CHAPTER TEN
百度搜索 THE SILVER CHAIR 天涯 或 THE SILVER CHAIR 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.
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 act," said Puddleglum, truthfully enough.
"Many fall down, and few return to the sunlit lands," said the voice. "Make ready now to e 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<u>９9ｌib?</u> from that, they were very different; some had tails and others not, some wreat beards and others had very round, smooth faces, big as pumpkins. There were long, pointed noses, and long, soft noses like small trunks, and great blobby noses. Several had single horns in the middle of their foreheads. But in one respect they were all alike: every fa the whole hundred was as sad as a face could be. They were so sad that, after the first glance, Jill almost fot 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 oh the -”
"Get up," said the leader of the Earthmen.
There was nothing else to be dohe three travellers scrambled to their feet and joined hands. One wahe touch of a friends hand at a moment like that. And the Earthmen came all round them, padding on large, soft feet, on whie had ten toes, some twelve, and others none.
"March," said the Warden: and march they did.
The cold light came from a large ball oop 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 kwisted, 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 oooped down (all except the very smallest ones) and stepped into a little dark crad disappeared, she felt she could bear it no longer.
"I t go in there, I t! I t! I wont," she pahe Earthmen said nothing but they all lowered their spears and poihem at her.
"Steady, Pole," said Puddleglum. "Those big fellows wouldnt be crawling in there if it did wider later on. And theres ohing about this underground work, we sha any rain.”
"Oh, you dont uand. I t," wailed Jill.
"Think how 1 felt on that cliff, Pole," said Scrubb. "You go first, Puddleglum, and Ill e 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 fortable.”
"fortable!" 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 smothered. 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 se 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 e 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 ourf, 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 chasms and caves, out of Overland into the Deep Realm. Many e 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 childrehat 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 entrand Jill could gh it without bending her head. It brought them into a smaller 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 aiful. His breast rose and fell gently uhe 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 sinyone 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 t, but always they were going downhill and each cave was lower than the last, till the very thought of the weight ah of earth above you was suffog.
At last they came to a place where the Warden anded his cheerless lao 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 ihe bulwarks.
"Ohing Id like to know," said Puddleglum, "is whether anyone from our world - from up-a-top, I mean has ever dohis 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 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 bla while they were still above ground, but down here he seemed the only f 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 smo<bdi>?99liｂ?</bdi>oth, dark water, fading into absolute blaess.
"Oh, whatever will bee of us?" said Jill despairingly.
"Now dont you let your spirits down, Pole," said the Marsh-wiggle. "Theres ohing youve got to remember. Were ba the right lines. We were to go uhe Ruined City, and we are u. Were following the instrus 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 gill rowing, the ship still gliding on, still dead blaess 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 tinued 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 i irangers. 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 peared 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 er of it - oh joy! - there was an archway filled with a quite different sort of light; the ho, yellowish, warm light of such a lamp as humans use. What showed by this light ihe archway was the foot of a staircase which wound upward between walls of stohe light seemed to e from the top. Two Earthmen stood one on each side of the arch like sentries, or footmen.
The Warde 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 tersign. 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 hen her great affair. We had best keep these top dwellers in strait prison till her homeing. Few return to the sunlit lands.”
At that moment the versation 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 yho 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, motioo 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 hearth, and red wine and cut glass sparkling oable. 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 blad altogether looked a little bit like Hamlet.
"Wele, 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 Ettinsmoor when I rode there by my Ladys side?”
"Oh . . . you were the blaight 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 inteo eat us. What harm had we ever done her, I should like to know?”
"How?" said the Blaight with a frown. "If y></a>ou were not so young a warrior, Boy, you and I must have fought to the death on this quarrel. I 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 i. You do not know her. She is a nosegay of all virtues, as truth, mercy, stancy, gentleness, ce, and the rest. I say what I know. Her kio me alone, who 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 i.
"Rilian? Narnia?" he said carelessly. "Narnia? What land is that? I have never heard the 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. Io 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 oones 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 sel. For those words are all that is left of a longer script, whi aimes, 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 a giants, who lies buried there, caused this boast to be cut ione 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 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 act.
"Dont you mind him," said Puddleglum. "There are no acts. uide is Aslan; and he was there when the giant King caused the letters to be cut, and he knew already all things that would e 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 her 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 afflis, and the Queens grace would have had patieh 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.”
百度搜索 THE SILVER CHAIR 天涯 或 THE SILVER CHAIR 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.