Trust: The Magician's Nephew

Chapter 5

The tree which Digory had noticed was now a full-grown beech whose branches swayed gently above his head.

They stood on cool, green grass, sprinkled with daisies and buttercups.

A little way off, along the river bank, willows were growing. On the other side tangles of flowering currant, lilac, wild rose, and rhododendron closed them in.

The horse was tearing up delicious mouthfuls of new grass.

All this time the Lion's song, and his stately prowl, to and fro, backwards and forwards, was going on. What was rather alarming was that at each turn he came a little nearer.

The girls were finding the song more and more interesting because they thought they were beginning to see the connection between the music and the things that were happening.

When a line of dark firs sprang up on a ridge about a hundred yards away they felt that they were connected with a series of deep, prolonged notes which the Lion had sung a second before.

And when he burst into a rapid series of lighter notes they were not surprised to see primroses suddenly appearing in every direction.

They believed that the Lion was picturing everything that was growing in the world. For when they listened to his song they could hear the things he was making up. Then as they looked around they could see them begin to appear.

Digory and the Cabby could not help feeling a bit nervous as each turn of the Lion's walk brought him nearer.

As for Uncle Andrew, his teeth were chattering, and his knees were shaking so much that he could not run away.

Suddenly the Witch stepped boldly out towards the Lion. It was coming on, always singing, with a slow, heavy pace.

The Lion was only twelve yards away. The Witch raised her arm and flung the iron bar straight at its head.

The bar struck the Lion fair between the eyes. It glanced off and fell with a thud in the grass.

The Lion came on. Its walk was neither slower nor faster than before, you could not tell whether it even knew it had been hit. Though its soft pads made no noise, you could feel the earth shake beneath their weight.

The Witch shrieked and ran. In a few moments she was out of sight among the trees.

Uncle Andrew turned to do likewise, tripped over a root, and fell flat on his face in a little brook that ran down to join the river.

The children could not move. They were not even quite sure that they wanted to.

The Lion paid no attention to them. Its huge red mouth was open, but open in song not in a snarl. It passed by them so close that they could have touched its mane.

They were terribly afraid it would turn and look at them, yet in some queer way they wished it would. But for all the notice it took of them they might just as well have been invisible and unsmellable.

When it had passed them and gone a few paces further it turned, passed them again, and continued its march eastward.

Uncle Andrew, coughing and spluttering, picked himself up.

"Now, Digory," he said, "We've got rid of that woman, and the brute of a lion is gone. Give me your hand and put on your ring at once."

"Keep off," said Digory, backing away from him. "Keep clear of him, Polly. Come over here beside me. You too Liliana. Now I warn you, Uncle Andrew, don't come one step nearer, we'll just vanish."

"Do what you're told this minute, sir," Uncle Andrew said. "You're an extremely disobedient, ill-behaved little boy."

"No fear," Digory said. "We want to stay and see what happens. I thought you wanted to know about other worlds. Don't you like it now you're here?"