowed down till his head was no further off than the top of a haystack
and touched his cap repeatedly to Aslan, beaming all over his honest
ugly face, (giants of any sort are now so rare in England and so few
giants are good tempered that ten to one you have never seen a giant
when his face is beaming.  It's a sight well worth looking at.)

"Now for the inside of this house!" said Aslan.  "Look alive, everyone.
Up stairs and down stairs and in my lady's chamber!  Leave no corner
unsearched.  You never know where some poor prisoner may be concealed."

And into the interior they all rushed and for several minutes the whole
of that dark, horrible, fusty old castle echoed with the opening of
windows and with everyone's voices crying out at once "Don't forget the
dungeons--Give us a hand with this door!--Here's another little winding
stair--Oh!  I say.  Here's a poor little kangaroo.  Call Aslan--Phew!
How it smells in here--Look out for trap-doors--Up here!  There are a
whole lot more on the landing!"  But the best of all was when Lucy came
rushing upstairs shouting out,

"Aslan!  Aslan!  I've found Mr. Tumnus.  Oh, do come quick."

A moment later Lucy and the little Faun were holding one another by
both hands and dancing round and round for joy.  The little chap was
none the worse for having been a statue and was of course very
interested in all she had to tell him.

But at last the ransacking of the Witch's fortress was ended.  The
whole castle stood empty with every door and window open and the light
and the sweet spring air flooding in to all the dark and evil places
which needed them so badly.  The whole crowd of liberated statues
surged back into the courtyard.  And it was then that someone (Tumnus,
I think) first said,

"But how are we going to get out?" for Aslan had got in by a jump and
the gates were still locked.

"That'll be all right," said Aslan; and then, rising on his hind-legs,
he bawled up at the Giant.  "Hi!  You up there," he roared.  "What's
your name?"

"Giant Rumblebuffin if it please your honour," said the Giant, once
more touching his cap.

"Well then, Giant Rumblebuffin," said Aslan, "just let us out of this,
will you?"

"Certainly, your honour.  It will be a pleasure," said Giant
Rumblebuffin.  "Stand well away from the gates, all you little 'uns."
Then he strode to the gate himself and bang--bang--bang--went his huge
club.  The gates creaked at the first blow, cracked at the second, and
shivered at the third.  Then he tackled the towers on each side of them
and after a few minutes of crashing and thudding both the towers and a
good bit of the wall on each side went thundering down in a mass of
hopeless rubble; and when the dust cleared it was odd, standing in that
dry, grim, stony yard, to see through the gap all the grass and waving
trees and sparkling streams of the forest, and the blue hills beyond
that and beyond them the sky.

"Blowed if I ain't all in a muck sweat," said the Giant puffing like
the largest railway engine.  "Comes of being out of condition.  I
suppose neither of you young ladies has such a thing as a
pocket-handkerchee about you?"

"Yes, I have," said Lucy standing on tip-toes and holding her
handkerchief up as far as she could reach.

"Thank you, Missie," said Giant Rumblebuffin stooping down.  Next
moment Lucy got rather a fright for she found herself caught up in
mid-air between the Giant's finger and thumb.  But just as she was
getting near his face he suddenly started and then put her gently back
on the ground muttering, "Bless me!  I've picked up the little girl
instead.  I beg your pardon, Missie, I thought you was the handkerchee!"

"No, no," said Lucy laughing, "here it is!"  This time he managed to
get it but it was only about the same size to him that a saccharine
tablet would be to you, so that when she saw him solemnly rubbing it to
and fro across his great red face, she said, "I'm afraid it's not much
use to you, Mr. Rumblebuffin."

"Not at all.  Not at all," said the Giant politely.  "Never met a nicer
handkerchee.  So fine, so handy.  So--I don't know how to describe it."

"What a nice giant he is!" said Lucy to Mr. Tumnus.

"Oh yes," replied the Faun.  "All the Buffins always were.  One of the
most respected of all the giant families in Narnia.  Not very clever,
perhaps (I never knew a giant that was) but an old family.  With
traditions, you know.  If he'd been the other sort she'd never have
turned him into stone."

At this point Aslan clapped his paws together and called for silence.

"Our day's work is not yet over," he said, "and if the Witch is to be
finally defeated before bed-time we must find the battle at once."

"And join in I hope, Sir!" added the largest of the centaurs.

"Of course," said Aslan.  "And now!  Those who can't keep up--that is,
children, dwarfs, and small animals--must ride on the backs of those
who can--that is, lions, centaurs, unicorns, horses, giants and eagles.
Those who are good with their noses must come in the front with us
lions to smell out where the battle is.  Look lively and sort
yourselves."

