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.
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 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 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 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."
"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."
"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
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 seafaring
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 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 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.
