The Last Battle Read Online Free PDF Page B

wrong,” said the Rabbit.
    “I don’t care if it is,” said one of the Moles. “I’d do it again.”
    But the others said, “Oh hush,” and “Do be careful,” and then they all said, “We’re sorry, dear King, but we must go back now. It would never do for us to be caught here.”
    “Leave me at once, dear Beasts,” said Tirian. “I would not for all Narnia bring any of you into danger.”
    “Goodnight, goodnight,” said the Beasts, rubbing their noses against his knees. “We will come back—if we can.” Then they all pattered away and the wood seemed darker and colder and lonelier than it had been before they came.
    The stars came out and time went slowly on—imagine how slowly—while the last King of Narnia stood stiff and sore and upright against the tree in his bonds. But at last something happened.
    Far away there appeared a red light. Then it disappeared for a moment and came back again, bigger and stronger. Then he could see dark shapes going to and fro on this side of the light and carrying bundles and throwing them down. He knew now what he was looking at. It was a bonfire, newly lit, and people were throwing bundles of brushwood onto it. Presently it blazed up and Tirian could see that it was on the very top of the hill. He could see quite clearly the stable behind it, all lit up in the red glow, and a great crowd of Beasts and Men between the fire and himself. A small figure, hunched up beside the fire, must be the Ape. It was saying something to the crowd, but he could not hear what. Then it went and bowed three times to the ground in front of the door of the stable. Then he got up and opened the door. And something on four legs—something that walked rather stiffly—came out of the stable and stood facing the crowd.

    A great wailing or howling went up, so loud that Tirian could hear some of the words.
    “Aslan! Aslan! Aslan!” cried the Beasts. “Speak to us. Comfort us. Be angry with. us no more.”
    From where Tirian was he could not make out very clearly what the thing was; but he could see that it was yellow and hairy. He had never seen the Great Lion. He had never seen a common lion. He couldn’t be sure that what he saw was not the real Aslan. He had not expected Aslan to look like that stiff thing which stood and said nothing. But how could one be sure? For a moment horrible thoughts went through his mind: then he remembered the nonsense about Tash and Aslan being the same and knew that the whole thing must be a cheat.
    The Ape put his head close up to the yellow thing’s head as if he were listening to something it was whispering to him. Then he turned and spoke to the crowd, and the crowd wailed again. Then the yellow thing turned clumsily round and walked—you might almost say, waddled—back into the stable and the Ape shut the door behind it. After that the fire must have been put out for the light vanished quite suddenly, and Tirian was once more alone with the cold and the darkness.
    He thought of other Kings who had lived and died in Narnia in old times and it seemed to him that none of them had ever been so unlucky as himself. He thought of his great-grandfather’s great-grandfather King Rilian who had been stolen away by a Witch when he was only a young prince and kept hidden for years in the dark caves beneath the land of the Northern Giants. But then it had all come right in the end, for two mysterious children had suddenly appeared from the land beyond the world’s end and had rescued him so that he came home to Narnia and had a long and prosperous reign. “It’s not like that with me,” said Tirian to himself. Then he went further back and thought about Rilian’s father, Caspian the Seafarer, whose wicked uncle King Miraz had tried to murder him and how Caspian fled away into the woods and lived among the Dwarfs. But that story too had all come right in the end: for Caspian alsohad been helped by children—only there were four of them that time—who came