And with a great deal of bustle and cheering they did.  The most
pleased of the lot was the other lion, who kept running about
everywhere pretending to be very busy but really in order to say to
everyone he met, "Did you hear what he said?  _Us lions_.  That means
him and me.  _Us lions_.  That's what I like about Aslan.  No side, no
stand-off-ishness.  _Us lions_.  That meant him and me."  At least he
went on saying this till Aslan had loaded him up with three dwarfs, one
Dryad, two rabbits, and a hedgehog.  That steadied him a bit.

When all were ready (it was a big sheep-dog who actually helped Aslan
most in getting them sorted into their proper order) they set out
through the gap in the castle wall.  At first the lions and dogs went
nosing about in all directions.  But then suddenly one great hound
picked up the scent and gave a bay.  There was no time lost after that.
Soon all the dogs and lions and wolves and other hunting animals were
going at full speed with their noses to the ground, and all the others,
streaked out for about half a mile behind them, were following as fast
as they could.  The noise was like an English fox-hunt only better
because every now and then with the music of the hounds was mixed the
roar of the other lion and sometimes the far deeper and more awful roar
of Aslan himself.  Faster and faster they went as the scent became
easier and easier to follow.  And then, just as they came to the last
curve in a narrow, winding valley, Lucy heard above all these noises
another noise--a different one, which gave her a queer feeling inside.
It was a noise of shouts and shrieks and of the clashing of metal
against metal.

Then they came out of the narrow valley and at once she saw the reason.
There stood Peter and Edmund and all the rest of Aslan's army fighting
desperately against the crowd of horrible creatures whom she had seen
last night; only now, in the daylight, they looked even stranger and
more evil and more deformed.  There also seemed to be far more of them.
Aslan's army--which had their backs to her--looked terribly few.  And
there were statues dotted all over the battlefield, so apparently the
Witch had been using her wand.  But she did not seem to be using it
now.  She was fighting with her stone knife.  It was Peter she was
fighting--both of them going at it so hard that Lucy could hardly make
out what was happening; she only saw the stone knife and Peter's sword
flashing so quickly that they looked like three knives and three
swords.  That pair were in the centre.  On each side the line stretched
out.  Horrible things were happening wherever she looked.

"Off my back, children," shouted Aslan.  And they both tumbled off.
Then with a roar that shook all Narnia from the Western lamp-post to
the shores of the Eastern sea the great beast flung himself upon the
White Witch.  Lucy saw her face lifted towards him for one second with
an expression of terror and amazement.  Then Lion and Witch had rolled
over together but with the Witch underneath; and at the same moment all
war-like creatures whom Aslan had led from the Witch's house rushed
madly on the enemy's line, dwarfs with their battle-axes, dogs with
teeth, the giant with his club (and his feet also crushed dozens of the
foe) unicorns with their horns, centaurs with swords and hoofs.  And
Peter's tired army cheered, and the newcomers roared, and the enemy
squealed and gibbered till the wood re-echoed with the din of that
onset.




CHAPTER XVII

_The Hunting of the White Stag_

The battle was all over a few minutes after their arrival.  Most of the
enemy had been killed in the first charge of Aslan and his companions;
and when those who were still living saw that the Witch was dead they
either gave themselves up or took to flight.  The next thing that Lucy
knew was that Peter and Aslan were shaking hands.  It was strange to
her to see Peter looking as he looked now--his face was so pale and
stern and he seemed so much older.

"It was all Edmund's doing, Aslan," Peter was saying.  "We'd have been
beaten if it hadn't been for him.  The Witch was-turning our troops
into stone right and left.  But nothing would stop him.  He fought his
way through three ogres to where she was just turning one of your
leopards into a statue.  And when he reached her he had the sense to
bring his sword smashing down on her wand instead of trying to go for
her directly and simply getting made a statue himself for his pains.
That was the mistake all the rest were making.  Once her wand was
broken we began to have some chance--if we hadn't lost so many already.
He was terribly wounded.  We must go and see him."

They found Edmund in charge of Mrs. Beaver a little way back from the
fighting line.  He was covered with blood, his mouth was open, and his
face a nasty green colour.

"Quick, Lucy," said Aslan.

And then, almost for the first time, Lucy remembered the precious
cordial that had been given her for a Christmas present.  Her hands
trembled so much that she could hardly undo the stopper, but she
managed it in the end and poured a few drops into her brother's mouth.

"There are other people wounded," said Aslan while she was still
looking eagerly into Edmund's pale face and wondering if the cordial
would have any result.

"Yes, I know," said Lucy crossly.  "Wait a minute."

"Daughter of Eve," said Aslan in a graver voice, "others also are at
the point of death.  Must more people die for Edmund?"

