Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis.
Title: Prince Caspian.
Author: C.S. Lewis.
Genre: Fiction, children's lit, fantasy.
Country: U.K.
Language: British.
Publication Date: 1951.
Summary: Troubled times have come to the magical land of Narnia. Gone are the days of peace and freedom when the animals, dwarfs, trees and flowers could live in absolute peace and harmony. Civil war is dividing the kingdom and final destruction is close at hand. Prince Caspian, the rightful heir to the throne, resolves to bring back Narnia's glorious past, so he blows his magic horn to call up Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund to help in his difficult task.
My rating: 8.5/10
My review:
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"We must," said Peter. "Cheer up, Susan. It's no good behaving like kids now that we are back in Narnia. You're a Queen here. And anyway no one could go to sleep with a mystery like this on their minds."
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♥ Away on his right he could see, rather indistinctly, the Western Mountains. On his left was the gleam of the Great River, and everything was so quiet that he could hear the sound of the waterfall at Beaversdam, a mile away. There was no difficulty in picking out the two stars they had come to see. They hung rather low in the southern sky, almost as bright as two little moons and very close together.
"Are they going to have a collision?" he asked in an awe-struck voice.
"Nay, dear Prince," said the Doctor (and he too spoke in a whisper). "The great lords of the upper sky know the steps of their dance too well for that. Look well upon them. Their meeting is fortunate and means some great good for the sad realm of Narnia. Tarva, the Lord of Victory, salutes Alambil, the Lady of Peace. They are just coming to their nearest."
♥ It was long and steep, but when they came out on the roof of the tower and Caspian had got his breath, he felt that it had been well worth it. Away on his right he could see, rather indistinctly, the Western Mountains. On his left was the gleam of the Great River, and everything was so quiet that he could hear the sound of the waterfall at Beaversdam, a mile away. There was no difficulty in picking out the two stars they had come to see. They hung rather low in the southern sky, almost as bright as two little moons and very close together.
"Are they going to have a collision?" he asked in an awestruck voice.
"Nay, dear Prince," said the Doctor (and he too spoke in a whisper). "The great lords of the upper sky know the steps of their dance too well for that. Look well upon them. Their meeting is fortunate and means some great good for the sad realm of Narnia. Tarva, the Lord of Victory, salutes Alambil, the Lady of Peace. They are just coming to their nearest."
♥ "Then it’s true about the Kings and Queens too, and about the White Witch?" said Caspian.
"Certainly it is true," said Cornelius. "Their reign was the Golden Age in Narnia and the land has never forgotten them."
♥ "Ugh!" said Caspian with a shudder. "Do you mean in the Black Woods? Where all the - the - you know, the ghosts live?"
"Your Highness speaks as you have been taught," said the Doctor. "But it is all lies. There are no ghosts there. That is a story invented by the Telmarines. Your Kings are in deadly fear of the sea because they can never quite forget that in all stories Aslan comes from over the sea. They don’t want to go near it and they don’t want anyone else to go near it. So they have let great woods grow up to cut their people off from the coast. But because they have quarreled with the trees they are afraid of the woods. And because they are afraid of the woods they imagine that they are full of ghosts. And the Kings and great men, hating both the sea and the wood, partly believe these stories, and partly encourage them. They feel safer if no one in Narnia dares to go down to the coast and look out to sea - toward Aslan’s land and the morning and the eastern end of the world."
♥ Destrier was as excited as his master at this unusual journey, and Caspian, though tears had come into his eyes at saying good-bye to Doctor Cornelius, felt brave and, in a way, happy, to think that he was King Caspian riding to seek adventures, with his sword on his left hip and Queen Susan’s magic horn on his right. But when day came, with a sprinkle of rain, and he looked about him and saw on every side unknown woods, wild heaths, and blue mountains, he thought how large and strange the world was and felt frightened and small.
♥ He would have stabbed Caspian then and there, if the Badger and Trumpkin had not got in the way and forced him back to his seat and held him down.
"Now, once and for all, Nikabrik," said Trumpkin. "Will you contain yourself, or must Trufflehunter and I sit on your head?"
