The_Complete_Chronicles_of_Narnia_(volumes_1-7,_in_order_of_publication)

golden bell a light, smart tap. Then he let her go and they fell apart staring at each other
and breathing hard. Polly was just beginning to cry, not with fear, and not even because
he had hurt her wrist quite badly, but with furious anger. Within two seconds, however,
they had something to think about that drove their own quarrels quite out of their minds.
As soon as the bell was struck it gave out a note, a sweet note such as you might have
expected, and not very loud. But instead of dying away again, it went on; and as it went
on it grew louder. Before a minute had passed it was twice as loud as it had been to begin
with. It was soon so loud that if the children had tried to speak (but they weren't thinking
of speaking now - they were just standing with their mouths open) they would not have
heard one another. Very soon it was so loud that they could not have heard one another
even by shouting. And still it grew: all on one note, a continuous sweet sound, though the
sweetness had something horrible about it, till all the air in that great room was throbbing
with it and they could feel the stone floor trembling under their feet. Then at last it began
to be mixed with another sound, a vague, disastrous noise which sounded first like the
roar of a distant train, and then like the crash of a falling tree. They heard something like
great weights falling. Finally, with a sudden, rush and thunder, and a shake that nearly
flung them off their feet, about a quarter of the roof at one end of the room fell in, great
blocks of masonry fell all round them, and the walls rocked. The noise of the bell
stopped. The clouds of dust cleared away. Everything became quiet again.
It was never found out whether the fall of the roof was due to Magic or whether that
unbearably loud sound from the bell just happened to strike the note which was more
than those crumbling walls could stand.
"There! I hope you're satisfied now," panted Polly.
"Well, it's all over, anyway," said Digory.
And both thought it was; but they had never been more mistaken in their lives.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE DEPLORABLE WORD
THE children were facing one another across the pillar where the bell hung, still
trembling, though it no longer gave out any note. Suddenly they heard a soft noise from
the end of the room which was still undamaged. They turned quick as lightning to see
what it was. One of the robed figures, the furthest-off one of all, the woman whom
Digory thought so beautiful, was rising from its chair. When she stood up they realized
that she was even taller than they had thought. And you could see at once, not only from
her crown and robes, but from the flash of her eyes and the curve of her lips, that she was
a great queen. She looked round the room and saw the damage and saw the children, but