The Silver Chair. Клайв Стейплз Льюис

her eyes and mouth as wide as they would go, was the people themselves. If “people” was the right word. For only about one in every five was human. The rest were things you never see in our world. Fauns, satyrs, centaurs: Jill could give a name to these, for she had seen pictures of them. Dwarfs, too. And there were a lot of animals she knew as well; bears, badgers, moles, leopards, mice and various birds. But then they were so very different from the animals which one called by the same names in England. Some of them were much bigger – the mice, for instance, stood on their hind legs and were over two feet high. But quite apart from that, they all looked different. You could see by the expression in their faces that they could talk and think just as well as you could.

      “Golly!” thought Jill. “So it’s true after all.” But next moment she added, “I wonder, are they friendly?” For she had just noticed, on the outskirts of the crowd, one or two giants and some people whom she couldn’t give a name to at all.

      At that moment Aslan and the signs rushed back into her mind. She had forgotten all about them for the last half-hour.

      “Scrubb!” she whispered, grabbing his arm. “Scrubb, quick! Do you see anyone you know?”

      “So you’ve turned up again, have you?” said Scrubb disagreeably (for which he had some reason). “Well, keep quiet, can’t you? I want to listen.”

      “Don’t be a fool,” said Jill. “There isn’t a moment to lose. Don’t you see some old friend here? Because you’ve got to go and speak to him at once.”

      “What are you talking about?” said Scrubb.

      “It’s Aslan – the Lion – says you’ve got to,” said Jill despairingly. “I’ve seen him.”

      “Oh, you have, have you? What did he say?”

      “He said the very first person you saw in Narnia would be an old friend, and you’d got to speak to him at once.”

      “Well, there’s nobody here I’ve ever seen in my life before; and anyway, I don’t know whether this is Narnia.”

      “Thought you said you’d been here before,” said Jill.

      “Well, you thought wrong then.”

      “Well, I like that! You told me—”

      “For heaven’s sake dry up and let’s hear what they’re saying.”

      The King was speaking to the Dwarf, but Jill couldn’t hear what he said. And, as far as she could make out, the Dwarf made no answer, though he nodded and wagged his head a great deal. Then the King raised his voice and addressed the whole court: but his voice was so old and cracked that she could understand very little of his speech – especially since it was all about people and places she had never heard of.

      When the speech was over, the King stooped down and kissed the Dwarf on both cheeks, straightened himself, raised his right hand as if in blessing, and went, slowly and with feeble steps, up the gangway and on board the ship. The courtiers appeared to be greatly moved by his departure. Handkerchiefs were got out, sounds of sobbing were heard in every direction. The gangway was cast off, trumpets sounded from the poop, and the ship moved away from the quay. (It was being towed by a rowing-boat, but Jill didn’t see that.)

      “Now—” said Scrubb, but he didn’t get any further, because at that moment a large white object – Jill thought for a second that it was a kite – came gliding through the air and alighted at his feet. It was a white owl, but so big that it stood as high as a good-sized dwarf.

      It blinked and peered as if it were short-sighted, and put its head a little on one side, and said in a soft, hooting kind of voice:

      “Tu-whoo, tu-whoo! Who are you two?” “My name’s Scrubb, and this is Pole,” said Eustace. “Would you mind telling us where we are?”

      “In the land of Narnia, at the King’s castle of Cair Paravel.”

      “Is that the King who’s just taken ship?”

      “Too true, too true,” said the Owl sadly, shaking its big head. “But who are you? There’s something magic about you two. I saw you arrive: you flew. Everyone else was so busy seeing the King off that nobody knew. Except me. I happened to notice you, you flew.”

      “We were sent here by Aslan,” said Eustace in a low voice.

      “Tu-whoo, tu-whoo!” said the Owl, ruffling out its feathers. “This is almost too much for me, so early in the evening. I’m not quite myself till the sun’s down.”

      “And we’ve been sent to find the lost Prince,” said Jill, who had been anxiously waiting to get into the conversation.

      “It’s the first I’ve heard about it,” said Eustace. “What prince?”

      “You had better come and speak to the Lord Regent at once,” it said. “That’s him, over there in the donkey carriage; Trumpkin the Dwarf.” The bird turned and began leading the way, muttering to itself, “Whoo! Tu-whoo! What a to-do! I can’t think clearly yet. It’s too early.”

      “What is the King’s name?” asked Eustace.

      “Caspian the Tenth,” said the Owl. And Jill wondered why Eustace had suddenly pulled up short in his walk and turned an extraordinary colour. She thought she had never seen him look so sick about anything. But before she had time to ask any questions they had reached the Dwarf, who was just gathering up the reins of his donkey and preparing to drive back to the castle. The crowd of courtiers had broken up and were going in the same direction, by ones and twos and little knots, like people coming away from watching a game or a race.

      “Tu-whoo! Ahem! Lord Regent,” said the Owl, stooping down a little and holding its beak near the Dwarf’s ear.

      “Heh? What’s that?” said the Dwarf.

      “Two strangers, my lord,” said the Owl.

      “Rangers! What d’ye mean?” said the Dwarf. “I see two uncommonly grubby man-cubs. What do they want?”

      “My name’s Jill,” said Jill, pressing forward. She was very eager to explain the important business on which they had come.

      “The girl’s called Jill,” said the Owl, as loud as it could.

      “What’s that?” said the Dwarf. “The girls are all killed! I don’t believe a word of it. What girls? Who killed ’em?”

      “Only one girl, my lord,” said the Owl. “Her name is Jill.”

      “Speak up, speak up,” said the Dwarf. “Don’t stand there buzzing and twittering in my ear. Who’s been killed?”

      “Nobody’s been killed,” hooted the Owl.

      “Who?”

      “NOBODY.”

      “All right, all right. You needn’t shout. I’m not so deaf as all that. What do you mean by coming here to tell me that nobody’s been killed? Why should anyone have been killed?”

      “Better tell him I’m Eustace,” said Scrubb.

      “The boy’s Eustace, my lord,” hooted the Owl as loud as it could.

      “Useless?” said the Dwarf irritably. “I dare say he is. Is that any reason for bringing him to court? Hey?”

      “Not useless,” said the Owl. “EUSTACE.”

      “Used to it, is he? I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m sure. I tell you what it is, Master Glimfeather: when I was a young Dwarf there used to be talking beasts and birds in this country who really could talk. There wasn’t all this mumbling and muttering and whispering. It wouldn’t have been tolerated for a moment. Not for a moment, sir. Urnus, my trumpet please—”

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