The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - Lewis Clive Staples - Страница 13

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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-amountains 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 life-like 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, Maugrim, 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 beside 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 riverwith 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.”

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 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 the 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 five 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 took 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 on to 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.”

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