THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADERTHE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER 
BY 
C.S. LEWIS 
  
  
CHAPTER ONE - THE PICTURE IN THE BEDROOM.. 1 
CHAPTER TWO - ON BOARD THE DAWN TREADER. 8 
CHAPTER THREE - THE LONE ISLANDS. 16 
CHAPTER FOUR - WHAT CASPIAN DID THERE. 23 
CHAPTER FIVE - THE STORM AND WHAT CAME OF IT.. 29 
CHAPTER FIVE - THE STORM AND WHAT CAME OF IT.. 29 
CHAPTER SIX - THE ADVENTURES OF EUSTACE. 35 
CHAPTER SEVEN - HOW THE ADVENTURE ENDED.. 43 
CHAPTER EIGHT - TWO NARROW ESCAPES. 50 
CHAPTER NINE - THE ISLAND OF THE VOICES. 59 
CHAPTER NINE - THE ISLAND OF THE VOICES. 59 
CHAPTER TEN - THE MAGICIAN'S BOOK.. 66 
CHAPTER ELEVEN - THE DUFFLEPUDS MADE HAPPY.. 73 
CHAPTER ELEVEN - THE DUFFLEPUDS MADE HAPPY.. 73 
CHAPTER TWELVE - THE DARK ISLAND.. 80 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - THE THREE SLEEPERS. 87 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE WORLD.. 94 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - THE WONDERS OF THE LAST SEA.. 100 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - THE VERY END OF THE WORLD.. 107 
  
  
 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 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 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. 
  
  
  
  
  

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?" 
  
"In a civilized country like where I come from," said Eustace, "the ships are so 
big that when you're inside you wouldn't know you were at sea at all." 
  
"In that case you might just as well stay ashore," said Caspian. "Will you tell 
them to lower the boat, Drinian." 
  
The King, the Mouse, the two Pevensies, and Eustace all got into the boat and 
were pulled to the beach of Felimath. When the boat had left them and was being 
rowed back they all turned and looked round. They were surprised at how small 
the Dawn Treader looked. 
  
 Lucy was of course barefoot, having kicked off her shoes while swimming, but 
that is no hardship if one is going to walk on downy turf. It was delightful to 
be ashore again and to smell the earth and grass, even if at first the ground 
seemed to be pitching up and down like a ship, as it usually does for a while if 
one has been at sea. It was much warmer here than it had been on board and Lucy 
found the sand pleasant to her feet as they crossed it. There was a lark 
singing. 
  
 They struck inland and up a fairly steep, though low, hill. At the top of 
course they looked back, and there was the Dawn Treader shining like a great 
bright insect and crawling slowly north-westward with her oars. Then they went 
over the ridge and could see her no longer. 
  
 Doom now lay before them, divided from Felimath by a channel about a mile wide; 
behind it and to the left lay Avra. The little white town of Narrowhaven on 
Doorn was easily seen. 
  
 "Hullo! What's this?" said Edmund suddenly. 
  
 In the green valley to which they were descending six or seven rough-looking 
men, all armed, were sitting by a tree. 
  
 "Don't tell them who we are," said Caspian. 
  
 "And pray, your Majesty, why not?" said Reepicheep who had consented to ride on 
Lucy's shoulder. 
  
 "It just occurred to me," replied Caspian, "that no one here can have heard 
from Narnia for a long time. It's just possible they may not still acknowledge 
our over-lordship. In which case it might not be quite safe to be known as the 
King." 
  
"We have our swords, Sire," said Reepicheep. 
  
 "Yes, Reep, I know we have," said Caspian. "But if it is a question of 
re-conquering the three islands, I'd prefer to come back with a rather larger 
army." 
  
By this time they were quite close to the strangers, one of whom - a big 
black-haired fellow - shouted out, "A good morning to you." 
  
"And a good morning to you," said Caspian. "Is there still a Governor of the 
Lone Islands?" 
  
"To be sure there is," said the man, "Governor Gumpas. His Sufficiency is at 
Narrowhaven. But you'll stay and drink with us." 
  
Caspian thanked him, though neither he nor the others much liked the look of 
their new acquaintance, and all of them sat down. But hardly had they raised 
their cups to their lips when the black-haired man nodded to his companions and, 
as quick as lightning, all the five visitors found themselves wrapped in strong 
arms. There was a moment's struggle but all the advantages were on one side, and 
soon everyone was disarmed and had their hands tied behind their backs except 
Reepicheep, writhing in his captor's grip and biting furiously. 
  
 "Careful with that beast, Tacks," said the Leader. "Don't damage him. He'll 
fetch the best price of the lot, I shouldn't wonder." 
  
"Coward! Poltroon!" squeaked Reepicheep. "Give me my sword and free my paws if 
you dare." 
  
"Whew!" whistled the slave merchant (for that is what he was). "It can talk! 
Well I never did. Blowed if I take less than two hundred crescents for him." The 
Calormen crescent, which is the chief coin in those parts, is worth about a 
third of a pound. 
  
 "So that's what you are," said Caspian. "A kidnapper and slaver. I hope you're 
proud of it." 
  
"Now, now, now, now," said the slaver. "Don't you start any jaw. The easier you 
take it, the pleasanter all round, see? I don't do this for fun. I've got my 
living to make same as anyone else." 
  
"Where will you take us?" asked Lucy, getting the words out with some 
difficulty. 
  
 "Over to Narrowhaven," said the slaver. "For market day tomorrow." 
  
"Is there a British Consul there?" asked Eustace. 
  
 "Is there a which?" said the man. 
  
 But long before Eustace was tired of trying to explain, the slaver simply said, 
"Well, I've had enough of this jabber. The Mouse is a fair treat but this one 
would talk the hind leg off a donkey. Off we go, mates." 
  
Then the four human prisoners were roped together, not cruelly but securely, and 
made to march down to the shore. Reepicheep was carried. He had stopped biting 
on a threat of having his mouth tied up, but he had a great deal to say, and 
Lucy really wondered how any man could bear to have the things said to him which 
were said to the slave dealer by the Mouse. But the slave dealer, far from 
objecting, only said "Go on" whenever Reepicheep paused for breath, occasionally 
adding, "It's as good as a play," or, "Blimey, you can't help almost thinking it 
knows what it's saying!" or "Was it one of you what trained it?" This so 
infuriated Reepicheep that in the end the number of things he thought of saying 
all at once nearly suffocated him and he became silent. 
  
 When they got down to the shore that looked towards Doorn they found a little 
village and a long-boat on the beach and, lying a little further out, a dirty 
bedraggled looking ship. 
  
 "Now, youngsters," said the slave dealer, "let's have no fuss and then you'll 
have nothing to cry about. All aboard." 
  
At that moment a fine-looking bearded man came out of one of the houses (an inn, 
I think) and said: 
  
"Well, Pug. More of your usual wares?" 
  
The slaver, whose name seemed to be Pug, bowed very low, and said in a wheedling 
kind of voice, "Yes, please your Lordship." 
  
"How much do you want for that boy?" asked the other, pointing to Caspian. 
  
 "Ah," said Pug, "I knew your Lordship would pick on the best. No deceiving your 
Lordship with anything second rate. That boy, now, I've taken a fancy to him 
myself. Got kind of fond of him, I have. I'm that tender-hearted I didn't ever 
ought to have taken up this job. Still, to a customer like your Lordship-" 
  
"Tell me your price, carrion," said the Lord sternly. "Do you think I want to 
listen to the rigmarole of your filthy trade?" 
  
"Three hundred crescents, my Lord to your honourable Lordship, but to anyone 
else -" 
  
"I'll give you a hundred and fifty." 
  
"Oh please, please," broke in Lucy. "Don't separate us, whatever you do. You 
don't know -" But then she stopped for she saw that Caspian didn't even now want 
to be known. 
  
 "A hundred and fifty, then," said the Lord. "As for you, little maiden, I am 
sorry I cannot buy you all. Unrope my boy, Pug. And look - treat these others 
well while they are in your hands or it'll be the worse for you." 
  
"Well!" said Pug. "Now who ever heard of a gentleman in my way of business who 
treated his stock better than what I do? Well? Why, I treat 'em like my own 
childen." 
  
"That's likely enough to be true," said the other grimly. 
  
 The dreadful moment had now come. Caspian was untied and his new master said, 
"This way, lad," and Lucy burst into tears and Edmund looked very blank. But 
Caspian looked over his shoulder and said, "Cheer up. I'm sure it will come all 
right in the end. So long." 
  
"Now, missie," said Pug. "Don't you start taking on and spoiling your looks for 
the market tomorrow. You be a good girl and then you won't have nothing to cry 
about, see?" 
  
Then they were rowed out to the slave-ship and taken below into a long, rather 
dark place, none too clean, where they found many other unfortunate prisoners; 
for Pug was of course a pirate and had just returned from cruising among the 
islands and capturing what he could. The children didn't meet anyone whom they 
knew; the prisoners were mostly Galmians and Terebinthians. And there they sat 
in the straw and wondered what was happening to Caspian and tried to stop 
Eustace talking as if everyone except himself was to blame. 
  
 Meanwhile Caspian was having a much more interesting time. The man who had 
bought him led him down a little lane between two of the village houses and so 
out into an open place behind the village. Then he turned and faced him. 
  
 "You needn't be afraid of me, boy," he said. "I'll treat you well. I bought you 
for your face. You reminded me of someone." ' 
  
"May I ask of whom, my Lord?" said Caspian. 
  
 "You remind me of my master, King Caspian of Narnia." 
  
Then Caspian decided to risk everything on one stroke. 
  
 "My Lord," he said, "I am your master. I am Caspian King of Narnia." 
  
"You make very free," said the other. "How shall I know this is true?" 
  
