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Then all the animals looked and saw Uncle Andrew, standing very still among the

rhododendrons and hoping he wouldn't be noticed.

"Come on!" said several voices. "Let's go and find out." So, while Strawberry was briskly

trotting away with Digory in one direction (and Polly and the Cabby were following on

foot) most of the creatures rushed towards Uncle Andrew with roars, barks, grunts, and

various noises of cheerful interest.

We must now go back a bit and explain what the whole scene had looked like from Uncle

Andrew's point of view. It had not made at' all the same impression on him as on the

Cabby and the children. For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are

standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.

Ever since the animals had first appeared, Uncle Andrew had been shrinking further and

further back into the thicket. He watched them very hard of course; but he wasn't really

interested in seeing what they were doing, only in seeing whether they were going to

make a rush at him. Like the Witch, he was dreadfully practical. He simply didn't notice

that Aslan was choosing one pair out of every kind of beasts. All he saw, or thought he

saw, was a lot of dangerous wild animals walking vaguely about. And he kept on

wondering why the other animals didn't run away from the big Lion.

When the great moment came and the Beasts spoke, he missed the whole point; for a

rather interesting reason. When the Lion had first begun singing, long ago when it was

still quite dark, he had realized that the noise was a song. And he had disliked the song

very much. It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel. Then,

when the sun rose and he saw that the singer was a lion ("only a lion," as he said to

himself) he tried his hardest to make believe that it wasn't singing and never had been

singing - only roaring as any lion might in a zoo in our own world. "Of course it can't

really have been singing," he thought, "I must have imagined it. I've been letting my

nerves get out of order. Who ever heard of a lion singing?" And the longer and more

beautiful the Lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew tried to make himself believe that he

could hear nothing but roaring. Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider

than you really are is that you very often succeed. Uncle Andrew did. He soon did hear

nothing but roaring in Aslan's song. Soon he couldn't have heard anything else even if he

had wanted to. And when at last the Lion spoke and said, "Narnia awake," he didn't hear

any words: he heard only a snarl. And when the Beasts spoke in answer, he heard only

barkings, growlings, bayings, and howlings. And when they laughed - well, you can

imagine. That was worse for Uncle Andrew than anything that had happened yet. Such a

horrid, bloodthirsty din of hungry and angry brutes he had never heard in his life. Then,

to his utter rage and horror, he saw the other three humans actually walking out into the

open to meet the animals.

"The fools!" he said to himself. "Now those brutes will eat the rings along with the

children and I'll never be able to get home again. What a selfish little boy that Digory is!

And the others are just as bad. If they want to throw away their own lives, that's their

business. But what about me? They don't seem to think of that. No one thinks of me."