ASLAN IS NEARER
EDMUND meanwhile had been having a most disappointing time. When the dwarf had goo get the sledge ready he expected that the Witch would start being o him, as she had been at their last meeting. But she said nothing at all. And when at last Edmund plucked up his ce to say, "Please, your Majesty, could I have some Turkish Delight?
You - you - said -" she answered, "Silence, fool!" Then she appeared to ge her mind and said, as if to herself, a "A will not do to have the brat fainting on the way,」
and once more clapped her hands. Another, dwarf appeared.
"Bring the humaure food and drink," she said.
The dwarf went aresently returned bringing an iron bowl with some water in it and an iron plate with a hunk of dry bread on it. He grinned in a repulsive manner as he set them down on the floor beside Edmund and said: "Turkish Delight for the little Prince. Ha! Ha! Ha!" "Take it away," said Edmund sulkily. "I dont want dry bread." But the Witch suddenly turned on him with such a terrible expression on her face that he, apologized and began to nibble at the bread, though, it was so stale he could hardly get it down.
"You may be glad enough of it before you taste bread again," said the Witch.
While he was still chewing away the first dwarf came bad annouhat the sledge was ready. The White Witch rose a out, Edmund to go with her. The snow was again falling as they came into the courtyard, but she took no notice of that and made Edmund sit beside her on the sledge. But before they drove off she called Maugrim and he came bounding like an enormous dog to the side of the sledge.
"Take with you the swiftest of your wolves and go at oo the house of the Beavers,」
said the Witch, "and kill whatever you find there. If they are already gohen make all speed to the Stoable, but do not be seen. Wait for me there in hiding. I meanwhile must go many miles to the West before I find a place where I drive across the river.
You may overtake these humans before they reach the Stoable. You will know what to do if you find them!」
"I hear and obey, O Queen," growled the Wolf, and immediately he shot away into the snow and darkness, as quickly as a horse gallop. In a few minutes he had called another wolf and was with him down on the dam sniffing at the Beavers house. But of course they found it empty. It would have been a dreadful thing for the Beavers and the children if the night had remained fine, for the wolves would then have been able to follow their trail - ao one would have overtaken them before they had got to the cave. But now that the snow had begun again the st was cold and even the footprints were covered up.
Meanwhile the dwarf whipped up the reindeer, and the Witd Edmund drove out uhe archway and on and away into the darkness and the cold. This was a terrible
journey for Edmund, who had no coat. Before they had been going quarter of an hour all the front of him was covered with snow - he soon stopped trying to shake it off because, as quickly as he did that, a new lot gathered, and he was so tired. Soon he was wet to the skin. And oh, how miserable he was! It didnt look now as if the Witch inteo make him a King. All the things he had said to make himself believe that she was good and kind and that her side was really the right side souo him silly now. He would have given anything to meet the others at this moment - eve