♥
They came in a glade to an old hollow oak tree covered with moss, and Trufflehunter tapped with his paw three times on the trunk and there was no answer. Then he tapped again and a woolly sort of voice from inside said, "Go away. It's not time to get up yet." But when he tapped the third time there was a noise like a small earthquake from inside and a sort of door opened and out came three brown bears, very bulgy indeed and blinking their little eyes. And when everything had been explained to them (which took a long time because they were so sleepy) they said, just as Trufflehunter had said, that a son of Adam ought to be King of Narnia and all kissed Caspian - very wet, snuffly kisses they were - and offered him some honey. Caspian did not really want honey, without bread, at that time in the morning, but he thought it polite to accept. It took him a long time afterwards to get unsticky.
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He welcomed Caspian at once and asked if he would like a nut and Caspian said thanks, he would. But as Pattertwig went bounding away to fetch it, Trufflehunter whispered in Caspian's ear, "Don't look. Look the other way. It's very bad manners among squirrels to watch anyone going to his store or to look as if you wanted to know where it is." Then Pattertwig came back with the nut and Caspian ate it..
♥ ..and their gifts were noble - mail shirts and helmets and swords for Caspian and Trumpkin and Nikabrik. The Badger could have had the same if he had liked, but he said he was a beast, he was, and if his claws and teeth could not keep his skin whole, it wasn't worth keeping.
♥ "The time is ripe," said Glenstorm. "I watch the skies, Badger, for it is mine to watch, as it is yours to remember. Tarva and Alambil have met in the halls of high heaven, and on earth a son of Adam has once more arisen to rule and name the creatures. The hour has struck. Our council at the Dancing Lawn must be a council of war."
♥
It was well into the afternoon before they found themselves in level fields, warm between hedgerows. There Trufflehunter called at the mouth of a little hole in a green bank and out popped the last thing Caspian expected - a Talking Mouse. He was of course bigger than a common mouse, well over a foot high when he stood on his hind legs, and with ears nearly as long as (though broader than) a rabbit's. His name was Reepicheep and he was a gay and martial mouse. He wore a tiny little rapier at his side and twirled his long whiskers as if they were a moustache.
♥ The Fauns footed it all round Caspian to their reedy pipes. Their strange faces, which seemed mournful and merry all at once, looked into his; dozens of Fauns, Mentius and Obentinus and Dumnus, Voluns, Voltinus, Girbius, Nimienus, Nausus, and Oscuns.
♥ Last of all (and this took Caspian's breath away), with the Centaurs came a small but genuine Giant, Wombleweather of Deadman's Hill, carrying on his back a basketful of rather sea-sick Dwarfs who had accepted his offer of a lift and were now wishing they had walked instead.
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♥ "Those who run first do not always run last," said the Centaur. "And why should we let the enemy choose our position instead of choosing it ourselves? Let us find a strong place."
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The gloomiest of all was Giant Wimbleweather. He knew it was all his fault. He sat in silence shedding big tears which collected on the end of his nose and then fell off with a huge splash on the whole bivouac of the Mice, who had just been beginning to get warm and drowsy. They all jumped up, shaking the water out of their ears and wringing their little blankets, and asked the Giant in shrill but forcible voices whether he thought they weren't wet enough without this sort of thing. And then other people woke up and told the Mice they had been enrolled as scouts and not as a concert party, and asked why they couldn't keep quiet. And Wimbleweather tiptoed away to find some place where he could be miserable in peace and stepped on somebody's tail and somebody (they said afterwards it was a fox) bit him. And so everyone was out of temper.
♥ "If your Majesty is ever to use the Horn," said Trufflehunter, "I think the time has now come." Caspian had of course told them of his treasure several days ago.
"We are certainly in great need," answered Caspian. "But it is hard to be sure we are at our greatest. Supposing there came an even worse need and we had already used it?"
"By that argument," said Nikabrik, "your Majesty will never use it until it is too late."
♥ "..Send me, Sire, I'll go."
"But I thought you didn't believe in the Horn, Trumpkin," said Caspian.
"No more I do, your Majesty. But what's that got to do with it? I might as well die on a wild goose chase as die here. You are my King. I know the difference between giving advice and taking orders. You've had my advice, and now it's the time for orders."
♥ "Great Scott!" said Peter. "So it was the horn - your own horn, Su - that dragged us all off that seat on the platform yesterday morning! I can hardly believe it; yet it all fits in."