"I'm sorry, Aslan," said Lucy getting up and going with him.  And for
the next half hour they were busy--she attending to the wounded while
he restored those who had been turned into stone.  When at last she was
free to come back to Edmund she found him standing on his feet and not
only healed of his wounds but looking better than she had seen him
look--oh, for ages; in fact ever since his first term at that horrid
school which was where he had begun to go wrong.  He had become his
real old self again and could look you in the face.  And there on the
field of battle Aslan made him a Knight.

"Does he know," whispered Lucy to Susan, "what Aslan did for him?  Does
he know what the arrangement with the Witch really was?"

"Hush!  No.  Of course not," said Susan.

"Oughtn't he to be told?" said Lucy.

"Oh, surely not," said Susan.  "It would be too awful for him.  Think
how you'd feel if you were he."

"All the same I think he ought to know," said Lucy.  But at that moment
they were interrupted.

That night they slept where they were.  How Aslan provided food for
them all I don't know; but somehow or other they found themselves all
sitting down on the grass to a fine high tea at about eight o'clock.
Next day they began marching Eastward down the side of the great river.
And the next day after that, at about tea-time, they actually reached
the mouth.  The castle of Cair Paravel on its little hill towered up
above them; before them were the sands, with rocks and little pools of
salt water, and sea weed, and the smell of the sea, and long miles of
bluish-green waves breaking forever and ever on the beach.  And, oh,
the cry of the sea gulls!  Have you heard it?  Can you remember?

That evening after tea the four children all managed to get down to the
beach again and get their shoes and stockings off and feel the sand
between their toes.  But next day was more solemn.  For then, in the
Great Hall of Cair Paravel--that wonderful hall with the ivory roof and
the west door all hung with peacock's feathers and the eastern door
which opens right onto the sea, in the presence of all their friends
and to the sound of trumpets, Aslan solemnly crowned them and led them
onto the four thrones amid deafening shouts of, "Long Live King Peter!
Long Live Queen Susan!  Long Live King Edmund!  Long Live Queen Lucy!"

"Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen.  Bear it well,
Sons of Adam!  Bear it well, Daughters of Eve!" said Aslan.

And through the Eastern door, which was wide open came the voices of
the mermen and the mermaids swimming close to the castle steps and
singing in honour of their new Kings and Queens.

So the children sat in their thrones and sceptres were put into their
hands and they gave rewards and honours to all their friends, to Tumnus
the Faun, and to the Beavers, and Giant Rumblebuffin, to the leopards,
and the good centaurs and the good dwarfs, and to the lion.  And that
night there was a great feast in Cair Paravel, and revelry and dancing,
and gold flashed and wine flowed, and answering to the music inside,
but stranger, sweeter, and more piercing, came the music of the sea
people.

But amidst all these rejoicings Aslan himself quietly slipped away.
And when the Kings and Queens noticed that he wasn't there they said
nothing about it.  For Mr. Beaver had warned them, "He'll be coming and
going" he had said.  "One day you'll see him and another you won't.  He
doesn't like being tied down--and of course he has other countries to
attend to.  It's quite all right.  He'll often drop in.  Only you
mustn't press him.  He's wild, you know.  Not like a _tame_ lion."

And now, as you see, this story is nearly (but not quite) at an end.
These two Kings and two Queens governed Narnia well and long and happy
was their reign.  At first much of their time was spent in seeking out
the remnants of the White Witch's army and destroying them, and indeed
for a long time there would be news of evil things lurking in the
wilder parts of the forest--a haunting here and a killing there, a
glimpse of a werewolf one month and a rumour of a hag the next.  But in
the end all that foul brood was stamped out.  And they made good laws
and kept the peace and saved good trees from being unnecessarily cut
down, and liberated young dwarfs and young satyrs from being sent to
school, and generally stopped busybodies and interferers and encouraged
ordinary people who wanted to live and let live.  And they drove back
the fierce giants (quite a different sort from Giant Rumblebuffin) on
the North of Narnia when these ventured across the frontier.  And they
entered into friendship and alliance with countries beyond the sea and
paid them visits of state and received visits of state from them.  And
they themselves grew and changed as the years passed over them.  And
Peter became a tall and deep chested man and a great warrior, and he
was called King Peter the Magnificent.  And Susan grew into a tall and
gracious woman with black hair that fell almost to her feet and the
Kings of the countries beyond the sea began to send ambassadors asking
for her hand in marriage.  And she was called Queen Susan the Gentle.
Edmund was a graver and quieter man than Peter, and great in council
and judgement.  He was called King Edmund the Just.  But as for Lucy,
she was always gay and golden haired, and all Princes in those parts
desired her to be their Queen, and her own people called her Queen Lucy
the Valiant.

