"Second point," continued Peter. "The castle well is exactly where our well was, a little to the south of the great hall; and it is exactly the same size and shape."
Again there was no reply.
"Third point: Susan has just found one of our old chessmen - or something as like one of them as two peas."
Still nobody answered.
"Fourth point. Don't you remember - it was the very day before the ambassadors came from the King of Calormen don't you remember planting the orchard outside the north gate of Cair Paravel? The greatest of all the wood-people, Pomona herself, came to put good spells on it. It was those very decent little chaps the moles who did the actual digging. Can you have forgotten that funny old Lilygloves, the chief mole, leaning on his spade and saying, `Believe me, your Majesty, you'll be glad of these fruit trees one day.' And by Jove he was right."
"I do! I do!" said Lucy, and clapped her hands.
"But look here, Peter," said Edmund. "This must be all rot. To begin with, we didn't plant the orchard slap up against the gate. We wouldn't have been such fools."
"No, of course not," said Peter. "But it has grown up to the gate since."
"And for another thing," said Edmund, "Cair Paravel wasn't on an island."
"Yes, I've been wondering about that. But it was a what-do-you-call-it, a peninsula. Jolly nearly an island. Couldn't it have been made an island since our time? Somebody has dug a channel."
"But half a moment!" said Edmund. "You keep on saying since our time. But it's only a year ago since we came back from Narnia. And you want to make out that in one year castles have fallen down, and great forests have grown up, and little trees we saw planted ourselves have turned into a big old orchard, and goodness knows what else. It's all impossible."
"There's one thing," said Lucy. "If this is Cair Paravel there ought to be a door at this end of the dais. In fact we ought to be sitting with our backs against it at this moment. You know - the door that led down to the treasure chamber."
"I suppose there isn't a door," said Peter, getting up.
The wall behind them was a mass of ivy.
"We can soon find out," said Edmund, taking up one of the sticks that they had laid ready for putting on the fire. He began beating the ivied wall. Tap-tap went the stick against the stone; and again, tap-tap; and then, all at once, boomboom, with a quite different sound, a hollow, wooden sound.
"Great Scott!" said Edmund.
"We must clear this ivy away," said Peter.
"Oh, do let's leave it alone," said Susan. "We can try it in the morning. If we've got to spend the night here I don't want an open door at my back and a great big black hole that anything might come out of, besides the draught and the damp. And it'll soon be dark."
"Susan! How can you?" said Lucy with a reproachful glance. But both the boys were too much excited to take any notice of Susan's advice. They worked at the ivy with their hands and with Peter's pocket-knife till the knife broke. After that they used Edmund's. Soon the whole place where they had been sitting was covered with ivy; and at last they had the door cleared.
"Locked, of course," said Peter.
"But the wood's all rotten," said Edmund. "We can pull it to bits in no time, and it will make extra firewood. Come on."
It took them longer than they expected and, before they had done, the great hall had grown dusky and the first star or two had come out overhead. Susan was not the only one who felt a slight shudder as the boys stood above the pile of splintered wood, rubbing the dirt off their hands and staring into the cold, dark opening they had made.
"Now for a torch," said Peter.
"Oh, what is the good?" said Susan. "And as Edmund said - "
"I'm not saying it now," Edmund interrupted. "I still don't understand, but we can settle that later. I suppose you're coming down, Peter?"
"We must," said Peter. "Cheer up, Susan. It's no good behaving like kids now that we are back in Narnia.
You're a Queen here. And anyway no one could go to sleep with a mystery like this on their minds."
They tried to use long sticks as torches but this was not a success. If you held them with the lighted end up they went out, and if you held them the other way they scorched your hand and the smoke got in your eyes. In the end they had to use Edmund's electric torch; luckily it had been a birthday present less than a week ago and the battery was almost new. He went first, with the light. Then came Lucy, then Susan, and Peter brought up the rear.
"I've come to the top of the steps," said Edmund.
"Count them," said Peter.