"I don't know why you shouldn't believe it," said Lucy, "if you believe in magic at all. Aren't there lots of stories about magic forcing people out of one place - out of one world - into another? I mean, when the magician in The Arabian Nights call up a Jinn, it has to come. We had to come, just like that."
"Yes," said Peter, "I suppose what makes it feel so queer is that in the stories it's always someone in our world who does the calling. One doesn't really think about where the Jinn's coming from."
"And now we know what it feels like for the Jinn," said Edmund with a chuckle. "Golly! It's a bit uncomfortable to know that we can be whistled for like that. It's worse than what Father says about living at the mercy of the telephone."
"But we want to be here, don't we," said Lucy, "if Aslan wants us?"
♥ "Look here," said Edmund, "need we go by the same way that Our Dear little Friend came?"
"No more of that, your Majesty, if you love me," said the Dwarf.
"Very well," said Edmund. "May I say our D.L.F.?"
"Oh, Edmund," said Susan. "Don't keep on at him like that."
"That's alright, lass - I mean your Majesty," said Trumpkin with a chuckle. "A jibe won't raise a blister." (And after that they often called him the D.L.F. till they'd almost forgotten what it meant.)
♥ "It's like old times," said Lucy. "Don you remember our voyage to Terebenthia - and Galma - and Seven Isles - and the Lone Islands?"
♥ She knew that one of the best ways of getting to sleep is to stop trying, so she opened her eyes. Through a gap in the bracken and branches she could just see a patch of water in the Creek and the sky above it. Then, with a thrill of memory, she saw again, after all those years, the bright Narnian stars. She had once known them better than the stars in our own world, because as a Queen in Narnia she had gone to bed much later than as a child in England. And there they were - at least, three of the summer constellations could be seen from where she lay: the Ship, the Hammer, and the Leopard. "Dear old Leopard," she murmured happily to herself.
Instead of getting drowsier she was getting more awake - with an odd, night-time, dreamish kind of wakefulness.
♥ "That's the worst of girls," said Edmund to Peter and the Dwarf. "They never can carry a map in their heads."
"That's because our heads have something inside them," said Lucy.
♥ They even thought they had struck an old path; but if you know anything about woods, you will know that one is always finding imaginary paths. They disappear after about five minutes and then you think you have found another (and hope it is not the another but more of the same one) and it also disappears, and after you have been well lured out of your right direction you realize that none of them were paths at all.
♥ "I - I left it too late," saiod Suisan, ion an embarrassed bvoice. "I was so afrtaid it might be, yuo8u know - one of our kibnd of bears, a talking bear." She hated killing things.
"That's the trouble of it," sasid Trumpkin, "when most of the beasts have gone enbemy and gone dumb, but there are srtill some of the other kind left. You never know, and you daren't wait to see."
"Poor old Bruin," said Susanb. "You don;t thinkj he was?"
"Not he," saoid the Dwarf. "I saw the gfasce and I heard the snarl. He only wanted Little Girl for his breakgfast."
..Lucy shyuddered and nodded. When they had sat down she said: "Such a horrible idea has come into my head, Su."
"What's that?"
"Wouldn't it be dreadful if some day, in our own world, at home, men started going wild inside, like the animals here, and still looked like men, so that you'd never know which were which?"
♥
"Look! Look! Look!" cried Lucy.
"Where? What?" asked everyone.
"The Lion," said Lucy. "Aslan himself. Didn't you see?" Her faced had changed completely and her eyes shone.
.."And none of us except you saw anything."
"Edmund?" said Peter.
"Well, there's just this," said Edmund, speaking quickly and turning a little red. "When we first discovered Narnia a year ago - or a thousand years ago, whichever it is - it was Lucy who discovered it first and none of us would believe her. I was the worst of the lot, I know. Yet she was right after all. Wouldn't it be fair to believe her this time?"
♥ "By Jove," said Edmund. "We fought the Battle of Beruna just where that town is!"
This cheered the boys more than anything. You can't help feeling stronger when you look at a place where you won a glorious victory, not to mention a kingdom, hundreds of years ago. Peter and Edmund were soon so busy talking about the battle that they forgot their sore feet and the heavy drag of their mail shirts on their shoulders.