"Firstly by my face," said Caspian. "Secondly because I know within six guesses 
who you are. You are one of those seven lords of Narnia whom my Uncle Miraz sent 
to sea and whom I have come out to look for - Argoz, Bern, Octesian, Restimar, 
Mavramorn, or - or - I have forgotten the others. And finally, if your Lordship 
will give me a sword I will prove on any man's body in clean battle that I am 
Caspian the son of Caspian, lawful King of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel, and 
Emperor of the Lone Islands." 
  
"By heaven," exclaimed the man, "it is his father's very voice and trick of 
speech. My liege - your Majesty -" And there in the field he knelt and kissed 
the King's hand. 
  
 "The moneys your Lordship disbursed for our person will be made good from our 
own treasury," said Caspian. 
  
 "They're not in Pug's purse yet, Sire," said the Lord Bern, for he it was. "And 
never will be, I trust. I have moved his Sufficiency the Governor a hundred 
times to crush this vile traffic in man's flesh." 
  
"My Lord Bern," said Caspian, "we must talk of the state of these Islands. But 
first what is your Lordship's own story?" 
  
"Short enough, Sire," said Bern. "I came thus far with my six fellows, loved a 
girl of the islands, and felt I had had enough of the sea. And there was no 
purpose in returning to Narnia while your Majesty's uncle held the reins. So I 
married and have lived here ever since." 
  
"And what is this governor, this Gumpas, like? Does he still acknowledge the 
King of Narnia for his lord?" 
  
"In words, yes. All is done in the King's name. But he would not be best pleased 
to find a real, live King of Narnia coming in upon him. And if your Majesty came 
before him alone and unarmed - well he would not deny his allegiance, but he 
would pretend to disbelieve you. Your Grace's life would be in danger. What 
following has your Majesty in these waters?" 
  
"There is my ship just rounding the point," said Caspian. "We are about thirty 
swords if it came to fighting. Shall we not have my ship in and fall upon Pug 
and free my friends whom he holds captive?" 
  
"Not by my counsel," said Bern. "As soon as there was a fight two or three ships 
would put out from Narrowhaven to rescue Pug. Your Majesty must work by a show 
of more power than you really have, and by the terror of the King's name. It 
must not come to plain battle. Gumpas is a chicken-hearted man and can be 
over-awed." 
  
After a little more conversation Caspian and Bern walked down to the coast a 
little west of the village and there Caspian winded his horn. (This was not the 
great magic horn of Narnia, Queen Susan's Horn: he had left that at home for his 
regent Trumpkin to use if any great need fell upon the land in the King's 
absence.) Drinian, who was on the look-out for a signal, recognized the royal 
horn at once and the Dawn Treader began standing in to shore. Then the boat put 
off again and in a few moments Caspian and the Lord Bern were on deck explaining 
the situation to Drinian. He, just like Caspian, wanted to lay the Dawn Treader 
alongside the slave-ship at once and board her, but Bern made the same 
objection. 
  
 "Steer straight down this channel, captain," said Bern, "and then round to Avra 
where my own estates are. But first run up the King's banner, hang out all the 
shields, and send as many men to the fighting top as you can. And about five 
bowshots hence, when you get open sea on your port bow, run up a few signals." 
  
"Signals? To whom?" said Drinian. 
  
 "Why, to all the other ships we haven't got but which it might be well that 
Gumpas thinks we have." 
  
"Oh, I see," said Drinian rubbing his hands. "And 
  
they'll read our signals. What shall I say? Whole fleet round the South of Avra 
and assemble at -?" 
  
"Bernstead," said the Lord Bern. "That'll do excellently. Their whole journey - 
if there were any ships What Caspian did there would be out of sight from 
Narrowhaven." 
  
Caspian was sorry for the others languishing in the hold of Pug's slave-ship, 
but he could not help finding the rest of that day enjoyable. Late in the 
afternoon (for they had to do all by oar), having turned to starboard round the 
northeast end of Doorn and port again round the point of Avra, they entered into 
a good harbour on Avra's southern shore where Bern's pleasant lands sloped down 
to the water's edge. Bern's people, many of whom they saw working in the fields, 
were all freemen and it was a happy and prosperous fief. Here they all went 
ashore and were royally feasted in a low, pillared house overlooking the bay. 
Bern and his gracious wife and merry daughters made them good cheer. But after 
dark Bern sent a messenger over by boat to Doorn to order some preparations (he 
did not say exactly what) for the following day. 
  
  
  
  
  

CHAPTER FOUR - WHAT CASPIAN DID THERE
  
Nert morning the Lord Bern called his guests early, and after breakfast he asked 
Caspian to order every man he had into full armour. "And above all," he added, 
"let everything be as trim and scoured as if it were the morning of the first 
battle in a great war between noble kings with all the world looking on." This 
was done; and then in three boatloads Caspian and his people, and Bern with a 
few of his, put out for Narrowhaven. The king's flag flew in the stern of his 
boat and his trumpeter was with him. 
  
 When they reached the jetty at Narrowhaven, Caspian found a considerable crowd 
assembled to meet them. "This is what I sent word about last night," said Bern. 
"They are all friends of mine and honest people." And as soon as Caspian stepped 
ashore the crowd broke out into hurrahs and shouts of, "Narnia! Narnia! Long 
live the King." At the same moment - and this was also due to Bern's messengers 
- bells began ringing from many parts of the town. Then Caspian caused his 
banner to be advanced and his trumpet to be blown and every man drew his sword 
and set his face into a joyful sternness, and they marched up the street so that 
the street shook, and their armour shone (for it was a sunny morning) so that 
one could hardly look at it steadily. 
  
 At first the only people who cheered were those who had been warned by Bern's 
messenger and knew what was happening and wanted it to happen. But then all the 
children joined in because they liked a procession and had seen very few. And 
then all the schoolboys joined in because they also liked processions and felt 
that the more noise and disturbance there was the less likely they would be to 
have any school that morning. And then all the old women put their heads out of 
doors and windows and began chattering and cheering because it was a king, and 
what is a governor compared with that? And all the young women joined in for the 
same reason and also because Caspian and Drinian and the rest were so handsome. 
And then all the young men came to see what the young women were looking at, so 
that by the time Caspian reached the castle gates, nearly the whole town was 
shouting; and where Gumpas sat in the castle, muddling and messing about with 
accounts and forms and rules and regulations, he heard the noise. 
  
 At the castle gate Caspian's trumpeter blew a blast and cried, "Open for the 
King of Narnia, come to visit his trusty and wellbeloved servant the governor of 
the Lone Islands." In those days everything in the islands was done in a 
slovenly, slouching manner. Only the little postern opened, and out came a 
tousled fellow with a dirty old hat on his head instead of a helmet, and a rusty 
old pike in his hand. He blinked at the flashing figures before him. "Carn - 
seez - fishansy," he mumbled which was his way of saying, -"You can't see his 
Sufficiency"). "No interviews without 'pointments 'cept 'tween nine 'n' ten p.m. 
second Saturday every month." 
  
"Uncover before Narnia, you dog," thundered the Lord Bern, and dealt him a rap 
with his gauntleted hand which sent his hat flying from his head. 
  
 "'Ere? Wot's it all about?" began the doorkeeper, but no one took any notice of 
him. Two of Caspian's men stepped through the postern and after some struggling 
with bars and bolts (for everything was rusty) flung both wings of the gate wide 
open. Then the King and his followers strode into the courtyard. Here a number 
of the governor's guards were lounging about and several more (they were mostly 
wiping their mouths) came tumbling out of various doorways. Though their armour 
was in a disgraceful condition, these were fellows who might have fought if they 
had been led or had known what was happening; so this was the dangerous moment. 
Caspian gave them no time to think. 
  
 "Where is the captain?" he asked. 
  
 "I am, more or less, if you know what I mean," said a languid and rather 
dandified young person without any j armour at all. 
  
 "It is our wish," said Caspian, "that our royal visitation to our realm of the 
Lone Islands should, if possible, be an occasion of joy and not of terror to our 
loyal subjects. If it were not for that, I should have something to say about 
the state of your men's armour and weapons. As it is, you are pardoned. Command 
a cask of wine to be opened that, your men may drink our health. But at noon 
tomorrow I wish to see them here in this courtyard looking like men-at-arms and 
not like vagabonds. See to it on pain of our extreme displeasure." 
  
The captain gaped but Bern immediately cried, "Three. cheers for the King," and 
the soldiers, who had understood about the cask of wine even if they understood 
nothing else, joined in. Caspian then ordered most of his own men to remain in 
the courtyard. He, with Bern and Drinian and four others, went into the hall. 
  
 Behind a table at the far end with various secretaries about him sat his 
Sufficiency, the Governor of the Lone Islands. Gumpas was a bilious-looking man 
with hair that had once been red and was now mostly grey. He glanced up as the 
strangers entered and then looked down at his papers saying automatically, "No 
interviews without appointments except between nine and ten p.m. on second 
Saturdays." 
  
Caspian nodded to Bern and then stood aside. Bern and Drinian took a step 
forward and each seized one end of the table. They lifted it, and flung it on 
one side of the hall where it rolled over, scattering a cascade of letters, 
dossiers, ink-pots, pens, sealing-wax and documents. Then, not roughly but as 
firmly as if their hands were pincers of steel, they plucked Gumpas out of his 
chair and deposited him, facing it, about four feet away. Caspian at once sat 
down in the chair and laid his naked sword across his knees. 
  
 "My Lord," said he, fixing his eyes on Gumpas, "you have not given us quite the 
welcome we expected. I am the King of Narnia." 
  
"Nothing about it in the correspondence," said the governor. "Nothing in the 
minutes. We have not been notified of any such thing. All irregular. Happy to 
consider any applications-" 
  
"And we are come to enquire into your Sufficiency's conduct of your office," 
continued Caspian. "There are two points especially on which I require an 
explanation. Firstly I find no record that the tribute due from these Islands to 
the crown of Narnia has been received for about a hundred and fifty years." 
  
