Lewis, C.S. - Narnia 5 - The voyage of the dawntreader

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THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER
BY
C.S. LEWIS
v1.0 (Mar 31st 2000)
If you find and correct errors in the text, please update
the version number by 0.1 and redistribute.
CHAPTER ONE
THE PICTURE IN THE BEDROOM
THERE was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him
Eustace Clarence and masters called him Scrubb. I can't tell you how his friends spoke to him, for
he had none. He didn't call his Father and Mother "Father" and "Mother", but Harold and Alberta.
They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotallers
and wore a special kind of underclothes. In their house there was very little furniture and very
few clothes on beds and the windows were always open.
Eustace Clarence liked animals, especially beetles, if they were dead and pinned on a card. He
liked books if they were books of information and had pictures of grain elevators or of fat
foreign children doing exercises in model schools.
Eustace Clarence disliked his cousins the four Pevensies, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. But he
was quite glad when he heard that Edmund and Lucy were coming to stay. For deep down inside him he
liked bossing and bullying; and, though he was a puny little person who couldn't have stood up
even to Lucy, let alone Edmund, in a fight, he knew that there are dozens of ways to give people a
bad time if you are in your own home and they are only visitors.
Edmund and Lucy did not at all want to come and stay with Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta. But it
really couldn't be helped. Father had got a job lecturing in America for sixteen weeks that
summer, and Mother was to go with him because she hadn't had a real holiday for ten years. Peter
was working very hard for an exam and he was to spend the holidays being coached by old Professor
Kirke in whose house these four children had had wonderful adventures long ago in the war years.
If he had still been in that house he would have had them all to stay. But he had somehow become
poor since the old days and was living in a small cottage with only one bedroom to spare. It would
have cost too much money to take the other three all to America, and Susan had gone.
Grown-ups thought her the pretty one of the family and she was no good at school work (though
otherwise very old for her age) and Mother said she "would get far more out of a trip to America
than the youngsters". Edmund and Lucy tried not to grudge Susan her luck, but it was dreadful
having to spend the summer holidays at their Aunt's. "But it's far worse for me," said Edmund,
"because you'll at least have a room of your own and I shall have to share a bedroom with that
record stinker, Eustace."
The story begins on an afternoon when Edmund and Lucy were stealing a few precious minutes alone
together. And of course they were talking about Narnia, which was the name of their own private
and secret country. Most of us, I suppose, have a secret country but for most of us it is only an
imaginary country. Edmund and Lucy were luckier than other people in that respect. Their secret
country was real. They had already visited it twice; not in a game or a dream but in reality. They
had got there of course by Magic, which is the only way of getting to Narnia. And a promise, or
very nearly a promise, had been made them in Narnia itself that they would some day get back. You
may imagine that they talked about it a good deal, when they got the chance.
They were in Lucy's room, sitting on the edge of her bed and looking at a picture on the opposite
wall. It was the only picture in the house that they liked. Aunt Alberta didn't like it at all
(that was why it was put away in a little back room upstairs), but she couldn't get rid of it
because it had been a wedding present from someone she did not want to offend.
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It was a picture of a ship - a ship sailing straight towards you. Her prow was gilded and shaped
like the head of a dragon with wide-open mouth. She had only one mast and one large, square sail
which was a rich purple. The sides of the ship - what you could see of them where the gilded wings
of the dragon ended-were green. She had just run up to the top of one glorious blue wave, and the
nearer slope of that wave came down towards you, with streaks and bubbles on it. She was obviously
running fast before a gay wind, listing over a little on her port side. (By the way, if you are
going to read this story at all, and if you don't know already, you had better get it into your
head that the left of a ship when you are looking ahead, is port, and the right is starboard.) All
the sunlight fell on her from that side, and the water on that side was full of greens and
purples. On the other, it was darker blue from the shadow of the ship.
"The question is," said Edmund, "whether it doesn't make things worse, looking at a Narnian ship
when you can't get there."
"Even looking is better than nothing," said Lucy. "And she is such a very Narnian ship."
"Still playing your old game?" said Eustace Clarence, who had been listening outside the door and
now came grinning into the room. Last year, when he had been staying with the Pevensies, he had
managed to hear them all talking of Narnia and he loved teasing them about it. He thought of
course that they were making it all up; and as he was far too stupid to make anything up himself,
he did not approve of that.
