The_Complete_Chronicles_of_Narnia_(volumes_1-7,_in_order_of_publication)

dance ten minutes before. Only ten minutes! Yet already it felt to Jill and Eustace as if all
their dangers in the dark and heat and general smotheriness of the earth must have been
only a dream. Out here, in the cold, with the moon and the huge stars overhead (Narnian
stars are nearer than stars in our world) and with kind, merry faces all round them, one
couldn't quite believe in Underland.
Before they had finished their hot drinks, a dozen or so Moles, newly waked and still
very sleepy, and not well pleased, had arrived. But as soon as they understood what it
was all about, they joined in with a will. Even the Fauns made themselves useful by
carting away the earth in little barrows, and the Squirrels danced and leaped to and fro in
great excitement, though Jill never found out exactly what they thought they were doing.
The Bears and Owls contented themselves with giving advice, and kept on asking the
children if they wouldn't like to come into the cave (that was where Jill had seen the
firelight) and get warm and have supper. But the children couldn't bear to go without
seeing their friends set free.
No one in our world can work at a job of that sort as Dwarfs and Talking Moles work in
Narnia; but then, of course, Moles and Dwarfs don't look on it as work. They like
digging. It was therefore not really long before they had opened a great black chasm in
the hillside. And out from the blackness into the moonlight - this would have been rather
dreadful if one hadn't known who they were came, first, the long, leggy, steeple-hatted
figure of the Marsh-wiggle, and then, leading two great horses, Rilian the Prince himself.
As Puddleglum appeared shouts broke out on every side: "Why, it's a Wiggle - why, it's
old Puddleglum - old Puddleglum from the Eastern Marshes - what ever have you been
doing, Puddleglum? - there've been search-parties out for you - the Lord Trumpkin has
been putting up notices there's a reward offered!" But all this died away, all in one
moment, into dead silence, as quickly as the noise dies away in a rowdy dormitory if the
Headmaster opens the door. For now they saw the Prince.
No one doubted for a moment who he was. There were plenty of Beasts and Dryads and
Dwarfs and Fauns who remembered him from the days before his enchanting. There were
some old ones who could just remember how his father, King Caspian, had looked when
he was a young man, and saw the likeness. But I think they would have known him
anyway. Pale though he was from long imprisonment in the Deep Lands, dressed in
black, dusty, dishevelled, and weary, there was something in his face and air which no
one could mistake. That look is in the face of all true kings of Narnia, who rule by the
will of Aslan and sit at Cair Paravel on the throne of Peter the High King.
Instantly every head was bared and every knee was bent; a moment later such cheering
and shouting, such jumps and reels of joy, such hand-shakings and kissings and
embracings of everybody by everybody else broke out that the tears came into Jill's eyes.
Their quest had been worth all the pains it cost.
"Please it your Highness," said the oldest of the Dwarfs, "there is some attempt at a
supper in the cave yonder, prepared against the ending of the snow-dance -"