"That would be a question to raise at the Council next month," said Gumpas. "If 
anyone moves that a commission of enquiry be set up to report on the financial 
history of the islands at the first meeting next year, why then . . ." 
  
"I also find it very clearly written in our laws," Caspian went on, "that if the 
tribute is not delivered the whole debt has to be paid by the Governor of the 
Lone Islands out of his private purse." 
  
At this Gumpas began to pay real attention. "Oh, that's quite out of the 
question," he said. "It is an economic impossibility - er - your Majesty must be 
joking." 
  
Inside, he was wondering if there were any way of getting rid of these unwelcome 
visitors. Had he known that Caspian had only one ship and one ship's company 
with him, he would have spoken soft words for the moment, and hoped to have them 
all surrounded and killed during the night. But he had seen a ship of war sail 
down the straits yesterday and seen it signalling, as he supposed, to its 
consorts. He had not then known it was the King's ship for there was not wind 
enough to spread the flag out and make the golden lion visible, so he had waited 
further developments. Now he imagined that Caspian had a whole fleet at 
Bernstead. It would never have occurred to Gumpas that anyone would walk into 
Narrowhaven to take the islands with less than fifty men; it was certainly not 
at all the kind of thing he could imagine doing himself. 
  
 "Secondly," said Caspian, "I want to know why you have permitted this 
abominable and unnatural traffic in slaves to grow up here, contrary to the 
ancient custom and usage of our dominions." 
  
"Necessary, unavoidable," said his Sufficiency. "An essential part of the 
economic development of the islands, I assure you. Our present burst of 
prosperity depends on it." 
  
"What need have you of slaves?" 
  
"For export, your Majesty. Sell 'em to Calormen mostly; and we have other 
markets. We are a great centre of the trade." 
  
"In other words," said Caspian, "you don't need them. Tell me what purpose they 
serve except to put money into the pockets of such as Pug?" 
  
"Your Majesty's tender years," said Gumpas, with what was meant to be a fatherly 
smile, "hardly make it possible that you should understand the economic problem 
involved. I have statistics, I have graphs, I have-" 
  
"Tender as my years be," said Caspian, "I believe I understand the slave trade 
from within quite as well as your Sufficiency. And I do not see that it brings 
into the islands meat or bread or beer or wine or timber or cabbages or books or 
instruments of music or horses or armour or anything else worth having. But 
whether it does or not, it must be stopped." 
  
"But that would be putting the clock back," gasped the governor. "Have you no 
idea of progress, of development?" 
  
"I have seen them both in an egg," said Caspian. "We call it `Going Bad' in 
Narnia. This trade must stop." 
  
"I can take no responsibility for any such measure," said Gumpas. 
  
 "Very well, then," answered Caspian, "we relieve you of your office. My Lord 
Bern, come here." And before Gumpas quite realized what was happening, Bern was 
kneeling with his hands between the King's hands and taking the oath to govern 
the Lone Islands in accordance with the old customs, rights, usages and laws of 
Narnia. And Caspian said, "I think we have had enough of governors," and made 
Bern a Duke, the Duke of the Lone Islands. 
  
 "As for you, my Lord," he said to Gumpas, "I forgive you your debt for the 
tribute. But before noon tomorrow you and yours must be out of the castle, which 
is now the Duke's residence." 
  
"Look here, this is all very well," said one of Gumpas's secretaries, "but 
suppose all you gentlemen stop playacting and we do a little business. The 
question before us really is-" 
  
"The question is," said the Duke, "whether you and the rest of the rabble will 
leave without a flogging or with one. You may choose which you prefer." 
  
When all this had been pleasantly settled, Caspian ordered horses, of which 
there were a few in the castle, though very ill-groomed and he, with Bern and 
Drinian and a few others, rode out into the town and made for the slave market. 
It was a long low building near the harbour and the scene which they found going 
on inside was very much like any other auction; that is to say, there was a 
great crowd and Pug, on a platform, was roaring out in a raucous voice: 
  
"Now, gentlemen, lot twenty-three. Fine Terebinthian agricultural labourer, 
suitable for the mines or the galleys. Under twenty-five years of age. Not a bad 
tooth in his head. Good, brawny fellow. Take off his shirt, Tacks, and let the 
gentlemen see. There's muscle for you! Look at the chest on him. Ten crescents 
from the gentleman in the corner. You must be joking, sir. Fifteen! Eighteen! 
Eighteen is bidden for lot twenty-three. Any advance on eighteen? Twenty-one. 
Thank you, sir. Twenty-one is bidden-" 
  
But Pug stopped and gaped when he saw the mail-clad figures who had clanked up 
to the platform. 
  
 "On your knees, every man of you, to the King of Narnia," said the Duke. 
Everyone heard the horses jingling and stamping outside and many had heard some 
rumour of the landing and the events at the castle. Most obeyed. Those who did 
not were pulled down by their neighbours. Some cheered. 
  
 "Your life is forfeit, Pug, for laying hands on our royal person yesterday," 
said Caspian. "But your ignorance is pardoned. The slave trade was forbidden in 
all our dominions quarter of an hour ago. I declare every slave in this market 
free." 
  
He held up his hand to check the cheering of the slaves and went on, "Where are 
my friends?" 
  
"That dear little gel and the nice young gentleman?" said Pug with an 
ingratiating smile. "Why, they were snapped up at once-" 
  
"We're here, we're here, Caspian," cried Lucy and Edmund together and, "At your 
service, Sire," piped Reepicheep from another corner. They had all been sold but 
the men who had bought them were staying to bid for other slaves and so they had 
not yet been taken away. The crowd parted to let the three of them out and there 
was great handclasping and greeting between them and Caspian. Two merchants of 
Calormen at once approached. The Calormen have dark faces and long beards. They 
wear flowing robes and orange-coloured turbans, and they are a wise, wealthy, 
courteous, cruel and ancient people. They bowed most politely to Caspian and 
paid him long compliments, all about the fountains of prosperity irrigating the 
gardens of prudence and virtue - and things like that - but of course what they 
wanted was the money they had paid. 
  
 "That is only fair, sirs," said Caspian. "Every man who has bought a slave 
today must have his money back. Pug, bring out your takings to the last minim." 
(A minim is the fortieth part of a crescent.) 
  
"Does your good Majesty mean to beggar me?" whined Pug. 
  
 "You have lived on broken hearts all your life," said Caspian, "and if you are 
beggared, it is better to be a beggar than a slave. But where is my other 
friend?" 
  
"Oh him?" said Pug. "Oh take him and welcome. Glad to have him off my hands. 
I've never seen such a drug in the market in all my born days. Priced him at 
five crescents in the end and even so nobody'd have him. Threw him in free with 
other lots and still no one would have him. Wouldn't touch him. Wouldn't look at 
him. 'Packs, bring out Sulky." 
  
Thus Eustace was produced, and sulky he certainly looked; for though no one 
would want to be sold as a slave, it is perhaps even more galling to be a sort 
of utility slave whom no one will buy. He walked up to Caspian and said, "I see. 
As usual. Been enjoying yourself somewhere while the rest of us were prisoners. 
I suppose you haven't even found out about the British Consul. Of course not." 
  
That night they had a great feast in the castle of Narrowhaven and then, 
"Tomorrow for the beginning of our real adventures!" said Reepicheep when he had 
made his bows to everyone and went to bed. But it could not really be tomorrow 
or anything like it. For now they were preparing to leave all known lands and 
seas behind them and the fullest preparations had to be made. The Dawn Treader 
was emptied and drawn on land by eight horses over rollers and every bit of her 
was gone over by the most skilled shipwrights. Then she was launched again and 
victualled and watered as full as she could hold - that is to say for 
twenty-eight days. Even this, as Edmund noticed with disappointment, only gave 
them a fortnight's eastward sailing before they had to abandon their quest. 
  
 While all this was being done Caspian missed no chance of questioning all the 
oldest sea captains whom he could find in Narrowhaven to learn if they had any 
knowledge or even any rumours of land further to the east. He poured out many a 
flagon of the castle ale to weather-beaten men with short grey beards and clear 
blue eyes, and many a tall yarn he heard in return. But those who seemed the 
most truthful could tell of no lands beyond the Lone Islands, and many thought 
that if you sailed too far east you would come into the surges of a sea without 
lands that swirled perpetually round the rim of the world - "And that, I reckon, 
is where your Majesty's friends went to the bottom." The rest had only wild 
stories of islands inhabited by headless men, floating islands, waterspouts, and 
a fire that burned along the water. Only one, to Reepicheep's delight, said, 
"And beyond that, Aslan country. But that's beyond the end of the world and you 
can't get there." But when they questioned -him he could only say that he'd 
heard it from his father. 
  
 Bern could only tell them that he had seen his six companions sail away 
eastward and that nothing had, ever been heard of them again. He said this when 
he and Caspian were standing on the highest point of Avra looking down on the 
eastern ocean. "I've often been up here of a morning," said the Duke, "ands seen 
the sun come up out of the sea, and sometimes it looked as if it were only a 
couple of miles away. And I've wondered about my friends and wondered what there 
really is behind that horizon. Nothing, most likely, yet I am always half 
ashamed that I stayed behind. But I wish your Majesty wouldn't go. We may need 
your help here. This closing the slave market might make a new world; war with 
Calormen is what I foresee. My liege, think again." 
  
"I have an oath, my lord Duke," said Caspian. "And anyway, what could I say to 
Reepicheep?" 
  