"You're not wanted here," said Edmund curtly.
"I'm trying to think of a limerick," said Eustace. "Something like this:
"Some kids who played games about Narnia Got gradually balmier and balmier-"
"Well Narnia and balmier don't rhyme, to begin with," said Lucy.
"It's an assonance," said Eustace.
"Don't ask him what an assy-thingummy is," said Edmund. "He's only longing to be asked. Say
nothing and perhaps he'll go away."
Most boys, on meeting a reception like this, would either have cleared out or flared up. Eustace
did neither. He just hung about grinning, and presently began talking again.
"Do you like that picture?" he asked.
"For heaven's sake don't let him get started about Art and all that," said Edmund hurriedly, but
Lucy, who was very truthful, had already said, "Yes, I do. I like it very much."
"It's a rotten picture," said Eustace.
"You won't see it if you step outside," said Edmund.
"Why do you like it?" said Eustace to Lucy.
"Well, for one thing," said Lucy, "I like it because the ship looks as if it was really moving.
And the water looks as if it was really wet. And the waves look as if they were really going up
and down."
Of course Eustace knew lots of answers to this, but he didn't say anything. The reason was that at
that very moment he looked at the waves and saw that they did look very much indeed as if they
were going up and down. He had only once been in a ship (and then only as far as the Isle of
Wight) and had been horribly seasick. The look of the waves in the picture made him feel sick
again. He turned rather green and tried another look. And then all three children were staring
with open mouths.
What they were seeing may be hard to believe when you read it in print, but it was almost as hard
to believe when you saw it happening. The things in the picture were moving. It didn't look at all
like a cinema either; the colours were too real and clean and out-of-doors for that. Down went the
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prow of the ship into the wave and up went a great shock of spray. And then up went the wave
behind her, and her stern and her deck became visible for the first time, and then disappeared as
the next wave came to meet her and her bows went up again. At the same moment an exercise book
which had been lying beside Edmund on the bed flapped, rose and sailed through the air to the wall
behind him, and Lucy felt all her hair whipping round her face as it does on a windy day. And this
was a windy day; but the wind was blowing out of the picture towards them. And suddenly with the
wind came the noises-the swishing of waves and the slap of water against the ship's sides and the
creaking and the overall high steady roar of air and water. But it was the smell, the wild, briny
smell, which really convinced Lucy that she was not dreaming.
"Stop it," came Eustace's voice, squeaky with fright and bad temper. "It's some silly trick you
two are playing. Stop it. I'll tell Alberta - Ow!"
The other two were much more accustomed to adventures, but, just exactly as Eustace Clarence said
"Ow," they both said "Ow" too. The reason was that a great cold, salt splash had broken right out
of the frame and they were breathless from the smack of it, besides being wet through.
"I'll smash the rotten thing," cried Eustace; and then several things happened at the same time.
Eustace rushed towards the picture. Edmund, who knew something about magic, sprang after him,
warning him to look out and not to be a fool. Lucy grabbed at him from the other side and was
dragged forward. And by this time either they had grown much smaller or the picture had grown
bigger. Eustace jumped to try to pull it off the wall and found himself standing on the frame; in
front of him was not glass but real sea, and wind and waves rushing up to the frame as they might
to a rock. He lost his head and clutched at the other two who had jumped up beside him. There was
a second of struggling and shouting, and just as they thought they had got their balance a great
blue roller surged up round them, swept them off their feet, and drew them down into the sea.
Eustace's despairing cry suddenly ended as the water got into his mouth.
Lucy thanked her stars that she had worked hard at her swimming last summer term. It is true that
she would have got on much better if she had used a slower stroke, and also that the water felt a
great deal colder than it had looked while it was only a picture. Still, she kept her head and
kicked her shoes off, as everyone ought to do who falls into deep water in their clothes. She even
kept her mouth shut and her eyes open. They were still quite near the ship; she saw its green side
towering high above them, and people looking at her from the deck. Then, as one might have
expected, Eustace clutched at her in a panic and down they both went.
When they came up again she saw a white figure diving off the ship's side. Edmund was close beside
her now, treading water, and had caught the arms of the howling Eustace. Then someone else, whose
face was vaguely familiar, slipped an arm under her from the other side. There was a lot of
shouting going on from the ship, heads crowding together above the bulwarks, ropes being thrown.
