chater eight the hue f harfang (第3/6頁)

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“No. Raining now，ducky ！”said the giantess. “Rain’ll wash away all the nasty snow. Precious poppet will be able to go out and play tomorrow ！”And she tucked Jill up and said good night.

I know nothing so disagreeable as being kissed by a giantess. Jill thought the same，but was asleep in five minutes.

The rain fell steadily all the evening and all the night，dashing against the windows of the castle，and Jill never heard it but slept deeply，past supper time and past midnight. And then came the deadest hour of the night and nothing stirred but mice in the house of the giants. At that hour there came to Jill a dream. It seemed to her that she awoke in the same room and saw the fire，sunk low and red，and in the firelight the great wooden horse. And the horse came of its own will，rolling on its wheels across the carpet，and stood at her head. And now it was no longer a horse，but a lion as big as the horse. And then it was not a toy lion，but a real lion， The Real Lion，just as she had seen him on the mountain beyond the world’s end. And a smell of all sweet-smelling things there are filled the room. But there was some trouble in Jill’s mind， though she could not think what it was，and the tears streamed down her face and wet the pillow. The Lion told her to repeat the signs，and she found that she had forgotten them all. At that，a great horror came over her. And Aslan took her up in his jaws（she could feel his lips and his breath but not his teeth）and carried her to the window and made her look out. The moon shone bright； and written in great letters across the world or the sky（she did not know which）were the words UNDER ME. After that，the dream faded away，and when she woke，very late next morning，she did not remember that she had dreamed at all.

She was up and dressed and had finished breakfast in front of the fire when the Nurse opened the door and said：“Here’s pretty poppet’s little friends come to play with her.”

In came Scrubb and the Marsh-wiggle.

“Hullo ！ Good morning,”said Jill. “Isn’t this fun ？ I’ve slept about fifteen hours，I believe. I do feel better，don’t you ？”

“1 do,”said Scrubb，“but Puddleglum says he has a headache. Hullo ！—your window has a window seat. If we got up on that， we could see out.”And at once they all did so：and at the first glance Jill said，“Oh，how perfectly dreadful ！”

The sun was shining and，except for a few drifts，the snow had been almost completely washed away by the rain. Down below them，spread out like a map，lay the flat hill-top which they had struggled over yesterday afternoon；seen from the castle，it could not be mistaken for anything but the ruins of a gigantic city. It had been flat，as Jill now saw，because it was still，on the whole， paved，though in places the pavement was broken. The criss-cross banks were what was left of the walls of huge buildings which might once have been giants’ palaces and temples. One bit of wall，about five hundred feet high，was still standing；it was that which she had thought was a cliff. The things that had looked like factory chimneys were enormous pillars，broken off at unequal heights； their fragments lay at their bases like felled trees of monstrous stone. The ledges which they had climbed down on the north side of the hill—and also，no doubt the other ledges which they had climbed up on the south side—were the remaining steps of giant stairs. To crown all，in large，dark lettering across the centre of the pavement，ran the words UNDER ME.

The three travellers looked at each other in dismay，and，after a short whistle，Scrubb said what they were all thinking，“The second and third signs muffed.”And at that moment Jill’s dream rushed back into her mind.

“It’s my fault,”she said in despairing tones. “I—I’d given up repeating the signs every night. If I’d been thinking about them I could have seen it was the city，even in all that snow.”