chater fur the dwarf tell f rce caian (第4/8页)
C·S·路易斯提示您:看后求收藏(启明小说www.qmxs.net),接着再看更方便。
“Oh please,not yet!”said Caspian.
“I mean,wasn’t there a battle? Why is he called Caspian the Conqueror if there was nobody to fight with him?”
“I said there were very few men in Narnia,”said the Doctor,looking at the little boy very strangely through his great spectacles.
For a moment Caspian was puzzled and then suddenly his heart gave a leap.“Do you mean,”he gasped,“that there were other things? Do you mean it was like in the stories? Were there-?”
“Hush!”said Doctor Cornelius,laying his head very close to Caspian’s.“Not a word more.Don’t you know your Nurse was sent away for telling you about Old Narnia? The King doesn’t like it.If he found me telling you secrets,you’d be whipped and I should have my head cut off.”
“But why?”asked Caspian.
“1t is high time we turned to Grammar now,”said Doctor Cornelius in a loud voice.“Will your Royal Highness be pleased to open Pulverulentus Siccus at the fourth page of his Grammatical garden or the Arbour of Accidence pleasantlie open’d to Tender Wits?”
After that it was all nouns and verbs till lunchtime,but I don’t think Caspian learned much.He was too excited.He felt sure that Doctor Cornelius would not have said so much unless he meant to tell him more sooner or later.
In this he was not disappointed.A few days later his Tutor said,“Tonight I am going to give you a lesson in Astronomy.At dead of night two noble planets,Tarva and Alambil,will pass within one degree of each other.Such a conjunction has not occurred for two hundred years,and your Highness will not live to see it again.It will be best if you go to bed a little earlier than usual.When the time of the conjunction draws near,I will come and wake you.”
This didn’t seem to have anything to do with Old Narnia,which was what Caspian really wanted to hear about,but getting up in the middle of the night is always interesting and he was moderately pleased.When he went to bed that night,he thought at first that he would not be able to sleep; but he soon dropped off and it seemed only a few minutes before he felt someone gently shaking him.