Then the birds stopped their singing and appeared to be very busy about the table. When they ro from it agaihing oable that could be eaten or drunk had disappeared. The birds ro from their meal ihousands and hundreds and carried away all the things that could not be eaten or drunk, such as bones, rinds, and shells, and took their flight back to the rising sun. But now, becau they were not singing, the whir of their wings emed to t the whole air a-tremble. And there was the table pecked ay, and the three old Lords of Narnia still fast asleep.
Now at last the Old Man turo the travelers and bade them wele.
“Sir,” said Caspian, “will you tell us how to undo the entment which holds the three Narnian Lords asleep.”
“I will gladly tell you that, my son,” said the Old Man. “To break this entment you must sail to the World’s End, or as near as you e to it, and you must e back havi at least one of your pany behind.”
“And what must happen to that one?” asked Reepicheep.
“He must go on into the utter east and never return into the world.”
“That is my heart’s desire,” said Reepicheep.
“And are we he World’s End now, Sir?” asked Caspian. “Have you any knowledge of the as and lands further east than this?”
“I saw them long ago,” said the Old Man, “but it was from a great height. I ot tell you such things as sailors o know.”
“Do you mean you were flying in the air?” Eustace blurted out.
“I was a long way above the air, my son,” replied the Old Man. “I am Ramandu. But I e that you stare at one another and have not heard this name. And no wonder, for the days when I was a star had cead long before any of you khis world, and all the stellations have ged.”
“Golly,” said Edmund under his breath. “He’s a retired star.”
“Aren’t you a star any longer?” asked Lucy.
“I am a star at rest, my daughter,” answered Ramandu. “When I t for the last time, decrepit and old beyond all that you re, I was carried to this island. I am not so old now as I was then. Every m a bird brings me a fire-berry from the valleys in the Sun, and each fire-berry takes away a little of my age. And when I have bee as young as the child that was borerday, then I shall take my rising again （for we are at earth’s eastern rim） and once more tread the great dance.”
“In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.”
“Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of. And in this world you have already met a star, for I think you have been with Coriakin.”