第644章 The Horse And His Boy(234)

“Yes， there are，” said Aravis. “But get on with the story.” “Well， as soon as he saw Corin and me， it seems thisCentaur looked at me and said， ’A day will come when that boy will save Archenland from the deadliest danger in which ever she lay‘. So of course my Father and Mother were very pleased. But there was someone present who wasn’t. This was a chap called the Lord Bar who had been Father‘s Lord Chancellor. And apparently he’d done something wrong.bezzling or some word like that.I didn‘t understand that part very well.and Father had had to dismiss him. But nothing else was done to him and he was allowed to go on living in Archenland. But he must have been as bad as he could be， for it came out afterwards he had been in the pay of the Tisroc and had sent a lot of secret information to Tashbaan. So as soon as he heard I was going to save Archenland from a great danger he decided I must be put out of the way. Well， he succeeded in kidnapping me （I don’t exactly know how） and rode away down the Winding Arrow to the coast. He‘d had everything prepared and there was a ship manned with his own followers lying ready for him and he put out to sea with me on board. But Father got windof it， though not quite in time， and was after him as quickly as he could. The Lord Bar was already at sea when Father reached the coast， but not out of sight. And Father was embarked in one of his own warships within twenty minutes. “It must have been a wonderful chase. They were six days following Bar’s galleon and brought her to battle on the seventh. It was a great sea.fight （I heard a lot about it yesterday evening） from ten o‘clock in the morning till sunset. Our people took the ship in the end. But I wasn’t there. The Lord Bar himself had been killed in the battle. But one of his men said that， early that morning， as soon as he saw he was certain to be overhauled， Bar had given me to one of his knights and sent us both away in the ship‘s boat. And that boat was never seen again. But of course that was the same boat that Aslan （he seems to be at the back of all the stories） pushed ashore at the right place for Arsheesh to pick me up. I wish I knew that knight’s name， for he musthave kept me alive and starved himself to do it.”