d 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 w