  
  
 
CHAPTER FIVE - THE STORM AND WHAT CAME OF IT
  
IT was nearly three weeks after their landing that the Dawn Treader was towed 
out of Narrowhaven harbour. Very solemn farewells had been spoken and a great 
crowd had assembled to see her departure. There had been cheers, and tears too, 
when Caspian made his last speech to the Lone Islanders and parted from the Duke 
and his family, but as the ship, her purple sail still flapping idly, drew 
further from the shore, and the sound of Caspian's trumpet from the poop came 
fainter across the water, everyone became silent. Then she came into the wind. 
The sail swelled out, the tug cast off and began rowing back, the first real 
wave ran up under the Dawn Treader's prow, and she was a live ship again. The 
men off duty went below, Drinian took the first watch on the poop, and she 
turned her head eastward round the south of Avra. 
  
 The next few days were delightful. Lucy thought she was the most fortunate girl 
in the world; as she woke each morning to see the reflections of the sunlit 
water dancing on the ceiling of her cabin and looked round on all the nice new 
things she had got in the Lone Islands - seaboots and buskins and cloaks and 
jerkins and scarves. And then she would go on deck and take a look from the 
forecastle at a sea which was a brighter blue each morning and drink in an air 
that was a little warmer day by day. After that came breakfast and such an 
appetite as one only has at sea. 
  
 She spent a good deal of time sitting on the little bench in the stern playing 
chess with Reepicheep. It was amusing to see him lifting the pieces, which were 
far too big for him, with both paws and standing on tiptoes if he made a move 
near the centre of the board. He was a good player and when he remembered what 
he was doing he usually won. But every now and then Lucy won because the Mouse 
did something quite ridiculous like sending a knight into the danger of a queen 
and castle combined. This happened because he had momentarily forgotten it was a 
game of chess and was thinking of a real battle and making the knight do what he 
would certainly have done in its place. For his mind was full of forlorn hopes, 
death-or-glory charges, and last stands. 
  
 But this pleasant time did not last. There came an evening when Lucy, gazing 
idly astern at the long furrow or wake they were leaving behind them, saw a 
great rack of clouds building itself up in the west with amazing speed. 
  
 Then a gap was torn in it and a yellow sunset poured through the gap. All the 
waves behind them seemed to take on unusual shapes and the sea was a drab or 
yellowish colour like dirty canvas. The air grew cold. The ship seemed to move 
uneasily as if she felt danger behind he The sail would be flat and limp one 
minute and wildly the next. While she was noting these things and wondering at a 
sinister change which had come over the very noise the wind, Drinian cried, "All 
hands on deck." In a moment everyone became frantically busy. The hatches wet 
battened down, the galley fire was put out, men went aloft to reef the sail. 
Before they had finished the storm struck them. It seemed to Lucy that a great 
valley in the sea opened just before their bows, and they rushed down in it, 
deeper down than she would have believed possible. A great grey hill of water, 
far higher than the mast, rushed to meet them; it looked certain death but they 
were tossed to the top of it. Then the ship seemed to spin round. A cataract of 
water poured over the deck; the poop and forecastle were like two islands with a 
fierce sea between them. aloft the sailors were lying out along the yard 
desperate trying to get control of the sail. A broken rope stood out sideways in 
the wind as straight and stiff as if it was poker. 
  
 "Get below, Ma'am," bawled Drinian. And Lucy knowing that landsmen - and 
landswomen - are a nuisance to the crew, began to obey. It was not easy. The 
Dawn Treader was listing terribly to starboard and the deck sloped like the roof 
of a house. She had to clamber round to the top of the ladder, holding on to the 
rail, and the stand by while two men climbed up it, and then get down as best 
she could. It was well she was already holding tight for at the foot of the 
ladder another wave roar across the deck, up to her shoulders. She was already 
almost wet through with spray and rain but this was colder. Then she made a dash 
for the cabin door and got in and shut out for a moment the appalling sight of 
the speed with which they were rushing into the dark, but not of course the 
horrible confusion of creakings, groanings, snappings, clatterings, roarings and 
boomings which only sounded more alarming below than they had done on the poop 
  
 And all next day and all the next it went on. It went on till one could hardly 
even remember a time before it had begun. And there always had to be three men 
at the tiller and it was as much as three could do to keep any kind of a course. 
And there always had to be men at the pump. And there was hardly any rest for 
anyone, and nothing could be cooked and nothing could be dried, and one man was 
lost overboard, and they never saw the sun. 
  
 When it was over Eustace made the following entry in his diary. 
  
 "3 September. The first day for ages when I have been able to write. We had 
been driven before a hurricane for thirteen days and nights. I know that because 
I kept a careful count, though the others all say it was only twelve. Pleasant 
to be embarked on a dangerous voyage with people who can't even count right! I 
have had a ghastly time, up and down enormous waves hour after hour, usually wet 
to the skin, and not even an attempt at giving us proper meals. Needless to say 
there's no wireless or even a rocket, so no chance of signalling anyone for 
help. It all proves what I keep on telling them, the madness of setting out in a 
rotten little tub like this. It would be bad enough even if one was with decent 
people instead of fiends in human form. Caspian and Edmund are simply brutal to 
me. The night we lost our mast (there's only a stump left now), though I was not 
at all well, they forced me to come on deck and work like a slave. Lucy shoved 
her oar in by saying that Reepicheep was longing to go only he was too small. I 
wonder she doesn't see that everything that little beast does is all for the 
sake of showing off. Even at her age she ought to have that amount of sense. 
Today the beastly boat is level at last and the sun's out and we have all been 
jawing about what to do. We have food enough, pretty beastly stuff most of it, 
to last for sixteen days. (The poultry were all washed overboard. Even if they 
hadn't been, the storm would have stopped them laying.) The real trouble is 
water. Two casks seem to have got a leak knocked in them and are empty. (Narnian 
efficiency again.) On short rations, half a pint a day each, we've got enough 
for twelve days. (There's still lots of rum and wine but even they realize that 
would only make them thirstier.) 
  
"If we could, of course, the sensible thing would be to turn west at once and 
make for the Lone Islands. But it took us eighteen days to get where we are, 
running like mad with a gale behind us. Even if we got an east wind it might 
take us far longer to get back. And at present there's no sign of an east wind - 
in fact there's no wind at all. As for rowing back, it would take far too long 
and Caspian says the men couldn't row on half a pint of water a day. I'm pretty 
sure this is wrong. I tried to explain that perspiration really cools people 
down, so the men would need less water if they were working. He didn't take any 
notice of this, which is always his way when he can't think of an answer. The 
others all voted for going on in the hope of finding land. I felt it my duty to 
point out that we didn't know there was any land ahead and tried to get them to 
see the dangers of wishful thinking. Instead of producing a better plan they had 
the cheek to ask me what I proposed. So I just explained coolly and quietly that 
I had been kidnapped and brought away on this idiotic voyage without my consent, 
and it was hardly my business to get them out of their scrape. 
  
 "4 September. Still becalmed. Very short rations for dinner and I got less than 
anyone. Caspian is very clever at helping and thinks I don't see! Lucy for some 
reason tried to make up to me by offering me some of hers but that interfering 
prig Edmund wouldn't let her. Pretty hot sun. Terribly thirsty all evening. 
  
 "5 September. Still becalmed and very hot. Feeling rotten all day and am sure 
I've got a temperature. Of course they haven't the sense to keep a thermometer 
on board. 
  
 "6 September. A horrible day. Woke up in the night knowing I was feverish and 
must have a drink of water. Any doctor would have said so. Heaven knows I'm the 
last person to try to get any unfair advantage but I never dreamed that this 
water-rationing would be meant to apply to a sick man. In fact I would have 
woken the others up and asked for some only I thought it would be selfish to 
wake them. So I got up and took my cup and tiptoed out of the Black Hole we 
slept in, taking great care not to disturb Caspian and Edmund, for they've been 
sleeping badly since the heat and the short water began. I always try to 
consider others whether they are nice to me or not. I got out all right into the 
big room, if you can call it a room, where the rowing benches and the luggage 
are. The thing of water is at this end. All was going beautifully, but before 
I'd drawn a cupful who should catch me but that little spy Reep. I tried to 
explain that I was going on deck for a breath of air (the business about the 
water had nothing to do with him) and he asked me why I had a cup. He made such 
a noise that the whole ship was roused. They treated me scandalously. I asked, 
as I think anyone would have, why Reepicheep was sneaking about the water cask 
in the middle of the night. He said that as he was too small to be any use on 
deck, he did sentry over the water every night so that one more man could go to 
sleep. Now comes their rotten unfairness: they all believed him. Can you beat 
it? 
  
"I had to apologize or the dangerous little brute would have been at me with his 
sword. And then Caspian showed up in his true colours as a brutal tyrant and 
said out loud for everyone to hear that anyone found "stealing" water in future 
would "get two dozen". I didn't know what this meant till Edmund explained to 
me. It comes in the sort of books those Pevensie kids read. 
  
 "After this cowardly threat Caspian changed his tune and started being 
patronizing. Said he was sorry for me and that everyone felt just as feverish as 
I did and we must all make the best of it, etc., etc. Odious stuck-up prig. 
Stayed in bed all day today. 
  
 "7 September. A little wind today but still from the west. 
  
 Made a few miles eastward with part of the sail, set on what Drinian calls the 
jury-mast-that means the bowsprit set upright and tied (they call it "lashed") 
to the stump of the real mast. Still terribly thirsty. 
  
 "8 September. Still sailing east. I stay in my bunk all day now and see no one 
except Lucy till the two fiends come to bed. Lucy gives me a little of her water 
ration. She says girls don't get as thirsty as boys. I had often thought this 
but it ought to be more generally known at sea. 
  
 "9 September. Land in sight; a very high mountain a long way off to the 
south-east. 
  
 "10 September. The mountain is bigger and clearer but still a long way off. 
Gulls again today for the first time since I don't know how long. 
  
 "11 September. Caught some fish and had them for dinner. Dropped anchor at 
about 7 p.m. in three fathoms of water in a bay of this mountainous island. That 
idiot Caspian wouldn't let us go ashore because it was getting dark and he was 
afraid of savages and wild beasts. Extra water ration tonight." 
  
