The_Complete_Chronicles_of_Narnia_(volumes_1-7,_in_order_of_publication)

a pair of eyes. Aravis shoved desperately to try to make Lasaraleen give her a little more
room. But Lasaraleen, now quite selfish in her panic, fought back and pinched her feet.
They gave it up and lay still, panting a little. Their own breath semed dreadfully noisy,
but there was no other noise.
"Is it safe?" said Aravis at last in the tiniest possible whisper.
"I - I - think so," began Lasaraleen. "But my poor nerves -" and then came the most
terrible noise they could have heard at that moment: the noise of the door opening. And
then came light. And because Aravis couldn't get her head any further in behind the sofa,
she saw everything.
First came the two slaves (deaf and dumb, as Aravis rightly guessed, and therefore used
at the most secret councils) walking backwards and carrying the candles. They took up
their stand one at each end of the sofa. This was a good thing, for of course it was now
harder for anyone to see Aravis once a slave was in front of her and she was looking
between his heels. Then came an old man, very fat, wearing a curious pointed cap by
which she immediately knew that he was the Tisroc. The least of the jewels with which
he was covered was worth more than all the clothes and weapons of the Narnian lords put
together: but he was so fat and such a mass of frills and pleats and bobbles and buttons
and tassels and talismans that Aravis couldn't help thinking the Narnian fashions (at any
rate for men) looked nicer. After him came a tall young man with a feathered and
jewelled turban on his head and an ivory-sheathed scimitar at his side. He seemed very
excited and his eyes and teeth flashed fiercely in the candlelight. Last of all came a little
hump-backed, wizened old man in whom she recognized with a shudder the new Grand
Vizier and her own betrothed husband, Ahoshta Tarkaan himself.
As soon as all three had entered the room and the door was shut, the Tisroc seated
himself on the divan with a sigh of contentment, the young man took his place, standing
before him, and the Grand Vizier got down on his knees and elbows and laid his face flat
on the carpet.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IN THE HOUSE OF THE TISROC
"OH-my-father-and-oh-the-delight-of-my-eyes," began the young man, muttering the
words very quickly and sulkily and not at all as if the Tisroc were the delight of his eyes.
"May you live for ever, but you have utterly destroyed me. If you had given me the
swiftest of the galleys at sunrise when I first saw that the ship of the accursed barbarians
was gone from her place I would perhaps have overtaken them. But you persuaded me to
send first and see if they had not merely moved round the point into better anchorage.
And now the whole day has been wasted. And they are gone - gone - out of my reach!