see us as well as hear us?"
    
    "Not in this light so long as we stay quite still," answered Bree. "But look! There's 
a cloud coming up. I'll wait till that gets over the moon. Then we'll get off to our 
right as quietly as we can, down to the shore. We can hide among the sandhills if the 
worst comes to the worst."
    
    They waited till the cloud covered the moon and then, first at a walking pace and 
afterwards at a gentle trot, made for the shore.
    
    The cloud was bigger and thicker than it had looked at first and soon the night grew 
very dark. Just as Shasta was saying to himself, "We must be nearly at those sandhills by 
now," his heart leaped into his mouth because an appalling noise had suddenly risen up 
out of the darkness ahead; a long snarling roar, melancholy and utterly savage. Instantly 
Bree swerved round and began galloping inland again as fast as he could gallop.
    
    "What is it?" gasped Shasta.
    
    "Lions!" said Bree, without checking his pace or turning his head.
    
    After that there was nothing but sheer galloping for some time. At last they splashed 
across a wide, shallow stream and Bree came to a stop on the far side. Shasta noticed 
that he was trembling and sweating all over.
    
    "That water may have thrown the brute off our scent," panted Bree when he had partly 
got his breath again. "We can walk for a bit now."
    
    As they walked Bree said, "Shasta, I'm ashamed of myself. I'm just as frightened as a 
common, dumb Calor mene horse. I am really. I don't feel like a Talking Horse at all. I 
don't mind swords and lances and arrows but I can't bear-those creatures. I think I'll 
trot for a bit."
    
    About a minute later, however, he broke into a gallop again, and no wonder. For the 
roar broke out again, this time on their left from the direction of the forest.
    
    "Two of them," moaned Bree.
    
    When they had galloped for several minutes without any further noise from the lions 
Shasta said, "I say! That other horse is galloping beside us now. Only a stone's throw 
away."
    
    "All the b-better," panted Bree. "Tarkaan on it-will have a sword-protect us all."
    
    "But, Bree!" said Shasta. "We might just as well be killed by lions as caught. Or 1 
might. They'll hang me for horsestealing." He was feeling less frightened of lions than 
Bree because he had never met a lion; Bree had.
    
    Bree only snorted in answer but he did sheer away to his right. Oddly enough the 
other horse seemed also to be sheering away to the left, so that in a few seconds the 
space between them had widened a good deal. But as soon as it did so there came two more 
lions' roars, immediately after one another, one on the right and the other on the left, 
the horses began drawing nearer together. So, apparently, did the lions. The roaring of 
the brutes on each side was horribly close and they seemed to be keeping up with the 
galloping horses quite easily. Then the cloud rolled away. The moonlight, astonishingly 
bright, showed up everything almost as if it were broad day. The two horses and two 
riders were galloping neck to neck and knee to knee just as if they were in a race. 
Indeed Bree said (afterwards) that a finer race had never been seen in Calormen.
    
    Shasta now gave himself up for lost and began to wonder whether lions killed you 
quickly or played with you as a cat plays with a mouse and how much it would hurt. At the 
same time (one sometimes does this at the most frightful moments) he noticed everything. 
He saw that the other rider was a very small, slender person, mail-clad (the moon shone 
on the mail) and riding magnificently. He had no beard.
    
    Something flat and shining was spread out before them. Before Shasta had time even to 
guess what it was there was
    
    a great splash and he found his mouth half full of salt water. The shining thing had 
been a long inlet of the sea. Both horses were swimming and the water was up to Shasta's 
knees. There was an angry roaring behind them and looking back Shasta saw a great, 
shaggy, and terrible shape crouched on the water's edge; but only one. "We must have 
shaken off the other lion," he thought.
    
    The lion apparently did not think its prey worth a wetting; at any rate it made no 
attempt to take the water in pursuit. The two horses, side by side, were now well out 
into the middle of the creek and the opposite shore could be clearly seen. The Tarkaan 
had not yet spoken a word. "But he will," thought Shasta. "As soon as we have landed. 
What am I to say? I must begin thinking out a story."
    
    Then, suddenly, two voices spoke at his side.
    
    "Oh, I am so tired," said the one. "Hold your tongue, Hwin, and don't be a fool," 
said the other.
    
    "I'm dreaming," thought Shasta. "I could have sworn that other horse spoke."
    
    Soon the horses were no longer swimming but walking and soon with a great sound of 
water running off their sides and tails and with a great crunching of pebbles under eight 
hoofs, they came out on the farther beach of the inlet. The Tarkaan, to Shasta's 
surprise, showed no wish to ask questions. He did not even look at Shasta but seemed 
anxious to urge his horse straight on. Bree, however, at once shouldered himself in the 
other horse's way.
    
    "Broo-hoo-hah!" he snorted. "Steady there! I heard you, I did. There's no good 
pretending, Ma'am. 1 heard you. You're a Talking Horse, a Narnian horse just like me."
    
    "What's it got to do with you if she is?" said the strange rider fiercely, laying 
hand on sword-hilt. But the voice in which the words were spoken had already told Shasta 
something.