Edmund and the stranger were fastening ropes round her. After that followed what seemed a very
long delay during which her face got blue and her teeth began chattering. In reality the delay was
not very long; they were waiting till the moment when she could be got on board the ship without
being dashed against its side. Even with all their best endeavours she had a bruised knee when she
finally stood, dripping and shivering, on the deck. After her Edmund was heaved up, and then the
miserable Eustace. Last of all came the stranger - a golden-headed boy some years older than
herself.
"Ca - Ca - Caspian!" gasped Lucy as soon as she had breath enough. For Caspian it was; Caspian,
the boy king of Narnia whom they had helped to set on the throne during their last visit.
Immediately Edmund recognized him too. All three shook hands and clapped one another on the back
with great delight.
"But who is your friend?" said Caspian almost at once, turning to Eustace with his cheerful smile.
But Eustace was crying much harder than any boy of his age has a right to cry when nothing worse
than a wetting has happened to him, and would only yell out, "Let me go. Let me go back. I don't
like it."
"Let you go?" said Caspian. "But where?"
Eustace rushed to the ship's side, as if he expected to see the picture frame hanging above the
sea, and perhaps a glimpse of Lucy's bedroom. What he saw was blue waves flecked with foam, and
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paler blue sky, both spreading without a break to the horizon. Perhaps we can hardly blame him if
his heart sank. He was promptly sick.
"Hey! Rynelf," said Caspian to one of the sailors. "Bring spiced wine for their Majesties. You'll
need something to warm you after that dip." He called Edmund and Lucy their Majesties because they
and Peter and Susan had all been Kings and Queens of Narnia long before his time. Narnian time
flows differently from ours. If you spent a hundred years in Narnia, you would still come back to
our world at the very same hour of the very same day on which you left. And then, if you went back
to Narnia after spending a week here, you might find that a thousand Narnian years had passed, or
only a day, or no time at all. You never know till you get there. Consequently, when the Pevensie
children had returned to Narnia last time for their second visit, it was (for the Narnians) as if
King Arthur came back to Britain, as some people say he will. And I say the sooner the better.
Rynelf returned with the spiced wine steaming in a flagon and four silver cups. It was just what
one wanted, and as Lucy and Edmund sipped it they could feel the warmth going right down to their
toes. But Eustace made faces and spluttered and spat it out and was sick again and began to cry
again and asked if they hadn't any Plumptree's Vitaminized Nerve Food and could it be made with
distilled water and anyway he insisted on being put ashore at the next station.
"This is a merry shipmate you've brought us, Brother," whispered Caspian to Edmund with a chuckle;
but before he could say anything more Eustace burst out again.
"Oh! Ugh! What on earth's that! Take it away, the horrid thing." .
He really had some excuse this time for feeling a little surprised. Something very curious indeed
had come out of the cabin in the poop and was slowly approaching them. You might call it - and
indeed it was - a Mouse. But then it was a Mouse on its hind legs and stood about two feet high. A
thin band of gold passed round its head under one ear and over the other and in this was stuck a
long crimson feather. (As the Mouse's fur was very dark, almost black, the effect was bold and
striking.) Its left paw rested on the hilt of a sword very nearly as long as its tail. Its
balance, as it paced gravely along the swaying deck, was perfect, and its manners courtly. Lucy
and Edmund recognized it at once Reepicheep, the most valiant of all the Talking Beasts of Narnia,
and the Chief Mouse. It had won undying glory in the second Battle of Beruna. Lucy longed, as she
had always done, to take Reepicheep up in her arms and cuddle him. But this, as she well knew, was
a pleasure she could never have: it would have offended him deeply. Instead, she went down on one
knee to talk to him.
Reepicheep put forward his left leg, drew back his right, bowed, kissed her hand, straightened
himself, twirled his whiskers, and said in his shrill, piping voice:
"My humble duty to your Majesty. And to King Edmund, too." (Here he bowed again.) "Nothing except
your Majesties' presence was lacking to this glorious venture."
"Ugh, take it away," wailed Eustace. "I hate mice. And I never could bear performing animals.
They're silly and vulgar and-and sentimental."
"Am I to understand," said Reepicheep to Lucy after a long stare at Eustace, "that this singularly
discourteous person is under your Majesty's protection? Because, if not-"
At this moment Lucy and Edmund both sneezed.