♥ Lucy woke out of the deepest sleep you can imagine, with the feeling that the voice she liked best in the world had been calling her name. She thought at first it was her father's voice, but that did not seem quite right. Then she thought it was Peter's voice, but that did not seem to fit either. She did not want to get up; not because she was still tired - on the contrary she was wonderfully rested and all the aches had gone from her bones - but because she felt so extremely happy and comfortable. She was looking straight up at the Narnian moon, which is larger than ours, and at the starry sky, for the place where they had bivouacked was comparatively open.
..But she was only half interested in them. She wanted to get beyond them to something else; it was from beyond them that the dear voice had called.
..She stepped out from among their shifting confusion of lovely lights and shadows.
A circle of grass, smooth as a lawn, met her eyes, with dark trees dancing all round it. And then - oh joy! For he was there: the huge Lion, shining white in the moonlight, with his huge black shadow underneath them.
♥ "Welcome, child," he said.
"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger."
"That is because you are older, little one," answered he.
"Not because you are?"
"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."
♥ "You mean," said Lucy rather faintly, "that it would have turned out all right - somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?"
"To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No. Nobody is ever told that."
"Oh dear," said Lucy.
"But anyone can find out what will happen," said Aslan.
♥ "But they won't believe me!" said Lucy.
"It doesn't matter," said Aslan.
"Oh dear, oh dear," said Lucy. "And I was so pleased at finding you again. And I thought you'd let me stay. And I thought you'd come roaring in and frighten all the enemies away - like last time. And now everything is going to be horrid."
"It is hard for you, little one, said Aslan. "But things never happen the same way twice. It has been hard for us all in Narnia before now."
Lucy buried her head in his mane to hide from his face. But there must have been magic in his mane. She could feel lion-strength going into her. Quite suddenly she sat up.
"I'm sorry, Aslan," she said, "I'm ready now."
"Now you are a lioness," said Aslan. "And now all Narnia will be renewed."
♥ "Lucy," said Susan in a very small voice.
"Yes?" said Lucy.
"I see him now. I'm sorry."
"That's all right."
"But I've been far worse than you know. I really believed it was him - he, I mean - yesterday. When he warned us not to go down to the fir wood. And I really believed it was him tonight, when you woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I'd let myself. But I just wanted to get out of the woods and - and - oh, I don't know. And what ever am I to say to him?"
"Perhaps you won't need to say much," suggested Lucy.
♥ "Hush!" said the other four, for now Aslan had stopped and turned and stood facing them, looking so majestic that they felt as glad as anyone can who feels afraid, and as afraid as anyone can who feels glad.
♥ Then, after an awful pause, the deep voice said, "Susan." Susan made no answer but the others thought she was crying. "You have listened to fears, child," said Aslan. "Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?"
"A little, Aslan," said Susan.
♥ "And now, where is this little Dwarf, this famous swordsman and archer, who doesn't believe in lions? Come here, son of Earth, cone HERE!" - and the last word was no longer the hint of a roar but almost the real thing.
"Wraiths and wreckage!" gasped Trumpkin in the ghost of a voice. The children, who knew Aslan well enough to see that he liked the Dwarf very much, were not disturbed; but it was quite another thing for Trumpkin, who had never seen a lion before, let alone this Lion. He did the only sensible thing he could have done; that is, instead of bolting, he tottered towards Aslan.
Aslan pounced. Have you ever seen a very young kitten being carried in the mother cat's mouth? It was like that. The Dwarf, hunched up in a little miserable ball, hung from Aslan's mouth. The Lion gave him one shake and all his armour rattled like a tinker's pack and then - hey-presto - the Dwarf flew up in the air. He was as safe as if he had been in bed, though he did not feel so. As he came down the huge velvety paws caught him as gently as a mother's arms and set him (right way up, too) on the ground.
"Son of Earth, shall we be friends?" asked Aslan.
"Ye - he - he - hes," panted the Dwarf, for it had not yet got its breath back.
♥ "I say, Su, I know who they are."
"Who?"
"The boy with the wild face is Bacchus and the old one on the donkey is Silenus. Don't you remember Mr Tumnus telling us about them long ago?"
"Yes, of course. But I say, Lu-"
"What?"
"I wouldn't have felt safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we'd met them without Aslan."
"I should think not," said Lucy.
♥ ..two sentinel badgers (the white patches on their cheeks were all Edmund could see of them) leaped up with bared teeth and asked them in snarling voices, "Who goes there?"
