“What about going to e Mr.Tumnus?”said Lucy.“He’s the nice Faun I told you about.”
Everyone agreed to this and off they went walking briskly and stamping their feet.Lucy proved a good leader.At first she wondered whether she would be able to find the way, but she reized an odd-looking tree on one plad a stump in another and brought them on to where the ground became uneven and into the little valley and at last to the very door of Mr.Tumnus’s cave.But there a terrible surpri awaited them.
The door had been wrenched off its hinges and broken to bits.Ihe cave was dark and cold and had the damp feel and smell of a place that had not been lived in for veral days.Snow had drifted in from the doorway and was heaped on the floor, mixed with something black, which turned out to be the charred sticks and ashes from the fire.Someone had apparently flung it about the room and then stamped it out.The crockery lay smashed on the floor and the picture of the Faun’s father had been slashed into shreds with a knife.
“This is a pretty good wash-out,”said Edmund.“not much good ing here.”
“What is this?”said Peter, stooping down.He had just noticed a piece of paper which had been hrough the carpet to the floor.
“Is there anything written on it?”asked Susan.
“Yes, I think there is,”answered Peter.“but I ’t read it in this light.Let’s get out into the open air.”
They all went out in the daylight and crowded rouer as he read out the following words：
The former oct of the premis, the Faun Tumnus, is under arrest and awaiting his trial on a charge of High Treason against her Imperial Majesty Jadis, Queen of Narnia, Chatelaine of Cair Paravel, Empress of the Lone Islands, etc., also of f her said Majesty’s enemies, harb spies and fraternizing with Humans.
signed MAUGRIM, Captain of the Secret Police,
LONG LIVE THE QUEEN
The children stared at each other.
“I don’t know that I’m going to like this place after all,”said Susan.
“Who is this Queen, Lu?”said Peter.“Do you know anything about her?”
“She isn’t a real queen at all,”answered Lucy.“she’s a horrible witch, the White Witch.Everyone—all the wood people—hate her.She has made an entment over the whole try so that it is always winter here and never Christmas.”