What awaited them on this island was going to concern Eustace more than anyone 
else, but it cannot be told in his words because after September 11 he forgot 
about keeping his diary for a long time. 
  
 When morning came, with a low, grey sky but very hot, the adventurers found 
they were in a bay encircled by such cliffs and crags that it was like a 
Norwegian fjord. In front of them, at the head of the bay, there was some level 
land heavily overgrown with trees that appeared to be cedars, through which a 
rapid stream came out. Beyond that was a steep ascent ending in a jagged ridge 
and behind that a vague darkness of mountains which ran into dull-coloured 
clouds so that you could not see their tops. The nearer cliffs, at each side of 
the bay, were streaked here and there with lines of white which everyone knew to 
be waterfalls, though at that distance they did not show any movement or make 
any noise. Indeed the whole place was very silent and the water of the bay as 
smooth as glass. It reflected every detail of the cliffs. The scene would have 
been pretty in a picture but was rather oppressive in real life. It was not a 
country that welcomed visitors. 
  
 The whole ship's company went ashore in two boatloads and everyone drank and 
washed deliciously in the river and had a meal and a rest before Caspian sent 
four men back to keep the ship, and the day's work began. There was everything 
to be done. The casks must be brought ashore and the faulty ones mended if 
possible and all refilled; a tree - a pine if they could get it - must be felled 
and made into a new mast; sails must be repaired; a hunting party organized to 
shoot any game the land might yield; clothes to be washed and mended; and 
countless small breakages on board to be set right. For the Dawn Treader herself 
- and this was more obvious now that they saw her at a distance - could hardly 
be recognized as the same gallant ship which had left Narrowhaven. She looked a 
crippled, discoloured hulk which anyone might have taken for a wreck. And her 
officers and crew were no better - lean, pale, red-eyed from lack of sleep, and 
dressed in rags. 
  
 As Eustace lay under a tree and heard all these plans being discussed his heart 
sank. Was there going to be no rest? It looked as if their first day on the 
longed-for land was going to be quite as hard work as a day at sea. Then a 
delightful idea occurred to him. Nobody was looking they were all chattering 
about their ship as if they actually liked the beastly thing. Why shouldn't he 
simply slip away? He would take a stroll inland, find a cool, airy place up in 
the mountains, have a good long sleep, and not rejoin the others till the day's 
work was over. He felt it would do him good. But he would take great care to 
keep the bay and the ship in sight so as to be sure of his way back. He wouldn't 
like to be left behind in this country. 
  
 He at once put his plan into action. He rose quietly from his place and walked 
away among the trees, taking care to go slowly and in an aimless manner so that 
anyone who saw him would think he was merely stretching his legs. He was 
surprised to find how quickly the noise of conversation died away behind hiin 
and how very silent and warm and dark green the wood became. Soon he felt he 
could venture on a quicker and more determined stride. 
  
 This soon brought him out of the wood. The ground began sloping steeply up in 
front of him. The grass was dry and slippery but manageable if he used his hands 
as well as his feet, and though he panted and mopped his forehead a good deal, 
he plugged away steadily. This showed, by the way, that his new life, little as 
he suspected it, had already done him some good; the old Eustace, Harold and 
Alberta's Eustace, would have given up the climb after about ten minutes. 
  
 Slowly, and with several rests, he reached the ridge. Here he had expected to 
have a view into the heart of the island, but the clouds had now come lower and 
nearer and a sea of fog was rolling to meet him. He sat down and looked back. He 
was now so high that the bay looked small beneath him and miles of sea were 
visible. Then the fog from the mountains closed in all round him, thick but not 
cold, and he lay down and turned this way and that to find the most comfortable 
position to enjoy himself. 
  
 But he didn't enjoy himself, or not for very long. He began, almost for the 
first time in his life, to feel lonely. At first this feeling grew very 
gradually. And then he began to worry about the time. There was not the 
slightest sound. Suddenly it occurred to him that he might have been lying there 
for hours. Perhaps the others had gone! Perhaps they had let him wander away on 
purpose simply in order to leave him behind! He leaped up in a panic and began 
the descent. 
  
 At first he tried to do it too quickly, slipped on the steep grass, and slid 
for several feet. Then he thought this had carried him too far to the left - and 
as he came up he had seen precipices on that side. So he clambered up again, as 
near as he could guess to the place he had started from, and began the descent 
afresh, bearing to his right. After that things seemed to be going better. He 
went very cautiously, for he could not see more than a yard ahead, and there was 
still perfect silence all around him. It is very unpleasant to have to go 
cautiously when there is a voice inside you saying all the time, "Hurry, hurry, 
hurry." For every moment the terrible idea of being left behind grew stronger. 
If he had understood Caspian and the Pevensies at all he would have known, of 
course, that there was not the least chance of their doing any such thing. But 
he had persuaded himself that they were all fiends in human form. 
  
 "At last!" said Eustace as he came slithering down a slide of loose stones 
(scree, they call it) and found himself on the level. "And now, where are those 
trees? There is something dark ahead. Why, I do believe the fog is clearing." 
  
It was. The light increased every moment and made him blink. The fog lifted. He 
was in an utterly unknown valley and the sea was nowhere in sight. 
  
  
  
  
  

CHAPTER SIX - THE ADVENTURES OF EUSTACE
  
AT that very moment the others were washing hands and faces in the river and 
generally getting ready for dinner and a rest. The three best archers had gone 
up into the hills north of the bay and returned laden with a pair of wild goats 
which were now roasting over a fire. Caspian had ordered a cask of wine ashore, 
strong wine of Archenland which had to be mixed with water before you drank it, 
so there would be plenty for all. The work had gone well so far and it was a 
merry meal. Only after the second helping of goat did Edmund say, "Where's that 
blighter Eustace?"
  
Meanwhile Eustace stared round the unknown valley. It was so narrow and deep, 
and the precipices which surrounded it so sheer, that it was like a huge pit or 
trench. The floor was grassy though strewn with rocks, and here and there 
Eustace saw black burnt patches like those you see on the sides of a railway 
embankment in a dry summer. 
  
 About fifteen yards away from him was a pool of clear, smooth water. There was, 
at first, nothing else at all in the valley; not an animal, not a bird, not an 
insect. The sun beat down and grim peaks and horns of mountains peered over the 
valley's edge. 
  
 Eustace realized of course that in the fog he had come down the wrong side of 
the ridge, so he turned at once to see about getting back. But as soon as he had 
looked he shuddered. Apparently he had by amazing luck found the only possible 
way down - a long green spit of land, horribly steep and narrow, with precipices 
on either side. There was no other possible way of getting back. But could he do 
it, now that he saw what it was really like? His head swam at the very thought 
of it. 
  
 He turned round again, thinking that at any rate he'd better have a good drink 
from the pool first. But as soon as he had turned and before he had taken a step 
forward into the valley he heard a noise behind him. It was only a small noise 
but it sounded loud in that immense silence. It froze him dead-still where he 
stood for a second. Then he slewed round his neck and looked. 
  
 At the bottom of the cliff a little on his left hand was a low, dark hole - the 
entrance to a cave perhaps. And out of this two thin wisps of smoke were coming. 
And the loose stones just beneath the dark hollow were moving (that was the 
noise he had heard) just as if something were crawling in the dark behind them. 
  
 Something was crawling. Worse still, something was coming out. Edmund or Lucy 
or you would have recognized it at once, but Eustace had read none of the right 
books. The thing that came out of the cave was something he had never even 
imagined - along lead-coloured snout, dull red eyes, no feathers or fur, a long 
lithe body that trailed on the ground, legs whose elbows went up higher than its 
back like a spider's cruel claws, bat's wings that made a rasping noise on the 
stones, yards of tail. And the lines of smoke were coming from its two nostrils. 
He never said the word Dragon to himself. Nor would it have made things any 
better if he had. 
  
 But perhaps if he had known something about dragons he would have been a little 
surprised at this dragon's behaviour. It did not sit up and clap its wings, nor 
did it shoot out a stream of flame from its mouth. The smoke from its nostrils 
was like the smoke of a fire that will not last much longer. Nor did it seem to 
have noticed Eustace. It moved very slowly towards the pool - slowly and with 
many pauses. Even in his fear Eustace felt that it was an old, sad creature. He 
wondered if he dared make a dash for the ascent. But it might look round if he 
made any noise. It might come more to life. Perhaps it was only shamming. 
Anyway, what was the use of trying to escape by climbing from a creature that 
could fly? 
  
It reached the pool and slid its horrible scaly chin down over the gravel to 
drink: but before it had drunk there came from it a great croaking or clanging 
cry and after a few twitches and convulsions it rolled round on its side and lay 
perfectly still with one claw in the air. A little dark blood gushed from its 
wide-opened mouth. The smoke from its nostrils turned black for a moment and 
then floated away. No more came. this was the brute's trick, the way it lured 
travellers to their doom. But one couldn't wait for ever. He took a step nearer, 
then two steps, and halted again. The dragon remained motionless; he noticed too 
that the red fire had gone out of its eyes. At last he came up to it. He was 
quite sure now that it was dead. With a shudder he touched it; nothing happened. 

  
 The relief was so great that Eustace almost laughed out loud. He began to feel 
as if he had fought and killed the dragon instead of merely seeing it die. He 
stepped over it and went to the pool for his drink, for the heat was getting 
unbearable. He was not surprised when he heard a peal of thunder. Almost 
immediately afterwards the sun disappeared and before he had finished his drink 
big drops of rain were falling. 
  
 The climate of this island was a very unpleasant one. In less than a minute 
Eustace was wet to the skin and half blinded with such rain as one never sees in 
Europe. There was no use trying to climb out of the valley as long as this 
lasted. He bolted for the only shelter in sight - the dragon's cave. There he 
lay down and tried to get his breath. 
  