"What a fool I am to keep you all standing here in your wet things," said Caspian. "Come on below
and get changed. I'll give you my cabin of course, Lucy, but I'm afraid we have no women's clothes
on board. You'll have to make do with some of mine. Lead the way, Reepicheep, like a good fellow."
"To the convenience of a lady," said Reepicheep, "even a question of honour must give way - at
least for the moment -" and here he looked very hard at Eustace. But Caspian hustled them on and
in a few minutes Lucy found herself passing through the door into the stern cabin. She fell in
love with it at once - the three square windows that looked out on the blue, swirling water
astern, the low cushioned benches round three sides of the table, the swinging silver lamp
overhead (Dwarfs' work, she knew at once by its exquisite delicacy) and the flat gold image of
Aslan the Lion on the forward wall above the door. All this she took in in a flash, for Caspian
immediately opened a door on the starboard side, and said, "This'll be your room, Lucy. I'll just
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get some dry things for myself-" he was rummaging in one of the lockers while he spoke - "and then
leave you to change. If you'll fling your wet things outside the door I'll get them taken to the
galley to be dried."
Lucy found herself as much at home as if she had been in Caspian's cabin for weeks, and the motion
of the ship did not worry her, for in the old days when she had been a queen in Narnia she had
done a good deal of voyaging. The cabin was very tiny but bright with painted panels (all birds
and beasts and crimson dragons and vines) and spotlessly clean. Caspian's clothes were too big for
her, but she could manage. His shoes, sandals and sea-boots were hopelessly big but she did not
mind going barefoot on board ship. When she had finished dressing she looked out of her window at
the water rushing past and took a long deep breath. She felt quite sure they were in for a lovely
time.
CHAPTER TWO
ON BOARD THE DAWN TREADER
"AH, there you are, Lucy," said Caspian. "We were just waiting for you. This is my captain, the
Lord Drinian."
A dark-haired man went down on one knee and kissed her hand. The only others present were
Reepicheep and Edmund.
"Where is Eustace?" asked Lucy.
"In bed," said Edmund, "and I don't think we can do anything for him. It only makes him worse if
you try to be nice to him."
"Meanwhile," said Caspian, "we want to talk."
"By Jove, we do," said Edmund. "And first, about time. It's a year ago by our time since we left
you just before your coronation. How long has it been in Narnia?"
"Exactly three years," said Caspian.
"All going well?" asked Edmund.
"You don't suppose I'd have left my kingdom and put to sea unless all was well," answered the
King. "It couldn't be better. There's no trouble at all now between Telmarines, Dwarfs, Talking
Beasts, Fauns and the rest. And we gave those troublesome giants on the frontier such a good
beating last summer that they pay us tribute now. And I had an excellent person to leave as Regent
while I'm away Trumpkin, the Dwarf. You remember him?"
"Dear Trumpkin," said Lucy, "of course I do. You couldn't have made a better choice."
"Loyal as a badger, Ma'am, and valiant as - as a Mouse," said Drinian. He had been going to say
"as a lion" but had noticed Reepicheep's eyes fixed on him.
"And where are we heading for?" asked Edmund.
"Well," said Caspian, "that's rather a long story. Perhaps you remember that when I was a child my
usurping uncle Miraz got rid of seven friends of my father's (who might have taken my part) by
sending them off to explore the unknown , Eastern Seas beyond the Lone Islands."
"Yes," said Lucy, "and none of them ever came back."
"Right. Well, on, my coronation day, with Aslan's approval, I swore an oath that, if once I
established peace in Narnia, I would sail east myself for a year and a day to find my father's
friends or to learn of their deaths and avenge them if I could. These were their names - the Lord
Revilian, the Lord Bern, the Lord Argoz, the Lord Mavramorn, the Lord Octesian, the Lord Restimar,
and - oh, that other one who's so hard to remember."
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"The Lord Rhoop, Sire," said Drinian.
"Rhoop, Rhoop, of course," said Caspian. "That is my main intention. But Reepicheep here has an
even higher hope." Everyone's eyes turned to the Mouse.
"As high as my spirit," it said. "Though perhaps as small as my stature. Why should we not come to
the very eastern end of the world? And what might we find there? I expect to find Aslan's own
country. It is always from the east, across the sea, that the great Lion comes to us."
