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  　小＿说t-x-t＿天/堂

  travels without the sun "whos there?" shouted the three travellers.

  "i am the warden of the marches of underland, and with me stand a hundred earthmen in arms," came the reply. "tell me quickly who you are and what is your errand in the deep realm?”

  "we fell down by accident," said puddleglum, truthfully enough.

  "many fall down, and few return to the sunlit lands," said the voice. "make ready now to come with me to the queen of the deep realm.”

  "what does she want with us?" asked scrubb cautiously.

  "i do not know," said the voice. "her will is not to be questioned but obeyed.”

  while he said these words there was a noise like a soft explosion and immediately a cold light, grey with a little blue in it, flooded the cavern. all hope that the speaker had been idly boasting when he spoke of his hundred armed followers died at once. jill found herself blinking and staring at a dense crowd. they were of all sizes, from little gnomes barely a foot high to stately figures taller than men. all carried three- pronged spears in their hands, and all were dreadfully pale, and all stood as still as statues. apart from that, they were very different; some had tails and others not, some wore great beards and others had very round, 【创建和谐家园】ooth faces, big as pumpkins. there were long, pointed noses, and long, soft noses like 【创建和谐家园】all trunks, and great blobby noses. several had single horns in the middle of their foreheads. but in one respect they were all alike: every face in the whole hundred was as sad as a face could be. they were so sad that, after the first glance, jill almost forgot to be afraid of them. she felt she would like to cheer them up.

  "well!" said puddleglum, rubbing his hands. "this is just what i needed. if these chaps dont teach me to take a serious view of life, i dont know what will. look at that fellow with the walrus moustache - or that one with the -”

  "get up," said the leader of the earthmen.

  there was nothing else to be done. the three travellers scrambled to their feet and joined hands. one wanted the touch of a friends hand at a moment like that. and the earthmen came all round them, padding on large, soft feet, on which some had ten toes, some twelve, and others none.

  "march," said the warden: and march they did.

  the cold light came from a large ball on the top of a long pole, and the tallest of the gnomes carried this at the head of the procession. by its cheerless rays they could see that they were in a natural cavern; the walls and roof were knobbed, twisted, and gashed into a thousand fantastic shapes, and the stony floor sloped downward as they proceeded. it was worse for jill than for the others, because she hated dark, underground places. and when, as they went on, the cave got lower and narrower, and when, at last, the light-bearer stood aside, and the gnomes, one by one, stooped down (all except the very 【创建和谐家园】allest ones) and stepped into a little dark crack and disappeared, she felt she could bear it no longer.

  "i cant go in there, i cant! i cant! i wont," she panted. the earthmen said nothing but they all lowered their spears and pointed them at her.

  "steady, pole," said puddleglum. "those big fellows wouldnt be crawling in there if it didnt get wider later on. and theres one thing about this underground work, we shant get any rain.”

  "oh, you dont understand. i cant," wailed jill.

  "think how 1 felt on that cliff, pole," said scrubb. "you go first, puddleglum, and ill come after her.”

  "thats right," said the marsh-wiggle, getting down on his hands and knees. "you keep a grip of my heels, pole, and scrubb will hold on to yours. then well all be comfortable.”

  "comfortable!" said jill. but she got down and they crawled in on their elbows. it was a nasty place. you had to go flat on your face for what seemed like half an hour, though it may really have been only five minutes. it was hot. jill felt she was being 【创建和谐家园】othered. but at last a dim light showed ahead, the tunnel grew wider and higher, and they came out, hot, dirty, and shaken, into a cave so large that it scarcely seemed like a cave at all.

  it was full of a dim, drowsy radiance, so that here they had no need of the earthmens strange lantern. the floor was soft with some kind of moss and out of this grew many strange shapes, branched and tall like trees, but flabby like mushrooms. they stood too far apart to make a forest; it was more like a park. the light (a greenish grey) seemed to come both from them and from the moss, and it was not strong enough to reach the roof

  of the cave, which must have been a long way overhead. across the mild, soft, sleepy place they were now made to march. it was very sad, but with a quiet sort of sadness like soft music.

  here they passed dozens of strange animals lying on the turf, either dead or asleep, jill could not tell which. these were mostly of a dragonish or bat-like sort; puddleglum did not know what any of them were.