So they lived in great joy and if ever they remembered their life in
this world it was only as one remembers a dream.  And one year it fell
out that Tumnus (who was a middle-aged Faun by now and beginning to be
stout) came down river and brought them news that the White Stag had
once more appeared in his parts--the White Stag who would give you
wishes if you caught him.  So these two Kings and two Queens with the
principal members of their court, rode a-hunting with horns and hounds
in the Western Woods to follow the White Stag.  And they had not hunted
long before they had a sight of him.  And he led them a great pace over
rough and smooth and through thick and thin, till the horses of all the
courtiers were tired out and only these four were still following.  And
they saw the stag enter into a thicket where their horses could not
follow.  Then said King Peter (for they talked in quite a different
style now, having been Kings and Queens for so long) "Fair Consorts,
let us now alight from our horses and follow this beast into the
thicket; for in all my days I never hunted a nobler quarry."

"Sir," said the others, "even so let us do."

So they alighted and tied their horses to trees and went on into the
thick wood on foot.  And as soon as they had entered it Queen Susan
said,

"Fair friends, here is a great marvel, for I seem to see a tree of
iron."

"Madam," said King Edmund, "if you look well upon it you shall see it
is a pillar of iron with a lantern set on the top thereof."

"Marry, a strange device," said King Peter, "to set a lantern here
where the trees cluster so thick about it and so high above it that if
it were lit it should give light to no man!"

"Sir," said Queen Lucy.  "By likelihood when this post and this lamp
were set here there were smaller trees in the place, or fewer, or none.
For this is a young wood and the iron post is old."  And they stood
looking upon it.  Then said King Edmund,

"I know not how it is, but this lamp on the post worketh upon me
strangely.  It runs in my mind that I have seen the like before; as it
were in a dream, or in the dream of a dream."

"Sir," answered they all, "it is even so with us also."

"And more," said Queen Lucy, "for it will not go out of my mind that if
we pass this post and lantern, either we shall find strange adventures
or else some great change of our fortunes."

"Madam," said King Edmund, "the like foreboding stirreth in my heart
also."

"And in mine, fair brother," said King Peter.

"And in mine too," said Queen Susan.  "Wherefore by my council we shall
lightly return to our horses and follow this White Stag no further."

"Madam," said King Peter, "therein I pray thee to have me excused.  For
never since we four were Kings and Queens in Narnia have we set our
hands to any high matter, as battles, quests, feats of arms, acts of
justice, and the like, and then given over; but always what we have
taken in hand, the same we have achieved."

"Sister," said Queen Lucy, "my royal brother speaks rightly.  And it
seems to me we should be shamed if for any fearing or foreboding we
turned back from following so noble a beast as now we have in chase."

"And so say I," said King Edmund.  "And I have such desire to find the
signification of this thing that I would not by my good will turn back
for the richest jewel in all Narnia and all the islands."

"Then in the name of Aslan," said Queen Susan, "if ye will all have it
so, let us go on and take the adventure that shall fall to us."

So these Kings and Queens entered the thicket, and before they had gone
a score of paces they all remembered that the thing they had seen was
called a lamp-post, and before they had gone twenty more, they noticed
that they were making their way not through branches but through coats.
And next moment they all came tumbling out of a wardrobe door into the
empty room, and they were no longer Kings and Queens in their hunting
array but just Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy in their old clothes.  It
was the same day and the same hour of the day on which they had all
gone into the wardrobe to hide.  Mrs. Macready and the visitors were
still talking in the passage; but luckily they never came into the
empty room and so the children weren't caught.

And that would have been the very end of the story if it hadn't been
that they felt they really must explain to the Professor why four of
the coats out of his wardrobe were missing.  And the Professor, who was
a very remarkable man, didn't tell them not to be silly or not to tell
lies, but believed the whole story.  "No," he said, "I don't think it
will be any good trying to go back through the wardrobe door to get the
coats.  You won't get into Narnia again by _that_ route.  Nor would the
coats be much use by now if you did!  Eh?  What's that?  Yes, of course
you'll get back to Narnia again some day.  Once a King in Narnia,
always a King in Narnia.  But don't go trying to use the same route
twice.  Indeed, don't _try_ to get there at all.  It'll happen when
you're not looking for it.  And don't talk too much about it even among
yourselves.  And don't mention it to anyone else unless you find that
they've had adventures of the same sort themselves.  What's that?  How
will you know?  Oh, you'll _know_ all right.  Odd things, they
say--even their looks--will let the secret out.  Keep your eyes open.
Bless me, what _do_ they teach them at these schools?"

And that is the very end of the adventures of the wardrobe.  But if the
Professor was right it was only the beginning of the adventures of
Narnia.

_The End_






[End of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis]
