chater ix the wild wate nd f the nrth (第2/8頁)

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Her blood froze. The thing moved. It was a real giant. There was no mistaking it；she had seen it turn its head. She had caught a glimpse of the great，stupid，puffcheeked face. All the things were giants，not rocks. There were forty or fifty of them，all in a row；obviously standing with their feet on the bottom of the gorge and their elbows resting on the edge of the gorge，just as men might stand leaning on a wall-lazy men，on a fine morning after breakfast.

“Keep straight on,”whispered Puddleglum，who had noticed them too. “Don’t look at them. And whatever you do，don’t run. They’d be after us in a moment.”

So they kept on，pretending not to have seen the giants. It was like walking past the gate of a house where there is a fierce dog， only far worse. There were dozens and dozens of these giants. They didn’t look angry—or kind—or interested at all. There was no sign that they had seen the travellers.

Then—whizz-whizz-whizz—some heavy object came hurtling through the air，and with a crash a big boulder fell about twenty paces ahead of them. And then—thud ！—another fell twenty feet behind.

“Are they aiming at us ？”asked Scrubb.

“No,”said Puddleglum. “We’d be a good deal safer if they were. They’re trying to hit that—that cairn over there to the right. They won’t hit it，you know. It’s safe enough；they’re such very bad shots. They play cock-shies most fine mornings. About the only game they’re clever enough to understand.”

It was a horrible time. There seemed no end to the line of giants，and they never ceased hurling stones，some of which fell extremely close. Quite apart from the real danger，the very sight and sound of their faces and voices were enough to scare anyone. Jill tried not to look at them.

After about twenty-five minutes the giants apparently had a quarrel. This put an end to the cock-shies，but it is not pleasant to be within a mile of quarrelling giants. They stormed and jeered at one another in long，meaningless words of about twenty syllables each. They foamed and gibbered and jumped in their rage，and each jump shook the earth like a bomb. They lammed each other on the head with great，clumsy stone hammers；but their skulls were so hard that the hammers bounced off again，and then the monster who had given the blow would drop his hammer and howl with pain because it had stung his fingers. But he was so stupid that he would do exactly the same thing a minute later. This was a good thing in the long run，for by the end of an hour all the giants were so hurt that they sat down and began to cry. When they sat down，their heads were below the edge of the gorge，so that you saw them no more；but Jill could hear them howling and blubbering and boo-booing like great babies even after the place was a mile behind.

That night they bivouacked on the bare moor，and Puddleglum showed the children how to make the best of their blankets by sleeping back to back（The backs keep each other warm and you can then have both blankets on top）. But it was chilly even so， and the ground was hard and lumpy. The Marsh-wiggle told them they would feel more comfortable if only they thought how very much colder it would be later on and farther north；but this didn’t cheer them up at all.