"Trumpkin," said the Dwarf. "Bringing the High King of Narnia out of the far past."
"The badgers nosed at the boys' hands. "At last," they said. "At last."
♥ "You there, who and what are you?"
"Worshipful Master Doctor," came a thin, whining voice. "So please you, I'm only a poor old woman, I am, and very obliged to his Worshipful Dwarfship for his friendship, I'm sure. His Majesty, bless his handsome face, has no need to be afraid of an old woman that's nearly doubled up with the rheumatics and hasn't two sticks to put under her kettle. I have some poor little skill - not like yours, Master Doctor, of course - in small spells and cantrips that I'd be glad to use against our enemies if it was agreeable to all concerned. For I hate 'em. Oh yes. No one hates better than me."
"That is all most interesting and - er - satisfactory," said Doctor Cornelius. "I think I now know what you are, Madam. Perhaps your other friend, Nikabrik, would give some account of himself?"
A dull, grey voice at which Peter's flesh crept replied, "I'm hunger. I'm thirst. Where I bite, I hold till I die, and even after death they must cut out my mouthful from my enemy's body and bury it with me. I can fast a hundred years and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze. I can drink a river of blood and not burst. Show me your enemies."
♥ "Oh, bless his heart, his dear little Majesty needn't mind about the White Lady - that's what we call her - being dead. The Worshipful Master Doctor is only making game of a poor old woman like me when he says that. Sweet Master Doctor, learned Master Doctor, who ever heard of a witch that really died? You can always get them back."
♥ "And you, I suppose, are King Caspian?"
"Yes," said the other boy. "But I've no idea who you are."
"It's the High King, King Peter," said Trumpkin.
"Your Majesty is very welcome," said Caspian.
"And so is your Majesty," said Peter. "I haven't come to take your place, you know, but to put you into it."
"Your Majesty," said another voice at Peter's elbow. He turned and found himself face to face with the Badger. Peter leaned forward, put his arms round the beast and kissed the furry head: it wasn't a girlish thing for him to do, because he was the High King.
"Best of badgers," he said. "You never doubted us all through."
"No credit to me, your Majesty," said Trufflehunter. "I'm a beast and we don't change. I'm a badger, what's more, and we hold on."
"I am sorry for Nikabrik," said Caspian, "though he hated me from the first moment he saw me. He had gone sour inside from long suffering and hating. If we had won quickly he might have become a good Dwarf in the days of peace. I don't know which of us killed him. I'm glad of that."
♥ Peter dictated as follows:
"Peter, by the gift of Aslan, by election, by prescription, and by conquest, High King over all Kings in Narnia, Emperor of the Lone Islands and Lord of Cair Paravel, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lion, to Miraz, Son of Caspian the Eighth, sometime Lord Protector of Narnia and now styling himself King of Narnia, Greeting.
♥ Not indeed would the other boys at Edmund's school have recognized him if they could have seen him at that moment. For Aslan had breathed on him at their meeting and a kind of greatness hung about him.
♥ "Please, your Majesty," said the Bear.
"It is your right," said Peter. "And you shall be one of the marshals. But you must remember not to suck your paws."
"Of course not," said the Bear in a very shocked voice.
"Why, you're doing it this minute!" bellowed Trumpkin.
The Bear whipped his paw out of his mouth and pretended he hadn't heard.
♥ "I am afraid it would not do," said Pewter very gravely. "Some humans are afraid of mice-"
"I had observed it, Sire," said Reepicheep.
"And it would not be quite fair to Miraz," Peter continued, "to have in sight anything that might abate the edge of his courage."
"Your Majesty is the mirror of honours," said the Mouse with one of his admirable bows. "And on this matter we have but a single mind. ... I thought I heard someone laughing just now. If anyone present wishes to make me the subject of his wit, I am very much at his service - with my sword - whenever he has leisure."
An awful silence followed this remark..
♥ "I say," said Edmund as they walked away, "I suppose it is all right. I mean, I suppose you can beat him?"
"That's what I'm fighting him to find out," said Peter.