 Most of us know what we should expect to find in a dragon's lair, but, as I 
said before, Eustace had read only the wrong books. They had a lot to say about 
exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons. 
That is why he was so puzzled at the surface on which he was lying. Parts of it 
were too prickly to be stones and too hard to be thorns, and there seemed to be 
a great many round, flat things, and it all clinked when he moved. There was 
light enough at the cave's mouth to examine it by. And of course Eustace found 
it to be what any of us could have told him in advance - treasure. There were 
crowns (those were the prickly things), coins, rings, bracelets, ingots, cups, 
plates and gems. 
  
 Eustace (unlike most boys) had never thought much of treasure but he saw at 
once the use it would be in this new world which he had so foolishly stumbled 
into through the picture in Lucy's bedroom at home. "They don't have any tax 
here," he said, "And you don't have to give treasure to the government. With 
some of this stuff I could have quite a decent time here - perhaps in Calormen. 
It sounds the least phoney of these countries. I wonder how much I can carry? 
That bracelet now - those things in it are probably diamonds - I'll slip that on 
my own wrist. Too big, but not if I push it right up here above my elbow. Then 
fill my pockets with diamonds - that's easier than gold. I wonder when this 
infernal rain's going to let up?" He got into a less uncomfortable part of the 
pile, where it was mostly coins, and settled down to wait. But a bad fright, 
when once it is over, and especially a bad fright following a mountain walk, 
leaves you very tired. Eustace fell asleep. 
  
 By the time he was sound asleep and snoring the others had finished dinner and 
became seriously alarmed about him. They shouted, "Eustace! Eustace! Coo-ee!" 
till they were hoarse and Caspian blew his horn. 
  
 "He's nowhere near or he'd have heard that," said Lucy with a white face. 
  
 "Confound the fellow," said Edmund. "What on earth did he want to slink away 
like this for?" 
  
"But we must do something," said Lucy. "He may have got lost, or fallen into a 
hole, or been captured by savages." 
  
"Or killed by wild beasts," said Drinian. 
  
 "And a good riddance if he has, I say," muttered Rhince. 
  
 "Master Rhince," said Reepicheep, "you never spoke a word that became you less. 
The creature is no friend of mine but he is of the Queen's blood, and while he 
is one of our fellowship it concerns our honour to find him and to avenge him if 
he is dead." 
  
"Of course we've got to find him (if we can)," said Caspian wearily. "That's the 
nuisance of it. It means a search party and endless trouble. Bother Eustace." 
  
Meanwhile Eustace slept and slept - and slept. What woke him was a pain in his 
arm. The moon was shining in at the mouth of the cave, and the bed of treasures 
seemed to have grown much more comfortable: in fact he could hardly feel it at 
all. He was puzzled by the pain in his arm at first, but presently it occurred 
to him that the bracelet which he had shoved up above his elbow had become 
strangely tight. His arm must have swollen while he was asleep (it was his left 
arm). 
  
 He moved his right arm in order to feel his left, but stopped before he had 
moved it an inch and bit his lip in terror. For just in front of him, and a 
little on his right, where the moonlight fell clear on the floor of the cave, he 
saw a hideous shape moving. He knew that shape: it was a dragon's claw. It had 
moved as he moved his hand and became still when he stopped moving his hand. 
  
 "Oh, what a fool I've been," thought Eustace. "Of course, the brute had a mate 
and it's lying beside me." 
  
For several minutes he did not dare to move a muscle. He saw two thin columns of 
smoke going up before his eyes, black against the moonlight; just as there had 
been smoke coming from the other dragon's nose before it died. This was so 
alarming that he held his breath. The two columns of smoke vanished. When he 
could hold his breath no longer he let it out stealthily; instantly two jets of 
smoke appeared again. But even yet he had no idea of the truth. 
  
 Presently he decided that he would edge very cautiously to his left and try to 
creep out of the cave. Perhaps the creature was asleep - and anyway it was his 
only chance. But of course before he edged to the left he looked to the left. Oh 
horror! there was a dragon's claw on that side too. 
  
 No one will blame Eustace if at this moment he shed tears. He was surprised at 
the size of his own tears as he saw them splashing on to the treasure in front 
of him. They also seemed strangely hot; steam went up from them. 
  
 But there was no good crying. He must try to crawl out from between the two 
dragons. He began extending his right arm. The dragon's fore-leg and claw on his 
right went through exactly the same motion. Then he thought he would try his 
left. The dragon limb on that side moved too. 
  
 Two dragons, one on each side, mimicking whatever he did! His nerve broke and 
he simply made a bolt for it. 
  
 There was such a clatter and rasping, and clinking of gold, and grinding of 
stones, as he rushed out of the cave that he thought they were both following 
him. He daren't look back. He rushed to the pool. The twisted shape of the dead 
dragon lying in the moonlight would have been enough to frighten anyone but now 
he hardly noticed it. His idea was to get into the water. 
  
 But just as he reached the edge of the pool two things happened. First of all 
it came over him like a thunder-clap that he had been running on all fours - and 
why on earth had he been doing that? And secondly, as he bent towards the water, 
he thought for a second that yet another dragon was staring up at him out of the 
pool. But in an instant he realized the truth. The dragon face in the pool was 
his own reflection. There was no doubt of it. It moved as he moved: it opened 
and shut its mouth as he opened and shut his. 
  
 He had turned into a dragon while he was asleep. Sleeping on a dragon's hoard 
with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself. 
  
 That explained everything. There had been no two dragons beside him in the 
cave. The claws to right and left had been his own right and left claw. The two 
columns of smoke had been coming from his own nostrils. As for the pain in his 
left arm (or what had been his left arm) he could now see what had happened by 
squinting with his left eye. The bracelet which had fitted very nicely on the 
upper arm of a boy was far too small for the thick, stumpy foreleg of a dragon. 
It had sunk deeply into his scaly flesh and there was a throbbing bulge on each 
side of it. He tore at the place with his dragon's teeth but could not get it 
off. 
  
 In spite of the pain, his first feeling was one of relief. There was nothing to 
be afraid of any more. He was a terror himself and nothing in the world but a 
knight (and not all of those) would dare to attack him. He could get even with 
Caspian and Edmund now But the moment he thought this he realized that he didn't 
want to. He wanted to be friends. He wanted to get back among humans and talk 
and laugh and share things. He realized that he was a monster cut off from the 
whole human race. An appalling loneliness came over him. He began to see that 
the others had not really been fiends at all. He began to wonder if he himself 
had been such a nice person as he had always supposed. He longed for their 
voices. He would have been grateful for a kind word even from Reepicheep. 
  
 When he thought of this the poor dragon that had been Eustace lifted up its 
voice and wept. A powerful dragon crying its eyes out under the moon in a 
deserted valley is a sight and a sound hardly to be imagined. 
  
 At last he decided he would try to find his way back to the shore. He realized 
now that Caspian would never have sailed away and left him. And he felt sure 
that somehow or other he would be able to make people understand who he was. 
  
 He took a long drink and then (I know this sounds shocking, but it isn't if you 
think it over) he ate nearly all the dead dragon. He was half-way through it 
before he realized what he was doing; for, you see, though his mind was the mind 
of Eustace, his tastes and his digestion were dragonish. And there is nothing a 
dragon likes so well as fresh dragon. That is why you so seldom find more than 
one dragon in the same county. 
  
 Then he turned to climb out of the valley. He began the climb with a jump and 
as soon as he jumped he found that he was flying. He had quite forgotten about 
his wings and it was a great surprise to him - the first pleasant surprise he 
had had for a long time. He rose high into the air and saw innumerable 
mountain-tops spread out beneath him in the moonlight. He could see the bay like 
a silver slab and the Dawn Treader lying at anchor and camp fires twinkling in 
the woods beside the beach. From a great height he launched himself down towards 
them in a single glide. 
  
 Lucy was sleeping very soundly for she had sat up till the return of the search 
party in hope of good news about Eustace. It had been led by Caspian and had 
come back late and weary. Their news was disquieting. They had found no trace of 
Eustace but had seen a dead dragon in a valley. They tried to make the best of 
it and everyone assured everyone else that there were not likely to he more 
dragons about, and that one which was dead at about three o'clock that afternoon 
(which was when they had seen it) would hardly have been killing people a very 
few hours before. 
  
 "Unless it ate the little brat and died of him: he'd poison anything," said 
Rhince. But he said this under his breath and no one heard it. 
  
 But later in the night Lucy was wakened, very softly, and found the whole 
company gathered close together and talking in whispers. 
  
 "What is it?" said Lucy. 
  
 "We must all show great constancy," Caspian was saying. "A dragon has just 
flown over the tree-tops and lighted on the beach. Yes, I am afraid it is 
between us and the ship. And arrows are no use against dragons. And they're not 
at all afraid of fire." 
  
"With your Majesty's leave-" began Reepicheep. 
  
 "No, Reepicheep," said the King very firmly, "you are not to attempt a single 
combat with it. And unless you promise to obey me in this matter I'll have you 
tied up. We must just keep close watch and, as soon as it is light, go down to 
the beach and give it battle. I will lead. King Edmund will be on my right and 
the Lord Drinian on my left. There are no other arrangements to be made. It will 
be light in a couple of hours. In an hour's time let a meal be served out and 
what is left of the wine. And let everything be done silently." 
  
"Perhaps it will go away," said Lucy. 
  
 "It'll be worse if it does," said Edmund, "because then we shan't know where it 
is. If there's a wasp in the room I like to be able to see it." 
  
The rest of the night wa dreadful, and when the meal came, though they knew they 
ought to eat, many found that they had very poor appetites. And endless hours 
seemed to pass before the darkness thinned and birds began chirping here and 
there and the world got colder and wetter than it had been all night and Caspian 
said, "Now for it, friends." 
  
