And she raised her hand to frighten them away.
“Wait!” said Lucy, who had been looking at them more closely still.
“Can you see what they’re doing?”
Both girls bent down and stared.
“I do believe—” said Susan.
“But how queer!
They’re nibbling away at the cords!”
“That’s what I thought,” said Lucy.
“I think they’re friendly mice.
Poor little things—they don’t realize he’s dead.
They think it’ll do some good untying him.”
It was quite definitely lighter by now.
Each of the girls noticed for the first time the white face of the other.
They could see the mice nibbling away; dozens and dozens, even hundreds, of little field mice.
And at last, one by one, the ropes were all gnawed through.
The sky in the east was whitish by now and the stars were getting fainter—all except one very big one low down on the eastern horizon.
They felt colder than they had been all night.
The mice crept away again. The girls cleared away the remains of the gnawed ropes. AsIan looked more like himself without them.
Every moment his dead face looked nobler, as the light grew and they could see it better.
In the wood behind them a bird gave a chuckling sound.
It had been so still for hours and hours that it startled them.
Then another bird answered it.
Soon there were birds singing allover the place.
It was quite definitely early morning now, not late night.
“I’m so cold,” said Lucy.
“So am I,” said Susan.
“Let’s walk about a bit.”
They walked to the eastern edge of the hill and looked down.
The one big star had almost disappeared.
The country all looked dark gray, but beyond, at the very end of the world, the sea showed pale.
The sky began to turn red.
They walked to and fro more times than they could count between the dead Aslan and the eastern ridge, trying to keep warm; and oh, how tired their legs felt.
Then at last, as they stood for a moment looking out toward the sea and Cair Paravel (which they could now just make out) the red turned to gold along the line where the sea and the sky met and very slowly up came the edge of the sun.
At that moment they heard from behind them a loud noise—a great cracking, deafening noise as if a giant had broken a giant’s plate.
“What’s that?” said Lucy, clutching Susan’s arm.
“I—I feel afraid to turn round,” said Susan; “something awful is happening.”
“They’re doing something worse to Him,” said Lucy.
“Come on!”
And she turned, pulling Susan round with her.
The rising of the sun had made everything look so different—all colors and shadows were changed—that for a moment they didn’t see the important thing.
Then they did. The Stone Table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no Aslan.
“Oh, oh, oh!” cried the two girls, rushing back to the Table.
“Oh, it’s too bad,” sobbed Lucy; “they might have left the body alone.”
“Who’s done it?” cried Susan.
“What does it mean?
Is it more magic?”
“Yes!” said a great voice behind their backs.
“It is more magic.”
They looked round.
There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.