"I say, that is an idea," said Edmund in an awed voice.
"But do you think," said Lucy, "Aslan's country would be that sort of country - I mean, the sort
you could ever sail to?"
"I do not know, Madam," said Reepicheep. "But there is this. When I was in my cradle, a wood
woman, a Dryad, spoke this verse over me:
"Where sky and water meet, Where the waves grow sweet, Doubt not, Reepicheep, To find all you
seek, There is the utter East.
"I do not know what it means. But the spell of it has been on me all my life."
After a short silence Lucy asked, "And where are we now, Caspian?"
"The Captain can tell you better than I," said Caspian, so Drinian got out his chart and spread it
on the table.
"That's our position," he said, laying his finger on it. "Or was at noon today. We had a fair wind
from Cair Paravel and stood a little north for Galma, which we made on the next day. We were in
port for a week, for the Duke of Galma made a great tournament for His Majesty and there he
unhorsed many knights-"
"And got a few nasty falls myself, Drinian. Some of the bruises are there still," put in Caspian.
"- And unhorsed many knights," repeated Drinian with a grin. "We thought the Duke would have been
pleased if the King's Majesty would have married his daughter, but nothing came of that-"
"Squints, and has freckles," said Caspian.
"Oh, poor girl," said Lucy.
"And we sailed from Galma," continued Drinian, "and ran into a calm for the best part of two days
and had to row, and then had wind again and did not make Terebinthia till the fourth day from
Galma. And there their King sent out a warning not to land for there was sickness in Terebinthia,
but we doubled the cape and put in at a little creek far from the city and watered. Then we had to
lie off for three days before we got a south-east wind and stood out for Seven Isles. The third
day out a pirate (Terebinthian by her rig) overhauled us, but when she saw us well armed she stood
off after some shooting of arrows on either part -"
"And we ought to have given her chase and boarded her and hanged every mother's son of them," said
Reepicheep.
"- And in five days more we were insight of Muil, which, as you know, is the westernmost of the
Seven Isles. Then we rowed through the straits and came about sundown into Redhaven on the isle of
Brenn, where we were very lovingly feasted and had victuals and water at will. We left Redhaven
six days ago and have made marvellously good speed, so that I hope to see the Lone Islands the day
after tomorrow. The sum is, we are now nearly thirty days at sea and have sailed more than four
hundred leagues from Narnia."
"And after the Lone Islands?" said Lucy.
"No one knows, your Majesty," answered Drinian. "Unless the Lone Islanders themselves can tell
us."
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"They couldn't in our days," said Edmund.
"Then," said Reepicheep, "it is after the Lone Islands that the adventure really begins."
Caspian now suggested that they might like to be shown over the ship before supper, but Lucy's
conscience smote her and she said, "I think I really must go and see Eustace. Seasickness is
horrid, you know. If I had my old cordial with me I could cure him."
"But you have," said Caspian. "I'd quite forgotten about it. As you left it behind I thought it
might be regarded as one of the royal treasures and so I brought it - if you think it ought to be
wasted on a thing like seasickness."
"It'll only take a drop," said Lucy.
Caspian opened one of the lockers beneath the bench and brought out the beautiful little diamond
flask which Lucy remembered so well. "Take back your own, Queen," he said. They then left the
cabin and went out into the sunshine.
In the deck there were two large, long hatches, fore and aft of the mast, and both open, as they
always were in fair weather, to let light and air into the belly of the ship. Caspian led them
down a ladder into the after hatch. Here they found themselves in a place where benches for rowing
ran from side to side and the light came in through the oarholes and danced on the roof. Of course
Caspian's ship was not that horrible thing, a galley rowed by slaves. Oars were used only when
wind failed or for getting in and out of harbour and everyone (except Reepicheep whose legs were
too short) had often taken a turn. At each side of the ship the space under the benches was left
clear for the rowers' feet, but all down the centre there was a kind of pit which went down to the
very keel and this was filled with all kinds of things - sacks of flour, casks of water and beer,
barrels of pork, jars of honey, skin bottles of wine, apples, nuts, cheeses, biscuits, turnips,
sides of bacon. From the roof - that is, from the under side of the deck - hung hams and strings
of onions, and also the men of the watch offduty in their hammocks. Caspian led them aft, stepping
from bench to bench; at least, it was stepping for him, and something between a step and a jump
for Lucy, and a real long jump for Reepicheep. In this way they came to a partition with a door in
it. Caspian opened the door and led them into a cabin which filled the stern underneath the deck
cabins in the poop. It was of course not so nice. It was very low and the sides sloped together as
they went down so that there was hardly any floor; and though it had windows of thick glass, they
were not made to open because they were under water. In fact at this very moment, as the ship
pitched they were alternately golden with sunlight and dim green with the sea.