They got up, all with swords drawn, and formed themselves into a solid mass with 
Lucy in the middle and Reepicheep on her shoulder. It was nicer than the waiting 
about and everyone felt fonder of everyone else than at ordinary times. A moment 
later they were marching. It grew lighter as they came to the edge of the wood. 
And there on the sand, like a giant lizard, or a flexible crocodile, or a 
serpent with legs, huge and horrible and humpy, lay the dragon. 
  
 But when it saw them, instead of rising up and blowing fire and smoke, the 
dragon retreated - you could almost say it waddled - back into the shallows of 
the bay. 
  
 "What's it wagging its head like that for?" said Edmund. 
  
 "And now it's nodding," said Caspian. 
  
 "And there's something coming from its eyes," said Drinian. 
  
 "Oh, can't you see," said Lucy. "It's crying. Those are tears." 
  
"I shouldn't trust to that, Ma'am," said Drinian. "That's what crocodiles do, to 
put you off your guard." 
  
"It wagged its head when you said that," remarked Edmund. "Just as if it meant 
No. Look, there it goes again." 
  
"Do you think it understands what we're saying?" asked Lucy. 
  
 The dragon nodded its head violently. 
  
 Reepicheep slipped off Lucy's shoulder and stepped to the front. 
  
 "Dragon," came his shrill voice, "can you understand speech?" 
  
The dragon nodded. 
  
 "Can you speak?" 
  
It shook its head. 
  
 "Then," said Reepicheep, "it is idle to ask you your business. But if you will 
swear friendship with us raise your left foreleg above your head." 
  
It did so, but clumsily because that leg was sore and swollen with the golden 
bracelet 
  
"Oh look," said Lucy, "there's something wrong with its leg. The poor thing - 
that's probably what it was crying about. Perhaps it came to us to be cured like 
in Androcles and the lion." 
  
"Be careful, Lucy," said Caspian. "It's a very clever dragon but it may be a 
liar." 
  
Lucy had, however, already run forward, followed by Reepicheep, as fast as his 
short legs could carry him, and then of course the boys and Drinian came, too. 
  
 "Show me your poor paw," said Lucy, "I might be able to cure it." 
  
The dragon-that-had-been-Eustace held out its sore leg gladly enough, 
remembering how Lucy's cordial had cured him of sea-sickness before he became a 
dragon. But he was disappointed. The magic fluid reduced the swelling and eased 
the pain a little but it could not dissolve the gold. 
  
 Everyone had now crowded round to watch the treatment, and Caspian suddenly 
exclaimed, "Look!" He was staring at the bracelet. 
  
  
  
  
  

CHAPTER SEVEN - HOW THE ADVENTURE ENDED
  
"LOOK at what?" said Edmund. 
  
 "Look at the device on the gold," said Caspian. 
  
 "A little hammer with a diamond above it like a star," said Drinian. "Why, I've 
seen that before." 
  
"Seen it!" said Caspian. "Why, of course you have. It is the sign of a great 
Narnian house. This is the Lord Octesian's arm-ring." 
  
"Villain," said Reepicheep to the dragon, "have you devoured a Narnian lord?" 
But the dragon shook his head violently. 
  
 "Or perhaps," said Lucy, "this is the Lord Octesian, turned into a dragon - 
under an enchantment, you know." 
  
"It needn't be either," said Edmund. "All dragons collect gold. But I think it's 
a safe guess that Octesian got no further than this island." 
  
"Are you the Lord Octesian?" said Lucy to the dragon, and then, when it sadly 
shook its head, "Are you someone enchanted - someone human, I mean?" 
  
It nodded violently. 
  
 And then someone said - people disputed afterwards whether Lucy or Edmund said 
it first - "You're not - not Eustace by any chance?" 
  
And Eustace nodded his terrible dragon head and thumped his tail in the sea and 
everyone skipped back (some of the sailors with ejaculations I will not put down 
in writing) to avoid the enormous and boiling tears which flowed from his eyes. 
  
 Lucy tried hard to console him and even screwed up her courage to kiss the 
scaly face, and nearly everyone said "Hard luck" and several assured Eustace 
that they would all stand by him and many said there was sure to be some way of 
disenchanting him and they'd have him as right as rain in a day or two. And of 
course they were all very anxious to hear his story, but he couldn't speak. More 
than once in the days that followed he attempted to write it for them on the 
sand. But, this never succeeded. In the first place Eustace (never having read 
the right books) had no idea how to tell a story straight. And for another 
thing, the muscles and nerves of the dragon-claws that he had to use had never 
learned to write and were not built for writing anyway. As a result he never got 
nearly to the end before the tide came in and washed away all the writing except 
the bits he had already trodden on or accidentaly swished out with his tail. And 
all that anyone had seen would be something like this - the dots are for the 
bits he had smudged 
  
out I WNET TO SL EE . . . RGOS AGRONS I MEAN DRANGONS 
  
CAVE CAUSE IT-WAS DEAD AND AWING SO HAR . . . WOKE UP AND COU . . . GET OFFF MI 
ARM OH BOTHER . . . 
  
 It was, however, clear to everyone that Eustace's character had been rather 
improved by becoming a dragon. He was anxious to help. He flew over the whole 
island and found it was all mountainous and inhabited only by wild goats and 
droves of wild swine. Of these he brought back many carcasses as provisions for 
the ship. He was a very humane killer too, for he could dispatch a beast with 
one blow of his tail so that it didn't know (and presumably still doesn't know) 
it had been killed. He ate a few himself, of course, but always alone, for now 
that he was a dragon he liked his food raw but he could never bear to let others 
see him at his messy meals. And one day, flying slowly and wearily but in great 
triumph, he bore back to camp a great tall pine tree which he had torn up by the 
roots in a distant valley and which could be made into a capital mast. And in 
the evening if it turned chilly, as it sometimes did after the heavy rains, he 
was a comfort to everyone, for the whole party would come and sit with their 
backs against his hot sides and get well warmed and dried; and one puff of his 
fiery breath would light the most obstinate fire. Sometimes he would take a 
select party for a fly on his back, so that they could see wheeling below them 
the green slopes, the rocky heights, the narrow pit-like valleys and far out 
over the sea to the eastward a spot of darker blue on the blue horizon which 
might be land. 
  
 The pleasure (quite new to him) of being liked and, still more, of liking other 
people, was what kept Eustace from despair. For it was very dreary being a 
dragon. He shuddered whenever he caught sight of his own reflection as he flew 
over a mountain lake. He hated the huge batlike wings, the saw-edged ridge on 
his back, and the cruel, curved claws. He was almost afraid to be alone with 
himself and yet he was ashamed to be with the others. On the evenings when he 
was not being used as a hot-water bottle he would slink away from the camp and 
lie curled up like a snake between the wood and the water. On such occasions, 
greatly to his surprise, Reepicheep was his most constant comforter. The noble 
Mouse would creep away from the merry circle at the camp fire and sit down by 
the dragon's head, well to the windward to be out of the way of his smoky 
breath. There he would explain that what had happened to Eustace was a striking 
illustration of the turn of Fortune's wheel, and that if he had Eustace at his 
own house in Narnia (it was really a hole not a house and the dragon's head, let 
alone his body, would not have fitted in) he could show him more than a hundred 
examples of emperors, kings, dukes, knights, poets, lovers, astronomers, 
philosophers, and magicians, who had fallen from prosperity into the most 
distressing circumstances, and of whom many had recovered and lived happily ever 
afterwards. It did not, perhaps, seem so very comforting at the time, but it was 
kindly meant and Eustace never forgot it. 
  
 But of course what hung over everyone like a cloud was the problem of what to 
do with their dragon when they were ready to sail. They tried not to talk of it 
when he was there, but he couldn't help overhearing things like, "Would he fit 
all along one side of the deck? And we'd have to shift all the stores to the 
other side down below so as to balance," or, "Would towing him be any good?" or 
"Would he be able to keep up by flying?" and (most often of all), "But how are 
we to feed him?" And poor Eustace realized more and more that since the first 
day he came on board he had been an unmitigated nuisance and that he was now a 
greater nuisance still. And this ate into his mind, just as that bracelet ate 
into his foreleg. He knew that it only made it worse to tear at it with his 
great teeth, but he couldn't help tearing now and then, especially on hot 
nights. 
  
 About six days after they had landed on Dragon Island, Edmund happened to wake 
up very early one morning. It was just getting grey so that you could see the 
tree-trunks if they were between you and the bay but not in the other direction. 
As he woke he thought he heard something moving, so he raised himself on one 
elbow and looked about him: and presently he thought he saw a dark figure moving 
on the seaward side of the wood. The idea that at once occurred to his mind was, 
"Are we so sure there are no natives on this island after all?" Then he thought 
it was Caspian - it was about the right size - but he knew that Caspian had been 
sleeping next to him and could see that he hadn't moved. Edmund made sure that 
his sword was in its place and then rose to investigate. 
  
 He came down softly to the edge of the wood and the dark figure was still 
there. He saw now that it was too small for Caspian and too big for Lucy. It did 
not run away. Edmund drew his sword and was about to challenge the stranger when 
the stranger said in a low voice, "Is that you, Edmund?" 
  
"Yes. Who are you?" said he. 
  
 "Don't you know me?" said the other. "It's me Eustace." 
  
"By jove," said Edmund, "so it is. My dear chap -" 
  
"Hush," said Eustace and lurched as if he were going to fall. 
  
 "Hello!" said Edmund, steadying him. "What's up? Are you ill?" 
  
Eustace was silent for so long that Edmund thought he was fainting; but at last 
he said, "It's been ghastly. You don't know . . . but it's all right now. Could 
we go and talk somewhere? I don't want to meet the others just yet." 
  
