at her command. And right in the middle, standing by the Table, was the Witch herself.
    
    A howl and a gibber of dismay went up from the creatures when they first saw the 
great Lion pacing towards them, and for a moment even the Witch seemed to be struck with 
fear. Then she recovered herself and gave a wild fierce laugh.
    
    "The fool!" she cried. "The fool has come. Bind him fast."
    
    Lucy and Susan held their breaths waiting for Aslan's roar and his spring upon his 
enemies. But it never came. Four Hags, grinning and leering, yet also (at first) hanging 
back and half afraid of what they had to do, had approached him. "Bind him, I say!" 
repeated the White Witch. The Hags made a dart at him and shrieked with triumph when they 
found that he made no resistance at all. Then others-evil dwarfs and apes-rushed in to 
help them, and between them they rolled the huge Lion over on his back and tied all his 
four paws together, shouting and cheering as if they had done something brave, though, 
had the Lion chosen, one of those paws could have been the death of them all. But he made 
no noise, even when the enemies, straining and tugging, pulled the cords so tight that 
they cut into his flesh. Then they began to drag him towards the Stone Table.
    
    "Stop!" said the Witch. "Let him first be shaved."
    
    Another roar of mean laughter went up from her followers as an ogre with a pair of 
shears came forward and squatted down by Aslan's head. Snip-snip-snip went the shears and 
masses of curling gold began to fall to the ground. Then the ogre stood back and the 
children, watching from their hiding-place, could see the face of Aslan looking all small 
and different without its mane. The enemies also saw the difference.
    
    "Why, he's only a great cat after all!" cried one.
    
    "Is that what we were afraid of?" said another.
    
    And they surged round Aslan, jeering at him, saying things like "Puss, Puss! Poor 
Pussy," and "How many mice have you caught today, Cat?" and "Would you like a saucer of 
milk, Pussums?"
    
    "Oh, how can they?" said Lucy, tears streaming down her cheeks. "The brutes, the 
brutes!" for now that the first shock was over the shorn face of Aslan looked to her 
braver, and more beautiful, and more patient than ever.
    
    "Muzzle him!" said the Witch. And even now, as they worked about his face putting on 
the muzzle, one bite from his jaws would have cost two or three of them their hands. But 
he never moved. And this seemed to enrage all that rabble. Everyone was at him now. Those 
who had been afraid to come near him even after he was bound began to find their courage, 
and for a few minutes the two girls could not even see him-so thickly was he surrounded 
by the whole crowd of creatures kicking him, hitting him, spitting on him, jeering at him.
    
    At last the rabble had had enough of this. They began to drag the bound and muzzled 
Lion to the Stone Table, some pulling and some pushing. He was so huge that even when 
they got him there it took all their efforts to hoist him on to the surface of it. Then 
there was more tying and tightening of cords.
    
    "The cowards! The cowards!" sobbed Susan. "Are they still afraid of him, even now?"
    
    When once Aslan had been tied (and tied so that he was really a mass of cords) on the 
flat stone, a hush fell on the crowd. Four Hags, holding four torches, stood at the 
corners of the Table. The Witch bared her arms as she had bared them the previous night 
when it had been Edmund instead of Aslan. Then she began to whet her knife. It looked to 
the children, when the gleam of the torchlight fell on it, as if the knife were made of 
stone, not of steel, and it was of a strange and evil shape.
    
    As last she drew near. She stood by Aslan's head. Her face was working and twitching 
with passion, but his looked up at the sky, still quiet, neither angry nor afraid, but a 
little sad. Then, just before she gave the blow, she stooped down and said in a quivering 
voice,
    
    "And now, who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human 
traitor? Now I will kill you instead of him as our pact was and so the Deep Magic will be 
appeased. But when you are dead what will prevent me from killing him as well? And who 
will take him out of my hand then? Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you 
have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die."
    
    The children did not see the actual moment of the killing. They couldn't bear to look 
and had covered their eyes.
    
    
    
    
    CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    
    DEEPER MAGIC FROM BEFORE THE DAWN OF TIME
    
    WHILE the two girls still crouched in the bushes with their hands over their faces, 
they heard the voice of the Witch calling out,
    
    "Now! Follow me all and we will set about what remains of this war! It will not take 
us long to crush the human vermin and the traitors now that the great Fool, the great 
Cat, lies dead."
    
    At this moment the children were for a few seconds in very great danger. For with 
wild cries and a noise of skirling pipes and shrill horns blowing, the whole of that vile 
rabble came sweeping off the hill-top and down the slope right past their hiding-place. 
They felt the Spectres go by them like a cold wind and they felt the ground shake beneath 
them under the galloping feet of the Minotaurs; and overhead there went a flurry of foul 
wings and a blackness of vultures and giant bats. At any other time they would have 
trembled with fear; but now the sadness and shame and horror of Aslan's death so filled 
their minds that they hardly thought of it.
    
    As soon as the wood was silent again Susan and Lucy crept out onto the open hill-top. 
The moon was getting low and thin clouds were passing across her, but still they could 
see the shape of the Lion lying dead in his bonds. And down they both knelt in the wet