"You and I must lodge here, Edmund," said Caspian. "We'll leave your kinsman the bunk and sling
hammocks for ourselves."
"I beseech your Majesty-" said Drinian.
"No, no shipmate," said Caspian, "we have argued all that out already. You and Rhince" (Rhince was
the mate) "are sailing the ship and will have cares and labours many a night when we are singing
catches or telling stories, so you and he must have the port cabin above. King Edmund and I can
lie very snug here below. But how is the stranger?"
Eustace, very green in the face, scowled and asked whether there was any sign of the storm getting
less. But Caspian said, "What storm?" and Drinian burst out laughing.
"Storm, young master!" he roared. "This is as fair weather as a man could ask for."
"Who's that?" said Eustace irritably. "Send him away. His voice goes through my head."
"I've brought you something that will make you feel better, Eustace," said Lucy.
"Oh, go away and leave me alone," growled Eustace. But he took a drop from her flask, and though
he said it was beastly stuff (the smell in the cabin when she opened it was delicious) it is
certain that his face came the right colour a few moments after he had swallowed it, and he must
have felt better because, instead of wailing about the storm and his head, he began demanding to
be put ashore and said that at the first port he would "lodge a disposition" against them all with
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the British Consul. But when Reepicheep asked what a disposition was and how you lodged it
(Reepicheep thought it was some new way of arranging a single combat) Eustace could only reply,
"Fancy not knowing that." In the end they succeeded in convincing Eustace that they were already
sailing as fast as they could towards the nearest land they knew, and that they had no more power
of sending him back to Cambridge - which was where Uncle Harold lived - than of sending him to the
moon. After that he sulkily agreed to put on the fresh clothes which had been put out for him and
come on deck.
Caspian now showed them over the ship, though indeed they had seen most it already. They went up
on the forecastle and saw the look-out man standing on a little shelf inside the gilded dragon's
neck and peering through its open mouth. Inside the forecastle was the galley (or ship's kitchen)
and quarters for such people as the boatswain, the carpenter, the cook and the master-archer. If
you think it odd to have the galley in the bows and imagine the smoke from its chimney streaming
back over the ship, that is because you are thinking of steamships where there is always a
headwind. On a sailing ship the wind is coming from behind, and anything smelly is put as far
forward as possible. They were taken up to the fighting top, and at first it was rather alarming
to rock to and fro there and see the deck looking small and far away beneath. You realized that if
you fell there was no particular reason why you should fall on board rather than in the sea. Then
they were taken to the poop, where Rhince was on duty with another man at the great tiller, and
behind that the dragon's tail rose up, covered with gilding, and round inside it ran a little
bench. The name of the ship was Dawn Treader. She was only a little bit of a thing compared with
one of our I ships, or even with the cogs, dromonds, carracks and galleons which Narnia had owned
when Lucy and Edmund had reigned there under Peter as the High King, for nearly all navigation had
died out in the reigns of Caspian's ancestors. When his uncle, Miraz the usurper, had sent the
seven lords to sea, they had had to buy a Galmian ship and man it with hired Galmian sailors. But
now Caspian had begun to teach the Narnians to be sea-faring folk once more, and the Dawn Treader
was the finest ship he had built yet. She was so small that, forward of the mast, there was hardly
any deck room between the central hatch and the ship's boat on one side and the hen-coop (Lucy fed
the hens) on the other. But she was a beauty of her kind, a "lady" as sailors say, her lines
perfect, her colours pure, and every spar and rope and pin lovingly made. Eustace of course would
be pleased with nothing, and kept on boasting about liners and motor-boats and aeroplanes and
submarines ("As if he knew anything about them," muttered Edmund), but the other two were
delighted with the Dawn Treader, and when they returned aft to the cabin and supper, and saw the
whole western sky lit up with an immense crimson sunset, and felt the quiver of the ship, and
tasted the salt on their lips, and thought of unknown lands on the Eastern rim of the world, Lucy
felt that she was almost too happy to speak.
