第631章 The Horse And His Boy(221)

Shasta picked himself up， feeling uncommonly stiff， and ran towards the sound to see what the joke was. A very curious sight met his eyes. The unfortunate Rabadash appeared to be suspended from the castle walls. His feet， which were about two feet from the ground， were kicking wildly. His chain.shirt was somehow hitched up so that it was horribly tight under the arms and came halfway over his face. In fact he looked just as a man looks if you catch him in the very act of getting into a stiff shirt that is a little too small for him. As far as could be made out afterwards （and you may be sure the story was well talked over for many a day） what happened was something like this. Early in the battle one of the Giants had made an unsuccessful stamp at Rabadash with his spiked boot： unsuccessful because it didn’t crush Rabadash， which was what the Giant had intended， but not quite useless because one of the spikes tore the chain mail， just as you or I might tear an ordinary shirt. So Rabadash， by the time he encountered Edmund at the gate， had a hole in the back of his hauberk. And when Edmund pressed him back nearer and nearer to the wall， he jumped up on a mounting block and stood there raining down blows on Edmund from above. But then， finding that this position， by raising him above the heads of everyone else， made him a mark for every arrow from the Narnian bows， he decided to jump down again. And he meant to look and sound.no doubt for a moment he did look and sound.very grand and very dreadful as he jumped， crying， “The bolt of Tash falls from above.” But he had to jump sideways because the crowd in front of him left him no landing place in that direction. And then， in the neatest way you could wish， the tear in the back of his hauberk caughton a hook in the wall. （Ages ago this hook had had a ring in it for tying horses to.） And there he found himself， like a piece of washing hung up to dry， with everyone laughing at him.