  "do they grow here?" scrubb asked the warden. he seemed very surprised at being spoken to, but replied, "no. they are all beasts that have found their way down by cha【创建和谐家园】s and caves, out of overland into the deep realm. many come down, and few return to the sunlit lands. it is said that they will all wake at the end of the world.”

  his mouth shut like a box when he had said this, and in the great silence of that cave the children felt that they would not dare to speak again. the bare feet of the gnomes, padding on the deep moss, made no sound. there was no wind, there were no birds, there was no sound of water. there was no sound of breathing from the strange beasts.

  when they had walked for several miles, they came to a wall of rock, and in it a low archway leading into another cavern. it was not, however, so bad as the last entrance and jill could go through it without bending her head. it brought them into a 【创建和谐家园】aller cave, long and narrow, about the shape and size of a cathedral. and here, filling almost the whole length of it, lay an enormous man fast asleep. he was far bigger than any of the giants, and his face was not like a giants, but noble and beautiful. his breast rose and fell gently under the snowy beard which covered him to the waist. a pure, silver light (no one saw where it came from) rested upon him.

  "whos that?" asked puddleglum. and it was so long since anyone had spoken, that jill wondered how he had the nerve.

  "that is old father time, who once was a king in overland," said the warden. "and now he has sunk down into the deep realm and lies dreaming of all the things that are done in the upper world. many sink down, and few return to the sunlit lands. they say he will wake at the end of the world.”

  and out of that cave they passed into another, and then into another and another, and so on till jill lost count, but always they were going downhill and each cave was lower than the last, till the very thought of the weight and depth of earth above you was suffocating.

  at last they came to a place where the warden commanded his cheerless lantern to be lit again. then they passed into a cave so wide and dark that they could see nothing of it except that right in front of them a strip of pale sand ran down into still water. and there, beside a little jetty, lay a ship without mast or sail but with many oars. they were made to go on board her and led forward to the bows where there was a clear space in front of the rowers benches and a seat running round inside the bulwarks.

  "one thing id like to know," said puddleglum, "is whether anyone from our world - from up-a-top, i mean has ever done this trip before?”

  "many have taken ship at the pale beaches," replied the warden, "and-”

  "yes, i know," interrupted puddleglum. "and few return to the sunlit lands. you neednt say it again. you are a chap of one idea, arent you?”

  the children huddled close together on each side of puddleglum. they had thought him a wet blanket while they were still above ground, but down here he seemed the only comforting thing they had. then the pale lantern was hung up amidships, the earthmen sat to the oars, and the ship began to move. the lantern cast its light only a very short way. looking ahead, they could see nothing but 【创建和谐家园】ooth, dark water, fading into absolute blackness.

  "oh, whatever will become of us?" said jill despairingly.

  "now dont you let your spirits down, pole," said the marsh-wiggle. "theres one thing youve got to remember. were back on the right lines. we were to go under the ruined city, and we are under it. were following the instructions again.”

  presently they were given food - flat, flabby cakes of some sort which had hardly any taste. and after that, they gradually fell asleep. but when they woke, everything was just the same; the gnomes still rowing, the ship still gliding on, still dead blackness ahead.

  how often they woke and slept and ate and slept again, none of them could ever remember. and the worst thing about it was that you began to feel as if you had always lived on that ship, in that darkness, and to wonder whether sun and blue skies and wind and birds had not been only a dream.

  they had almost given up hoping or being afraid about anything when at last they saw lights ahead: dreary lights, like that of their own lantern. then, quite suddenly, one of these lights came close and they saw that they were passing another ship. after that they met several ships. then, staring till their eyes hurt, they saw that some of the lights ahead were shining on what looked like wharfs, walls, towers, and moving crowds. but still there was hardly any noise.