What Eustace thought had best be told in his own words, for when they all got their clothes back,
dried, next morning, he at once got out a little black notebook and a pencil and started to keep a
diary. He always had this notebook with him and kept a record of his marks in it, for though he
didn't care much about any subject for its own sake, he cared a great deal about marks and would
even go to people and say, "I got so much. What did you get?" But as he didn't seem likely to get
many marks on the Dawn Treader he now started a diary. This was the first entry.
"7 August. Have now been twenty-four hours on this ghastly boat if it isn't a dream. All the time
a frightful storm has been raging (it's a good thing I'm not seasick). Huge waves keep coming in
over the front and I have seen the boat nearly go under any number of times. All the others
pretend to take no notice of this, either from swank or because Harold says one of the most
cowardly things ordinary people do is to shut their eyes to Facts. It's madness to come out into
the sea in a rotten little thing like this. Not much bigger than a lifeboat. And, of course,
absolutely primitive indoors. No proper saloon, no radio, no bathrooms, no deck-chairs. I was
dragged all over it yesterday evening and it would make anyone sick to hear Caspian showing off
his funny little toy boat as if it was the Queen Mary. I tried to tell him what real ships are
like, but he's too dense. E. and L., o f course, didn't back me up. I suppose a kid like L.
doesn't realize the danger and E. is buttering up C. as everyone does here. They call him a King.
I said I was a Republican but he had to ask me what that meant! He doesn't seem to know anything
at all. Needless to say I've been put in the worst cabin of the boat, a perfect dungeon, and Lucy
has been given a whole room on deck to herself, almost a nice room compared with the rest of this
place. C. says that's because she's a girl. I tried to make him see what Alberta says, that all
that sort of thing is really lowering girls but he was too dense. Still, he might see that I shall
be ill if I'm kept in that hole any longer. E. says we mustn't grumble because C. is sharing it
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with us himself to make room for L. As if that didn't make it more crowded and far worse. Nearly
forgot to say that there is also a kind of Mouse thing that gives everyone the most frightful
cheek. The others can put up with it if they like but I shall twist his tail pretty soon if he
tries it on me. The food is frightful too."
The trouble between Eustace and Reepicheep arrived even sooner than might have been expected.
Before dinner next day, when the others were sitting round the table , waiting (being at sea gives
one a magnificent appetite), Eustace came rushing in, wringing his hand and shouting out:
"That little brute has half killed me. I insist on it being kept under control. I could bring an
action against you, Caspian. i could order you to have it destroyed."
At the same moment Reepicheep appeared. His sword was drawn and his whiskers looked very fierce
but he was as polite as ever.
"I ask your pardons all," he said, "and especially her Majesty's. If I had known that he would
take refuge here I would have awaited a more reasonable time for his correction."
"What on earth's up?" asked Edmund.
What had really happened was this. Reepicheep, who never felt that the ship was getting on fast
enough, loved to sit on the bulwarks far forward just beside the dragon's head, gazing out at the
eastern horizon and singing softly in his little chirruping voice the song the Dryad had made for
him. He never held on to anything, however the ship pitched, and kept his balance with perfect
ease; perhaps his long tail, hanging down to the deck inside the bulwarks, made this easier.
Everyone on board was familiar with this habit, and the sailors liked it because when one was on
look-out duty it gave one somebody to talk to. Why exactly Eustace had slipped and reeled and
stumbled all the way forward to the forecastle (he had not yet got his sea-legs) I never heard.
Perhaps he hoped he would see land, or perhaps he wanted to hang about the galley and scrounge
something. Anyway, as soon as he saw that long tail hanging down - and perhaps it was rather
tempting - he thought it would be delightful to catch hold of it, swing Reepicheep round by it
once or twice upside-down, then run away and laugh, At first the plan seemed to work beautifully.
The Mouse was not much heavier than a very large cat. Eustace had him off the rail in a trice and
very silly he looked (thought Eustace) with his little limbs all splayed out and his mouth open.
