Then at last he began to wonder why the lion was standing so still—for it hadn’t moved one inch since he first t eyes on it.Edmund now ventured a little nearer, still keeping in the shadow of the arch as much as he could.He now saw from the way the lion was standing that it couldn’t have been looking at him at all.”“But supposing it turns its head?”thought Edmund.）In fact it was staring at something el—namely a little dwarf who stood with his back to it about four feet away.
“Aha！”thought Edmund.“When it springs at the dwarf then will be my ce to escape.”But still the lion never moved, nor did the dwarf.And now at last Edmund remembered what the others had said about the White Witch turning people into stone.Perhaps this was only a stone lion.And as soon as he had thought of that he noticed that the lion’s bad the top of its head were covered with snow.Of cour it must be only a statue！No living animal would have let itlf get covered with snow.Then very slowly and with his heart beating as if it would burst, Edmuured to go up to the lion.Even now he hardly dared to touch it, but at last he put out his hand, very quickly, and did.It was cold stone.He had been frightened of a mere statue！
The relief which Edmu was so great that in spite of the cold he suddenly got warm all ht down to his toes, and at the same time there came into his head what emed a perfectly lovely idea.“Probably,”he thought.“this is the great Lion Aslan that they were all talking about.She’s caught him already and turned him into stone.So that’s the end of all their fine ideas about him！Pooh！Who’s afraid of Aslan?”
Aood there gloating over the stone lion, and prently he did something very silly and childish.He took a stump of lead pencil out of his pocket and scribbled a moustache on the lion’s upper lip and then a pair of spectacles on its eyes.Then he said.“Yah！Silly old Aslan！How do you like being a stone?You thought yourlf mighty fine, didn’t you?”But in spite of the scribbles on it the face of the great sto still looked so terrible, and sad, and aring up in the moonlight, that Edmund didn’t really get any fun out of jeering at it.He turned away and began to cross the courtyard.