  "by jove," said scrubb. "a city!" and soon they all saw that he was right.

  but it was a queer city. the lights were so few and far apart that they would hardly have done for scattered cottages in our world. but the little bits of the place which you could see by the lights were like glimpses of a great seaport. you could make out in one place a whole crowd of ships loading or unloading; in another, bales of stuff and warehouses; in a third, walls and pillars that suggested great palaces or temples; and always, wherever the light fell, endless crowds - hundreds of earthmen, jostling one another as they padded softly about their business in narrow streets, broad squares, or up great flights of steps.

  their continued movement made a sort of soft, murmuring noise as the ship drew nearer

  and nearer; but there was not a song or a shout or a bell or the rattle of a wheel anywhere.

  the city was as quiet, and nearly as dark, as the inside of an ant-hill.

  at last their ship was brought alongside a quay and made fast. the three travellers were taken ashore and marched up into the city. crowds of earthmen, no two alike, rubbed shoulders with them in the crowded streets, and the sad light fell on many sad and grotesque faces. but no one showed any interest in the strangers. every gnome seemed to be as busy as it was sad, though jill never found what they were so busy about. but the endless moving, shoving, hurrying, and the soft pad-pad-pad went on.

  at last they came to what appeared to be a great castle, though few of the windows in it were lighted. here they were taken in and made to cross a courtyard, and to climb many staircases. this brought them in the end to a great murkily lit room. but in one corner of it - oh joy! - there was an archway filled with a quite different sort of light; the honest, yellowish, warm light of such a lamp as humans use. what showed by this light inside the archway was the foot of a staircase which wound upward between walls of stone. the light seemed to come from the top. two earthmen stood one on each side of the arch like sentries, or footmen.

  the warden went up to these two, and said, as if it were a password: "many sink down to the underworld.”

  "and few return to the sunlit lands," they answered, as if it were the countersign. then all three put their heads together and talked. at last one of the two gnomes- in-waiting said, "i tell you the queens grace is gone from hence on her great affair. we had best keep these top dwellers in strait prison till her homecoming. few return to the sunlit lands.”

  at that moment the conversation was interrupted by what seemed to jill the most delightful noise in the world. it came from above, from the top of the staircase; and it was a clear, ringing, perfectly human voice, the voice of a young man.

  "what coil are you keeping down there, mullugutherum?" it shouted. "overworlders, ha!

  bring them up to me, and that presently.”

  "please it your highness to remember," began mullugutherum, but the voice cut him short.

  "it pleases my highness principally to be obeyed, old mutterer. bring them up," it called.

  mullugutherum shook his head, motioned to the travellers to follow and began going up the staircase. at every step the light increased. there were rich tapestries hanging on the walls. the lamplight shone golden through thin curtains at the staircase- head. the earthmen parted the curtains and stood aside. the three passed in. they were in a beautiful room, richly tapestried, with a bright fire on a clean hearth, and red wine and cut glass sparkling on the table. a young man with fair hair rose to greet them. he was

  handsome and looked both bold and kind, though there was something about his face that didnt seem quite right. he was dressed in black and altogether looked a little bit like hamlet.

  "welcome, overworlders," he cried. "but stay a moment! i cry you mercy! i have seen you two fair children, and this, your strange governor, before. was it not you three that met me by the bridge on the borders of ettin【创建和谐家园】oor when i rode there by my ladys side?”

  "oh . . . you were the black knight who never spoke?" exclaimed jill.

  "and was that lady the queen of underland?" asked puddleglum, in no very friendly voice. and scrubb, who was thinking the same, burst out, "because if it was, i think she was jolly mean to send us off to a castle of giants who intended to eat us. what harm had we ever done her, i should like to know?”

  "how?" said the black knight with a frown. "if you were not so young a warrior, boy, you and i must have fought to the death on this quarrel. i can hear no words against my ladys honour. but of this you may be assured, that whatever she said to you, she said of a good intent. you do not know her. she is a nosegay of all virtues, as truth, mercy, constancy, gentleness, courage, and the rest. i say what i know. her kindness to me alone, who can in no way reward her, would make an admirable history. but you shall know and love her hereafter. meanwhile, what is your errand in the deep lands?”

  and before puddleglum could stop her, jill blurted out, "please we are trying to find prince rilian of narnia." and then she realized what a frightful risk she had taken; these people might be enemies. but the knight showed no interest.

  "rilian? narnia?" he said carelessly. "narnia? what land is that? i have never heard the name. it must be a thousand leagues from those parts of the overworld that i know. but it was a strange fantasy that brought you seeking this - how do you call him? - billian?

  trillian? in my ladys realm. indeed, to my certain knowledge, there is no such man here." he laughed very loudly at this, and jill thought to herself, "i wonder is that whats wrong with his face? is he a bit silly?”