But unfortunately Reepicheep, who had fought for his life many a time, never lost his head even
for a moment. Nor his skill. It is not very easy to draw one's sword when one is swinging round in
the air by one's tail, but he did. And the next thing Eustace knew was two agonizing jabs in his
hand which made him let go of the tail; and the next thing after that was that the Mouse had
picked itself up again as if it were a ball bouncing off the deck, and there it was facing him,
and a horrid long, bright, sharp thing like a skewer was waving to and fro within an inch of his
stomach. (This doesn't count as below the belt for mice in Narnia because they can hardly be
expected to reach higher.)
"Stop it," spluttered Eustace, "go away. Put that thing away. It's not safe. Stop it, I say. I'll
tell Caspian.
I'll have you muzzled and tied up."
"Why do you not draw your own sword, poltroon!" cheeped the Mouse. "Draw and fight or I'll beat
you black and blue with the flat."
"I haven't got one," said Eustace. "I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in fighting."
"Do I understand," said Reepicheep, withdrawing his sword for a moment and speaking very sternly,
"that you do not intend to give me satisfaction?"
"I don't know what you mean," said Eustace, nursing his hand. "If you don't know how to take a
joke I shan't bother my head about you."
"Then take that," said Reepicheep, "and that - to teach you manners - and the respect due to a
knight - and a Mouse - and a Mouse's tail -" and at each word he gave Eustace a blow with the side
of his rapier, which was thin, fine dwarf-tempered steel and as supple and effective as a birch
rod. Eustace (of course) was at a school where they didn't have corporal punishment, so the
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sensation was quite new to him. That was why, in spite of having no sealegs, it took him less than
a minute to get off that forecastle and cover the whole length of the deck and burst in at the
cabin door - still hotly pursued by Reepicheep. Indeed it seemed to Eustace that the rapier as
well as the pursuit was hot. It might have been red-hot by the feel.
There was not much difficulty in settling the matter once Eustace realized that everyone took the
idea of a duel seriously and heard Caspian offering to lend him a sword, and Drinian and Edmund
discussing whether he ought to be handicapped in some way to make up for his being so much bigger
than Reepicheep. He apologized sulkily and went off with Lucy to have his hand bathed and bandaged
and then went to his bunk. He was careful to lie on his side.
CHAPTER THREE
THE LONE ISLANDS
"LAND in sight," shouted the man in the bows.
Lucy, who had been talking to Rhince on the poop, came pattering down the ladder and raced
forward. As she went she was joined by Edmund, and they found Caspian, Drinian and Reepicheep
already on the forecastle. It was a coldish morning, the sky very pale and the sea very dark blue
with little white caps of foam, and there, a little way off on the starboard bow, was the nearest
of the Lone Islands, Felimath, like a low green hill in the sea, and behind it, further off, the
grey slopes of its sister Doorn.
"Same old Felimath! Same old Doorn," said Lucy, clapping her hands. "Oh - Edmund, how long it is
since you and I saw them last!"
"I've never understood why they belong to Narnia," said Caspian. "Did Peter the High King conquer
them?"
"Oh no," said Edmund. "They were Narnian before our time - in the days of the White Witch."
(By the way, I have never yet heard how these remote islands became attached to the crown of
Narnia; if I ever do, and if the story is at all interesting, I may put it in some other book.)
"Are we to put in here, Sire?" asked Drinian.
"1 shouldn't think it would be much good landing on Felimath," said Edmund. "It was almost
uninhabited in our days and it looks as if it was the same still. The people lived mostly on Doorn
and a little on Avra - that's the third one; you can't see it yet. They only kept sheep on
Felimath."
"Then we'll have to double that cape, I suppose," said Drinian, "and land on Doorn. That'll mean
rowing."
"I'm sorry we're not landing on Felimath," said Lucy. "I'd like to walk there again. It was so
lonely - a nice kind of loneliness, and all grass and clover and soft sea air."
"I'd love to stretch my legs now too," said Caspian. "I tell you what. Why shouldn't we go ashore
in the boat and send it back, and then we could walk across Felimath and let the Dawn Treader pick
us up on the other side?"
If Caspian had been as experienced then as he became later on in this voyage he would not have
made this suggestion; but at the moment it seemed an excellent one. "Oh do let's," said Lucy.
"You'll come, will you?" said Caspian to Eustace, who had come on deck with his hand bandaged.
"Anything to get off this blasted boat," said Eustace.
"Blasted?" said Drinian. "How do you mean?"
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