♥
♥ "Come back, Reepicheep, you little ass!" shouted Peter. "You'll only be killed. This is no place for mice." But the ridiculous little creatures were dancing in and out among the feet of both armies, jabbing with their swords. Many a Telmarine warrior that day felt his foot suddenly pierced as if by a dozen skewers, hopped on one leg cursing the pain, and fell as often as not. If he fell, the mice finished him off; if he did not, someone else did.
♥ Then the whole party moved off - Aslan leading, Bacchus and his Maenads leaping, rushing, and turning somersaults, the beasts frisking round them, and Silenus and his donkey bringing up the rear.
They turned a little to the right, raced down a steep hill, and found the long Bridge of Beruna in front of them. Before they had begun to cross it, however, up out of the water came a great wet, bearded head, larger than a man's, crowned with rushes. It looked at Aslan and out of its mouth a deep voice came.
"Hail, Lord," it said. "Loose my chains."
"Who on earth is that?" whispered Susan.
"I think it's the river-god, but hush," said Lucy.
"Bacchus," said Aslan. "Deliver him from his chains."
"That means the bridge, I expect," thought Lucy. And so it did. Bacchus and his people splashed forward into the shallow water, and a minute later the most curious things began happening. Great, strong trunks of ivy came curling up all the piers of the bridge, growing as quickly as a fire grows, wrapping the stones round, splitting, breaking, separating them. The walls of the bridge turned into hedges gay with hawthorn for a moment and then disappeared as the whole thing with a rush and a rumble collapsed into the swirling water. With much splashing, screaming, and laughter the revellers waded or swam or danced across the ford ("Hurrah! It's the Ford of Beruna again now!" cried the girls) and up the bank on the far side and into the town.
♥ "Let's go and see who it is," said another boy, and they all came crowding to the window. But as soon as their mean little faces looked out, Bacchus gave a great cry of Euan, euoi-oi-oi-oi and the boys all began howling with fright and trampling one another down to get out of the door and jumping out of the windows. And it was said afterwards (whether truly or not) that those particular little boys were never seen again, but that there were a lot of very fine little pigs in that part of the country which had never been there before.
♥ They came to a little cottage where a child stood in the doorway crying. "Why are you crying, my love?" asked Aslan. The child, who had never even seen a picture of a lion, was not afraid of him. "Auntie's very ill," he said. "She's going to die." Then Aslan went to go in at the door of the cottage, but it was too small for him. So, when he had got his head through, he pushed with his shoulders (Lucy and Susan fell off when he did this) and lifted the whole house up and it all fell backwards and apart. And there, still in her bed, though the bed was now in the open air, lay a little old woman who looked as if she had Dwarf blood in her. She was at death's door, but when she opened her eyes and saw the bright, hairy head of the lion staring into her face, she did not scream or faint. She said, "Oh, Aslan! I knew it was true. I've been waiting for his all my life. Have you come to take me away?"
"Yes, Dearest," said Aslan. "But not the long journey yet." And as he spoke, like the flush creeping along the underside of a cloud at sunrise, the colour came back to her white face and her eyes grew bright and she sat up and said, "Why, I do declare I feel that better. I think I could take a little breakfast."
"Here you are, mother," said Bacchus, dipping a pitcher in the cottage well and handing it to her. But what was in it now was not water but the richest wine, red as red-currant jelly, smooth as opal, strong as beef, warming as tea, cool as dew.
♥ "Welcome, Prince," said Aslan. "Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?"
"I - I don't think I do, Sir," said Caspian. "I'm only a kid."
"Good," said Aslan. "If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not. Therefore, under us and under the High King, you shall be King of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel, and Emperor of the Lone Islands."
♥ The fact was that he stiuklk had no tail - whether that KLucy had forgotten it or that her cordial, though it could heal wounds, could not make things gfrow again. Reepicheep became aware of his loss as he made his bow; perhaps it altered something in his balance. He looked over his right shoulder. Feiling to see his tail, he strained his nbeck further till he had to turn his shouldfers and his whole body followed. But by that time his hind-quarters had turned too and were out of sight. Then he strained his bneck looking over his shoulder again, wuith the same result. Only agter he had turened completely round three times did he realized the frefful truth.
"I am confounded," saiod Reepicheep to Sland. "I amj coimpoletely out of countenance. I must crave your induylgence for appearing in this unseenmlty fashion."
"Ut becomes you very well, Snall One," said Aslan.