  "we had been told to look for a message on the stones of the city ruinous," said scrubb.

  "and we saw the words under me.”

  the knight laughed even more heartily than before. "you were the more deceived," he said. "those words meant nothing to your purpose. had you but asked my lady, she could have given you better counsel. for those words are all that is left of a longer script, which in ancient times, as she well remembers, expressed this verse: though under earth and throneless now i be, yet, while i lived, all earth was under me.

  from which it is plain that some great king of the ancient giants, who lies buried there, caused this boast to be cut in the stone over his sepulchre; though the breaking up of

  some stones, and the carrying away of others for new buildings, and the filling up of the cuts with rubble, has left only two words that can still be read. is it not the merriest jest in the world that you should have thought they were written to you?”

  this was like cold water down the back to scrubb and jill; for it seemed to them very likely that the words had nothing to do with their quest at all, and that they had been taken in by a mere accident.

  "dont you mind him," said puddleglum. "there are no accidents. our guide is aslan; and he was there when the giant king caused the letters to be cut, and he knew already all things that would come of them; including this.”

  "this guide of yours must be a long liver, friend," said the knight with another of his laughs.

  jill began to find them a little irritating.

  "and it seems to me, sir," answered puddleglum, "that this lady of yours must be a long liver too, if she remembers the verse as it was when they first cut it.”

  "very shrewd, frog-face," said the knight, clapping puddleglum on the shoulder and laughing again. "and you have hit the truth. she is of divine race, and knows neither age nor death. i am the more thankful to her for all her infinite bounty to such a poor mortal wretch as i. for you must know, sirs, i am a man under most strange afflictions, and none but the queens grace would have had patience with me. patience, said i? but it goes far beyond that. she has promised me a great kingdom in overland, and, when i am king, her own most gracious hand in marriage. but the tale is too long for you to hear fasting and standing. hi there, some of you! bring wine and updwellers food for my guests. please you, be seated, gentlemen. little maiden, sit in this chair. you shall hear it all.”

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  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ×小×说×t××xt×天×堂

  in the dark castle when the meal (which was pigeon pie, cold ham, salad, and cakes) had been brought, and all had drawn their chairs up to the table and begun, the knight continued: "you must understand, friends, that i know nothing of who i was and whence i came into this dark world. i remember no time when i was not dwelling, as now, at the court of this all but heavenly queen; but my thought is that she saved me from some evil enchantment and brought me hither of her exceeding bounty. (honest frogfoot, your cup is empty. suffer me to refill it.) and this seems to me the likelier because even now i am

  bound by a spell, from which my lady alone can free me. every night there comes an hour when my mind is most horribly changed, and, after my mind, my body. for first i become furious and wild and would rush upon my dearest friends to kill them, if i were not bound. and soon after that, i turn into the likeness of a great serpent, hungry, fierce, and deadly. (sir, be pleased to take another breast of pigeon, i entreat you.) so they tell me, and they certainly speak truth, for my lady says the same. i myself know nothing of it, for when my hour is past i awake forgetful of all that vile fit and in my proper shape and sound mind - saving that i am somewhat wearied. (little lady, eat one of these honey cakes, which are brought for me from some barbarous land in the far south of the world.)

  now the queens majesty knows by her art that i shall be freed from this enchantment when once she has made me king of a land in the overworld and set its crown upon my head. the land is already chosen and the very place of our breaking out. her earthmen have worked day and night digging a way beneath it, and have now gone so far and so high that they tunnel not a score of feet beneath the very grass on which the updwellers of that country walk. it will be very soon now that those uplanders fate will come upon them. she herself is at the diggings tonight, and i expect a message to go to her. then the thin roof of earth which still keeps me from my kingdom will be broken through, and with her to guide me and a thousand earthmen at my back, i shall ride forth in arms, fall suddenly on our enemies, slay their chief men, cast down their strong places, and doubtless be their crowned king within four and twenty hours.”

  "its a bit rough luck on them, isnt it?" said scrubb.

