The Last Battle. Клайв Стейплз Льюис

if you didn’t know perfectly well what weak chests Apes always have and how easily they catch cold! Very well. I will go in. I’m feeling cold enough already in this cruel wind. But I’ll go in. I shall probably die. Then you’ll be sorry.” And Shift’s voice sounded as if he was just going to burst into tears.

      “Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t,” said Puzzle, half braying and half talking. “I never meant anything of the sort, Shift, really I didn’t. You know how stupid I am and how I can’t think of more than one thing at a time. I’d forgotten about your weak chest. Of course I’ll go in. You mustn’t think of doing it yourself. Promise me you won’t, Shift.”

      So Shift promised, and Puzzle went cloppety-clop on his four hoofs round the rocky edge of the Pool to find a place where he could get in. Quite apart from the cold it was no joke getting into that quivering and foaming water, and Puzzle had to stand and shiver for a whole minute before he made up his mind to do it. But then Shift called out from behind him and said: “Perhaps I’d better do it after all, Puzzle.” And when Puzzle heard that he said, “No, no. You promised. I’m in now,” and in he went.

      A great mass of foam got him in the face and filled his mouth with water and blinded him. Then he went under altogether for a few seconds, and when he came up again he was in quite another part of the Pool. Then the swirl caught him and carried him round and round and faster and faster till it took him right under the waterfall itself, and the force of the water plunged him down, deep down, so that he thought he would never be able to hold his breath till he came up again. And when he had come up and when at last he got somewhere near the thing he was trying to catch, it sailed away from him till it too got under the fall and was forced down to the bottom. When it came up again it was farther from him than ever.

      But at last, when he was almost tired to death, and bruised all over and numb with cold, he succeeded in gripping the thing with his teeth. And out he came carrying it in front of him and getting his front hoofs tangled up in it, for it was as big as a large hearthrug, and it was very heavy and cold and slimy.

      He flung it down in front of Shift and stood dripping and shivering and trying to get his breath back. But the ape never looked at him or asked him how he felt. The ape was too busy going round and round the thing and spreading it out and patting it and smelling it. Then a wicked gleam came into his eye and he said: “It is a lion’s skin.”

      “Ee – auh – auh – oh, is it?” gasped Puzzle.

      “Now I wonder… I wonder… I wonder,” said Shift to himself, for he was thinking very hard.

      “I wonder who killed the poor lion,” said Puzzle presently. “It ought to be buried. We must have a funeral.”

      “Oh, it wasn’t a Talking Lion,” said Shift. “You needn’t bother about that. There are no Talking Beasts up beyond the Falls, up in the Western Wild. This skin must have belonged to a dumb, wild lion.”

      This, by the way, was true. A Hunter, a Man, had killed and skinned this lion somewhere up in the Western Wild several months before. But that doesn’t come into this story.

      “All the same, Shift,” said Puzzle, “even if the skin only belonged to a dumb, wild lion, oughtn’t we to give it a decent burial? I mean, aren’t all lions rather – well, rather solemn? Because of you-know-who. Don’t you see?”

      “Don’t you start getting ideas into your head, Puzzle,” said Shift. “Because, you know, thinking isn’t your strong point. We’ll make this skin into a fine warm winter coat for you.”

      “Oh, I don’t think I’d like that,” said the Donkey. “It would look – I mean, the other beasts might think – that is to say, I shouldn’t feel—”

      “What are you talking about?” said Shift, scratching himself the wrong way up as Apes do.

      “I don’t think it would be respectful to the Great Lion, to Aslan himself, if an ass like me went about dressed up in a lion-skin,” said Puzzle.

      “Now don’t stand arguing, please,” said Shift. “What does an ass like you know about things of that sort? You know you’re no good at thinking, Puzzle, so why don’t you let me do your thinking for you? Why don’t you treat me as I treat you? I don’t think I can do everything. I know you’re better at some things than I am. That’s why I let you go into the Pool; I knew you’d do it better than me. But why can’t I have my turn when it comes to something I can do and you can’t? Am I never to be allowed to do anything? Do be fair. Turn and turn about.”

      “Oh, well, of course, if you put it that way,” said Puzzle.

      “I tell you what,” said Shift. “You’d better take a good brisk trot down river as far as Chippingford and see if they have any oranges or bananas.”

      “But I’m so tired, Shift,” pleaded Puzzle.

      “Yes, but you are very cold and wet,” said the Ape. “You want something to warm you up. A brisk trot would be just the thing. Besides, it’s market day at Chippingford today.” And then of course Puzzle said he would go.

      As soon as he was alone Shift went shambling along, sometimes on two paws and sometimes on four, till he reached his own tree. Then he swung himself up from branch to branch, chattering and grinning all the time, and went into his little house. He found needle and thread and a big pair of scissors there; for he was a clever ape and the Dwarfs had taught him how to sew. He put the ball of thread (it was very thick stuff, more like cord than thread) into his mouth so that his cheek bulged out as if he were sucking a big bit of toffee. He held the needle between his lips and took the scissors in his left paw. Then he came down the tree and shambled across to the lion-skin. He squatted down and got to work.

      He saw at once that the body of the lion-skin would be too long for Puzzle and its neck too short. So he cut a good piece out of the body and used it to make a long collar for Puzzle’s long neck. Then he cut off the head and sewed the collar in between the head and the shoulders. He put threads on both sides of the skin so that it would tie up under Puzzle’s chest and stomach. Every now and then a bird would pass overhead and Shift would stop his work, looking anxiously up. He did not want anyone to see what he was doing. But none of the birds he saw were Talking Birds, so it didn’t matter.

      Late in the afternoon Puzzle came back. He was not trotting but only plodding patiently along, the way donkeys do.

      “There weren’t any oranges,” he said, “and there weren’t any bananas. And I’m very tired.” He lay down.

      “Come and try on your beautiful new lion-skin coat,” said Shift.

      “Oh, bother that old skin,” said Puzzle. “I’ll try it on in the morning. I’m too tired tonight.”

      “You are unkind, Puzzle,” said Shift. “If you’re tired, what do you think I am? All day long, while you’ve been having a lovely refreshing walk down the valley, I’ve been working hard to make you a coat. My hands are so tired I can hardly hold these scissors. And now you won’t say thank you – and you won’t even look at the coat – and you don’t care – and – and—”

      “My dear Shift,” said Puzzle, getting up at once, “I am so sorry. I’ve been horrid. Of course I’d love to try it on. And it looks simply splendid. Do try it on me at once. Please do.”

      “Well, stand still then,” said the Ape. The skin was very heavy for him to lift, but in the end, with a lot of pulling and pushing and puffing and blowing, he got it on to the donkey. He tied it underneath Puzzle’s body and he tied the legs to Puzzle’s legs and the tail to Puzzle’s tail. A good deal of Puzzle’s grey nose and face could be seen through the open mouth of the lion’s head. No one who had ever seen a real lion would have been taken in for a moment. But if someone who had never seen a lion looked at Puzzle in his lion-skin he just might mistake him for a lion, if he didn’t come