Colin climbed after his sister. He ached in every muscle and was trembling with fatigue.

When the circle was complete the creatures began to advance across the swamp, moving easily over the mire on their splayed feet. Ever closer they came, till the rock was surrounded.

From all sides at once the ropes came snaking through the air, as soft as silk, as strong as iron, and clung to the children as though coated with glue; so that in no time at all Colin and Susan fell helpless beneath the sticky coils, and over them swarmed the mob, pinching and poking, and binding and trussing, until the children lay with only their heads exposed, like two cocoons upon the rock.

But as they were being hoisted on to bony shoulders it seemed as though a miracle happened. There was a flash, and the whole rock was lapped about by a lake of blue fire. The children could feel no heat, but their captors fell, hissing and spitting, into the swamp, and the ropes charred and crumbled into ash, while pandemonium broke loose through all the assembly.

Then, from the darkness above, a voice rang out.

“Since when have men-children grown so mighty that you must needs meet two with hundreds? Run, maggot-breed of Ymir, ere I lose my patience!”

The crowd had fallen silent at the first sound of that voice, and now it drew back slowly, snarling and blinking in the blue light, wavered, turned, and fled. The dazed children listened to the rushing feet as though in a dream: soon there was only the rattle of stones on the opposite slope; then nothing. The cold flames about the rock flickered and died. The moon shone peacefully upon the quiet valley.

And as their eyes grew accustomed to this paler light the children saw standing on a path beneath a cliff some way above them an old man, taller than any they had ever known, and thin. He was clad in a white robe, his hair and beard were white, and in his hand was a white staff. He was looking at Colin and Susan. and, as they sat upright, he spoke again, but this time there was no anger in his voice.