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CHAPTER EIGHT TWO NARROW ESCAPES(第4/6页)

“I’m sitting on something too,”said Lucy.“Something hard.”It turned out to be the remains of a mail shirt.By this time everyone was on hands and knees,feeling in the thick heather in every direction.Their search revealed,one by one,a helmet, a dagger,and a few coins;not Calormen crescents but genuine Narnian“Lions”and“Trees”such as you might see any day in the market-place of Beaversdam or Beruna.

“Looks as if this might be all that’s left of one of our seven lords,”said Edmund.

“Just what I was thinking,”said Caspian.“I wonder which it was.There’s nothing on the dagger to show.And I wonder how he died.”

“And how we are to avenge him,”added Reepicheep.

Edmund,the only one of the party who had read several detective stories,had meanwhile been thinking.

“Look here,”he said,“there’s something very fishy about this. He can’t have been killed in a fight.”

“Why not?”asked Caspian.

“No bones,”said Edmund.“An enemy might take the armour and leave the body.But who ever heard of a chap who’d won a fight carrying away the body and leaving the armour ?”

“Perhaps he was killed by a wild animal,”Lucy suggested.

“It’d be a clever animal,”said Edmund,“that would take a man’s mail shirt off.”

“Perhaps a dragon ?”said Caspian.

“Nothing doing,”said Eustace.“A dragon couldn’t do it.I ought to know.”

“Well,let’s get away from the place,anyway,”said Lucy. She had not felt like sitting down again since Edmund had raised the question of bones.

“If you like,”said Caspian,getting up.“I don’t think any of this stuff is worth taking away.”

They came down and round to the little opening where the stream came out of the lake,and stood looking at the deep water within the circle of cliffs.If it had been a hot day,no doubt some would have been tempted to bathe and everyone would have had a drink.Indeed,even as it was,Eustace was on the very point of stooping down and scooping up some water in his hands when Reepicheep and Lucy both at the same moment cried,“Look,”so he forgot about his drink and looked into the water.

The bottom of the pool was made of large greyish-blue stones and the water was perfectly clear,and on the bottom lay a life-size figure of a man,made apparently of gold.It lay face downwards with its arms stretched out above its head.And it so happened that as they looked at it,the clouds parted and the sun shone out.The golden shape was lit up from end to end.Lucy thought it was the most beautiful statue she had ever seen.

“Well !”whistled Caspian.“That was worth coming to see ! I wonder,can we get it out ?”

“We can dive for it,Sire,”said Reepicheep.

“No good at all,”said Edmund.“At least,if it’s really gold—solid gold—it’ll be far too heavy to bring up.And that pool’s twelve or fifteen feet deep if it’s an inch.Half a moment, though.It’s a good thing I’ve brought a hunting spear with me. Let’s see what the depth is like.Hold on to my hand,Caspian, while I lean out over the water a bit.”Caspian took his hand and Edmund,leaning forward,began to lower his spear into the water.

Before it was half-way in Lucy said,“I don’t believe the statue is gold at all.It’s only the light.Your spear looks just the same colour.”

“What’s wrong ?”asked several voices at once;for Edmund had suddenly let go of the spear.

“I couldn’t hold it,”gasped Edmund,“It seemed so heavy.”

“And there it is on the bottom now,”said Caspian,“and Lucy is right.It looks just the same colour as the statue.”

But Edmund,who appeared to be having some trouble with his boots—at least he was bending down and looking at them— straightened himself all at once and shouted out in the sharp voice which people hardly ever disobey:

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