LITMIR.BIZ

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he could, for he was a kindhearted boy, and could not bear to think of a master's time and labor being thrown away on a boy like himself—who did not wish to learn, only to find out—when there were so many worthy lads thirsting for instruction in geography and history and reading and ciphering, and Mr. Smiles's "Self-Help."

      Other boys played truant too, of course—and these went nutting or blackberrying or wild plum gathering, but Edmund never went on the side of the town where the green woods and hedges grew. He always went up the mountain where the great rocks were, and the tall, dark pine trees, and where other people were afraid to go because of the strange noises that came out of the caves.

      Edmund was not afraid of these noises—though they were very strange and terrible. He wanted to find out what made them.

      One day he did. He had invented, all by himself, a very ingenious and new kind of lantern, made with a turnip and a tumbler, and when he took the candle out of Granny's bedroom candlestick to put in it, it gave quite a splendid light.

      He had to go to school next day, and he was caned for being absent without leave—although he very straightforwardly explained that he had been too busy making the lantern to have time to come to school.

      But the day after he got up very early and took the lunch Granny had ready for him to take to school—two boiled eggs and an apple turnover—and he took his lantern and went off as straight as a dart to the mountains to explore the caves.

      The caves were very dark, but his lantern lighted them up beautifully; and they were most interesting caves, with stalactites and stalagmites and fossils, and all the things you read about in the instructive books for the young. But Edmund did not care for any of these things just then. He wanted to find out what made the noises that people were afraid of, and there was nothing in the caves to tell him.

      Presently he sat down in the biggest cave and listened very carefully, and it seemed to him that he could distinguish three different sorts of noises. There was a heavy rumbling sound, like a very large old gentleman asleep after dinner; and there was a smaller sort of rumble going on at the same time; and there was a sort of crowing, clucking sound, such as a chicken might make if it happened to be as big as a haystack.

      "It seems to me," said Edmund to himself, "that the clucking is nearer than the others." So he started up again and explored the caves once more. He found out nothing, but about halfway up the wall of the cave, he saw a hole. And, being a boy, he climbed up to it and crept in; and it was the entrance to a rocky passage. And now the clucking sounded more plainly than before, and he could hardly hear the rumbling at all.

      "I am going to find out something at last," said Edmund, and on he went. The passage wound and twisted, and twisted and turned, and turned and wound, but Edmund kept on.

      "My lantern's burning better and better," said he presently, but the next minute he saw that all the light did not come from his lantern. It was a pale yellow light, and it shone down the passage far ahead of him through what looked like the chink of a door.

      "I expect it's the fire in the middle of the earth," said Edmund, who had not been able to help learning about that at school.

      But quite suddenly the fire ahead gave a pale flicker and went down; and the clucking ceased.

      The next moment Edmund turned a corner and found himself in front of a rocky door. The door was ajar. He went in, and there was a round cave, like the dome of St. Paul's. In the middle of the cave was a hole like a very big hand-washing basin, and in the middle of the basin Edmund saw a large pale person sitting.

      This person had a man's face and a griffin's body, and big feathery wings, and a snake's tail, and a cock's comb and neck feathers.

      "Whatever are you?" said Edmund.

      "I'm a poor starving cockatrice," answered the pale person in a very faint voice, "and I shall die—oh, I know I shall! My fire's gone out! I can't think how it happened; I must have been asleep. I have to stir it seven times round with my tail once in a hundred years to keep it alight, and my watch must have been wrong. And now I shall die."

      I think I have said before what a kindhearted boy Edmund was.

      "Cheer up," said he. "I'll light your fire for you." And off he went, and in a few minutes he came back with a great armful of sticks from the pine trees outside, and with these and a lesson book or two that he had forgotten to lose before, and which, quite by an oversight, were safe in his pocket, he lit a fire all around the cockatrice. The wood blazed up, and presently something in the basin caught fire, and Edmund saw that it was a sort of liquid that burned like the brandy in a snapdragon. And now the cockatrice stirred it with his tail and flapped his wings in it so that some of it splashed out on Edmund's hand and burnt it rather badly. But the cockatrice grew red and strong and happy, and its comb grew scarlet, and its feathers glossy, and it lifted itself up and crowed "Cock-a-trice-a-doodle-doo!" very loudly and clearly.

       "Cock-a-trice-a-doodle-doo!"

      Edmund's kindly nature was charmed to see the cockatrice so much improved in health, and he said: "Don't mention it; delighted, I'm sure," when the cockatrice began to thank him.

      "But what can I do for you?" said the creature.

      "Tell me stories," said Edmund.

      "What about?" said the cockatrice.

      "About true things that they don't know at school," said Edmund.

      So the cockatrice began, and he told him about mines and treasures and geological formations, and about gnomes and fairies and dragons, and about glaciers and the Stone Age and the beginning of the world, and about the unicorn and the phoenix, and about Magic, black and white.

      And Edmund ate his eggs and his turnover, and listened. And when he got hungry again he said good-bye and went home. But he came again the next day for more stories, and the next day, and the next, for a long time.

      He told the boys at school about the cockatrice and his wonderful true tales, and the boys liked the stories; but when he told the master he was caned for untruthfulness.

      "But it's true," said Edmund. "Just you look where the fire burnt my hand."

      "I see you've been playing with fire—into mischief as usual," said the master, and he caned Edmund harder than ever. The master was ignorant and unbelieving: but I am told that some schoolmasters are not like that.

      Now, one day Edmund made a new lantern out of something chemical that he sneaked from the school laboratory. And with it he went exploring again to see if he could find the things that made the other sorts of noises. And in quite another part of the mountain he found a dark passage, all lined with brass, so that it was like the inside of a huge telescope, and at the very end of it he found a bright green door. There was a brass plate on the door that said mrs. d. knock and ring, and a white label that said call me at three. Edmund had a watch: It had been given to him on his birthday two days before, and he had not yet had time to take it to pieces and see what made it go, so it was still going. He looked at it now. It said a quarter to three.

      Did I tell you before what a kindhearted boy Edmund was? He sat down on the brass doorstep and waited till three o'clock. Then he knocked and rang, and there was a rattling and puffing inside. The great door flew open, and Edmund had only just time to hide behind it when out came an immense yellow dragon, who wriggled off down the brass cave like a long, rattling worm—or perhaps more like a monstrous centipede.

      Edmund crept slowly out and saw the dragon stretching herself on the rocks in the sun, and he crept past the great creature and tore down the hill into the town and burst into school, crying out: "There's a great dragon coming! Somebody ought to do something, or we shall all be destroyed."

      He was caned for untruthfulness without any delay. His master was never one for postponing a duty.

      "But it's true," said Edmund. "You just see if it isn't."

      He pointed out of the window, and everyone could see a vast yellow cloud rising up into the air

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