"Aklk the same,": replied Reepicheep, "if antyhing could be done... Perhaps her Mhjesty?" and here he bowed to Lucy.
"But what dio you want wiuth a yail?" asked Aslan.
"Sir," said the Nouse,m :I can ear and skeep and die for my King wiuthout one. But a tail is the honour and glory of a Mopuse."
"IU have sometimes wonfderedm friend,:" said Aslan, /;whether you do not think too much about your honour."
"HGiughest of all Hiugh Kings," said Reepicheep, "permit me to remind you trhat a very small size has been bestiowed on us Mice, and if we did not guard iur dignity, some (who weeigh worth by inches) would allow themselvews very unsuiitable pleasantrries at our expense. That is why I have been at some pains to make it known that no one who does not wiush to feel thiw sword as near his heart as aI can reach shakll talk in my presence about Yraps or Toasted Cheese or Candles: no, Sir - not the takllest fool in Narnia!" Here he glared very fiercelty up at WImbleweather,m but the GFiant, who was always a stagfe behgind everyone else, had not yet discovered what was ebhing talked about down at his feet, ands so miussed the posint.
"Why have your followers all drawn their swords, may I ask?" said Aslan.
"May it please your High Majesty," said the second Mouse, whose name was Peepiceek, "we are all waiting to cut off our own tails if our Chief must go without his. We will not bear the shame of wearing an honour which is denied to the High Mouse."
"Ah!" roared Aslan. "You have conquered me. You have great hearts. Not for the sake of your dignity, Reepicheep, but for the love that is between you and your people, and still more for the kindness your people showed me long ago when you ate away the cords that bound me on the Stone Table (and it was then, though you have long forgotten it, that you began to be Talking Mice), you shall have your tail again."
♥ Thus Aslan feasted the Narnians till long after the sunset had died away, and the stars had come out; and the great fire, now hotter but less noisy, shone like a beacon in the dark woods, and the frightened Telmarines saw it from far away and wondered what it might mean. The best thing of all about this feast was that there was no breaking up or going away, but as the talk grew quieter and slower, one after another would begin to nod and finally drop off to sleep with feet towards the fire and good friends on either side, till at last there was silence all round the circle, and the chattering of water over stone at the Fords of Beruna could be heard once more. But all night Aslan and the Moon gazed upon each other with joyful and unblinking eyes.
♥ "You, Sir Caspian," said Aslan, "might have known that you could be no true King of Narnia unless, like the Kings of old, you were a son of Adam and came from the worlds of Adam's sons. And so you are. Many years ago in that world, in a deep sea of that world which is called the South Sea, a shipload of pirates were driven by storm on an island. And there they did as pirates would: killed the natives and took the native women for wives, and made palm wine, and drank and were drunk, and lay in the shade of the palm trees, and woke up and quarrelled, and sometimes killed one another. And in one of these frays six were put to flight by the rest and fled with their women into the centre of the island and up a mountain, and went, as they thought, into a cave to hide. But it was one of the magical places of that world, one of the chinks or chasms between that world and this. There were many chinks or chasms between worlds in old times, but they have grown rarer. This was one of the last: I do not say the last. And so they fell, or rose, or blundered, or dropped right through, and found themselves in this world, in the Land or Telmar which was then unpeopled. But why it was unpeopled is a long story. I will not tell it now. And in Telmar their descendants lived and became a fierce and proud people; and after many generations there was a famine in Telmar and they invaded Narnia, which was then in some disorder (but that also would be a long story), and conquered it and ruled it. Do you mark all this well, King Caspian?"
"I do indeed, Sir," said Caspian. "I was wishing that I came of a more honourable lineage."
"You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content."
♥ "Was that what Aslan was talking to you and Susan about this morning?" asked Lucy.
"Yes - that and other things," said Peter, his face very solemn. "I can't tell it to you all. There were things he wanted to say to Su and me because we're not coming back to Narnia."
"Never?" cried Edmund and Lucy in dismay.
"Oh, you two are," answered Peter. "At least, from what he said, I'm pretty sure he means you to get back some day. But not Su and me. He says we're getting too old.
"Oh, Peter," said Lucy. "What awful bad luck. Can you bear it?"
"Well, I think I can," said Peter. "It's all rather different from what I thought. You'll understand when it comes to your last time."
♥