  "thou art a lad of a wondrous, quick-working wit!" exclaimed the knight. "for, on my honour, i had never thought of it so before. i see your meaning." he looked slightly, very slightly troubled for a moment or two; but his face soon cleared and he broke out, with another of his loud laughs, "but fie on gravity! is it not the most comical and ridiculous thing in the world to think of them all going about their business and never dreaming that under their peaceful fields and floors, only a fathom down, there is a great army ready to break out upon them like a fountain! and they never to have suspected! why, they themselves, when once the first 【创建和谐家园】art of their defeat is over, can hardly choose but laugh at the thought!”

  "i dont think its funny at all," said jill. "i think youll be a wicked tyrant.”

  "what?" said the knight, still laughing and patting her head in a quite infuriating fashion.

  "is our little maid a deep politician? but never fear, sweetheart. in ruling that land, i shall do all by the counsel of my lady, who will then be my queen too. her word shall be my law, even as my word will be law to the people we have conquered.”

  "where i come from," said jill, who was disliking him more every minute, "they dont think much of men who are bossed about by their wives.”

  "shalt think otherwise when thou hast a man of thine own, i warrant you," said the knight, apparently thinking this very funny. "but with my lady, it is another matter. i am well content to live by her word, who has already saved me from a thousand dangers. no

  mother has taken pains more tenderly for her child, than the queens grace has for me.

  why, look you, amid all her cares and business, she rideth out with me in the overworld many a time and oft to accustom my eyes to the sunlight. and then i must go fully armed and with visor down, so that no man may see my face, and i must speak to no one. for she has found out by art magical that this would hinder my deliverance from the grievous enchantment i lie under. is not that a lady worthy of a mans whole worship?”

  "sounds a very nice lady indeed," said puddleglum in a voice which meant exactly the opposite.

  they were thoroughly tired of the knights talk before they had finished supper.

  puddleglum was thinking, "i wonder what game that witch is really playing with this young fool." scrubb was thinking, "hes a great baby, really: tied to that womans apron strings; hes a sap." and jill was thinking, "hes the silliest, most conceited, selfish pig ive met for a long time." but when the meal was over, the knights mood had changed.

  there was no more laughter about him.

  "friends," he said, "my hour is now very near. i am ashamed that you should see me yet i dread being left alone. they will come in presently and bind me hand and foot to yonder chair. alas, so it must be: for in my fury, they tell me, i would destroy all that i could reach.”

  "i say," said scrubb, "im awfully sorry about your enchantment of course, but what will those fellows do to us when they come to bind you? they talked of putting us in prison.

  and we dont like all those dark places very much. wed much rather stay here till youre . . . better . . . if we may.”

  "it is well thought of," said the knight. "by custom none but the queen herself remains with me in my evil hour. such is her tender care for my honour that she would not willingly suffer any ears but her own to hear the words i utter in that frenzy. but i could not easily persuade my attendant gnomes that you should be left with me. and i think i hear their soft feet even now upon the stairs. go through yonder door: it leads into my other apartments. and there, either await my coming when they have unbound me; or, if you will, return and sit with me in my ravings.”

  they followed his directions and passed out of the room by a door which they had not yet seen opened. it brought them, they were pleased to see, not into darkness but into a lighted corridor. they tried various doors and found (what they very badly needed) water for washing and even a looking glass. "he never offered us a wash before supper," said jill, drying her face. "selfish, selfcentred pig.”

  "are we going back to watch the enchantment, or shall we stay here?" said scrubb.

  "stay here, i vote," said jill. "id much rather not see it." but she felt a little inquisitive all the same.

  "no, go back," said puddleglum. "we may pick up some information, and we need all we can get. i am sure that queen is a witch and an enemy. and those earthmen would knock us on the head as soon as look at us. theres a stronger 【创建和谐家园】ell of danger and lies and magic and treason about this land than ive ever 【创建和谐家园】elled before. we need to keep our eyes and ears open.”

  they went back down the corridor and gently pushed the door open. "its all right," said scrubb, meaning that there were no earthmen about. then they all came back into the room where they had supped.

  the main door was now shut, concealing the curtain between which they had first entered. the knight was seated in a curious silver chair, to which he was bound by his ankles, his knees, his elbows, his wrists, and his waist. there was sweat on his forehead and his face was filled with anguish.