"Yes, rather, anywhere you like," said Edmund. "We can go and sit on the rocks 
over there. I say, I am glad to see you - er - looking yourself again. You must 
have had a pretty beastly time." 
  
They went to the rocks and sat down looking out across the bay while the sky got 
paler and paler and the stars disappeared except for one very bright one low 
down and near the horizon. 
  
 "I won't tell you how I became a - a dragon till I can tell the others and get 
it all over," said Eustace. "By the way, I didn't even know it was a dragon till 
I heard you all using the word when I turned up here the other morning. I want 
to tell you how I stopped being one." 
  
"Fire ahead," said Edmund. 
  
 "Well, last night I was more miserable than ever. And that beastly arm-ring was 
hurting like anything-" 
  
"Is that all right now?" 
  
Eustace laughed - a different laugh from any Edmund had heard him give before - 
and slipped the bracelet easily off his arm. "There it is," he said, "and anyone 
who likes can have it as far as I'm concerned. Well, as I say, I was lying awake 
and wondering what on earth would become of me. And then - but, mind you, it may 
have been all a dream. I don't know." 
  
"Go on," said Edmund, with considerable patience. 
  
 "Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion 
coming slowly towards me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last 
night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. 
I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have 
knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't 
afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it - if you can understand. Well, 
it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes 
tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it." 
  
"You mean it spoke?" 
  
"I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did. But it told me all 
the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed 
it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this 
moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the 
top of a mountain I'd never seen before and on the top of this mountain there 
was a garden - trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a 
well. 
  
 "I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the 
bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells - like a very big, round 
bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything 
and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my 
leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he 
said any words out loud or not. 
  
 "I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes 
on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can 
cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I 
started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And 
then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and 
there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an 
illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I 
could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely 
feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe. 
  
 "But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw 
that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been 
before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit 
on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So 1 scratched 
and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and 
left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe. 
  
 "Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, 
how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. 
So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the 
two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the 
water I knew it had been no good. 
  
 "Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke - "You will have to let me 
undress you." I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly 
desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. 
  
 "The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into 
my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything 
I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the 
pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the 
scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it 
coming away." 
  
"I know exactly what you mean," said Edmund. 
  
 "Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it 
myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on 
the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than 
the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and 
smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for 
I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the 
water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became 
perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that 
all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy 
again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. 
I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I 
was so glad to see them. 
  
 "After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me -" 
  
"Dressed you. With his paws?" 
  
"Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new 
clothes - the same I've got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was 
back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream." 
  
"No. It wasn't a dream," said Edmund. 
  
 "Why not?" 
  
"Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been - well, 
un-dragoned, for another." 
  
"What do you think it was, then?" asked Eustace. 
  
 "I think you've seen Aslan," said Edmund. 
  
 "Aslan!" said Eustace. "I've heard that name mentioned several times since we 
joined the Dawn Treader. And I felt - I don't know what - I hated it. But I was 
hating everything then. And by the way, I'd like to apologize. I'm afraid I've 
been pretty beastly." 
  
"That's all right," said Edmund. "Between ourselves, you haven't been as bad as 
I was on my first trip to Narnia. You were only an ass, but I was a traitor." 
  
"Well, don't tell me about it, then," said Eustace. "But who is Aslan? Do you 
know him?" 
  
"Well - he knows me," said Edmund. "He is the great Lion, the son of the 
Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, who saved me and saved Narnia. We've all seen him. Lucy 
sees him most often. And it may be Aslan's country we are sailing to." 
  
Neither said anything for a while. The last bright star had vanished and though 
they could not see the sunrise because of the mountains on their right, they 
knew it was going on because the sky above them and the bay before them turned 
the colour of roses. Then some bird of the parrot kind screamed in the wood 
behind them, they heard movements among the trees, and finally a blast on 
Caspian's horn. The camp was astir. 
  
 Great was the rejoicing when Edmund and the restored Eustace walked into the 
breakfast circle round the camp fire. And now of course everyone heard the 
earlier part of his story. People wondered whether the other dragon had killed 
the Lord Octesian several years ago or whether Octesian himself had been the old 
dragon. The jewels with which Eustace had crammed his pockets in the cave had 
disappeared along with the clothes he had then been wearing: but no one, least 
of all Eustace himself, felt any desire to go back to that valley for more 
treasure. 
  
 In a few days now the Dawn Treader, remasted, re-painted, and well stored, was 
ready to sail. Before they embarked Caspian caused to be cut on a smooth cliff 
facing the bay the words: 
  
Two narrow escapes 
  
DRAGON ISLAND DISCOVERED BY CASPIAN X, KING OF NARNIA, ETC. IN THE FOURTH YEAR 
OF HIS REIGN. HERE, AS WE SUPPOSE, THE LORD OCTESIAN HAD HIS DEATH 
  
It would be nice, and fairly true, to say that "from that time forth Eustace was 
a different boy". To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He 
had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But 
most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun. 
  
 The Lord Octesian's arm ring had a curious fate. Eustace did not want it and 
offered it to Caspian and Caspian offered it to Lucy. She did not care about 
having it. "Very well, then, catch as catch can," said Caspian and flung it up 
in the air. This was when they were all standing looking at the inscription. Up 
went the ring, flashing in the sunlight, and caught, and hung, as neatly as a 
well-thrown quoit, on a little projection on the rock. No one could climb up to 
get it from below and no one could climb down to get it from above. And there, 
for all I know, it is hanging still and may hang till that world ends. 
  
  
  
  
  

CHAPTER EIGHT - TWO NARROW ESCAPES
  
EVERYONE was cheerful as the Dawn Treader sailed from Dragon Island. They had 
fair winds as soon as they were out of the bay and came early next morning to 
the unknown land which some of them had seen when flying over the mountains 
while Eustace was still a dragon. It was a low green island inhabited by nothing 
but rabbits and a few goats, but from the ruins of stone huts, and from 
blackened places where fires had been, they judged that it had been peopled not 
long before. There were also some bones and broken weapons. 
  
 "Pirates' work," said Caspian. 
  
 "Or the dragon's," said Edmund. 
  
 The only other thing they found there was a little skin boat, or coracle, on 
the sands. It was made of hide stretched over a wicker framework. It was a tiny 
boat, barely four feet long, and the paddle which still lay in it was in 
proportion. They thought that either it had been made for a child or else that 
the people of that country had been Dwarfs. Reepicheep decided to keep it, as it 
was just the right size for him; so it was taken on board. They called that land 
Burnt Island, and sailed away before noon. 
  
 For some five days they ran before a south-south-east wind, out of sight of all 
lands and seeing neither fish nor gull. Then they had a day when it rained hard 
till the afternoon. Eustace lost two games of chess to Reepicheep and began to 
get like his old and disagreeable self again, and Edmund said he wished they 
could have gone to America with Susan. Then Lucy looked out of the stern windows 
and said: 
  
"Hello! I do believe it's stopping. And what's that?" 
  
They all tumbled up to the poop at this and found that the rain had stopped and 
that Drinian, who was on watch, was also staring hard at something astern. Or 
rather, at several things. They looked a little like smooth rounded rocks, a 
whole line of them with intervals of about forty feet in between. 
  
 "But they can't be rocks," Drinian was saying, "because they weren't there five 
minutes ago." 
  
"And one's just disappeared," said Lucy. 
  
 "Yes, and there's another one coming up," said Edmund. 
  
 "And nearer," said Eustace. 
  
 "Hang it!" said Caspian. "The whole thing is moving this way." 
  
"And moving a great deal quicker than we can sail, Sire," said Drinian. "It'll 
be up with us in a minute." 
  
They all held their breath, for it is not at all nice to be pursued by an 
unknown something either on land or sea. But what it turned out to be was far 
worse than anyone had suspected. Suddenly, only about the length of a cricket 
pitch from their port side, an appalling head reared itself out of the sea. It 
was all greens and vermilions with purple blotches - except where shell fish 
clung to it - and shaped rather like a horse's, though without ears. It had 
enormous eyes, eyes made for staring through the dark depths of the ocean, and a 
gaping mouth filled with double rows of sharp fish-like teeth. It came up on 
what they first took to be a huge neck, but as more and more of it emerged 
everyone knew that this was not its neck but its body and that at last they were 
seeing what so many people have foolishly wanted to see - the great Sea Serpent. 
The folds of its gigantic tail could be seen far away, rising at intervals from 
the surface. And now its head was towering up higher than the mast. 
  
 Every man rushed to his weapon, but there was nothing to be done, the monster 
was out of reach. "Shoot! Shoot!" cried the Master Bowman, and several obeyed, 
but the arrows glanced off the Sea Serpent's hide as if it was ironplated. Then, 
for a dreadful minute, everyone was still, staring up at its eyes and mouth and 
wondering where it would pounce. 
  
 But it didn't pounce. It shot its head forward across the ship on a level with 
the yard of the mast. Now its head was just beside the fighting top. Still it 
stretched and stretched till its head was over the starboard bulwark. Then down 
it began to come - not on to the crowded deck but into the water, so that the 
whole ship was under an arch of serpent. And almost at once that arch began to 
get smaller: indeed on the starboard the Sea Serpent was now almost touching the 
Dawn Treader's side. 
  
 Eustace (who had really been trying very hard to behave well, till the rain and 
the chess put him back) now did the first brave thing he had ever done. He was 
wearing a sword that Caspian had lent him. As soon as the serpent's body was 
near enough on the starboard side he jumped on to the bulwark and began hacking 
at it with all his might. It is true that he accomplished nothing beyond 
breaking Caspian's second-best sword into bits, but it was a fine thing for a 
beginner to have done. 
  
 Others would have joined him if at that moment Reepicheep had not called out, 
"Don't fight! Push!" It was so unusual for the Mouse to advise anyone not to 
fight that, even in that terrible moment, every eye turned to him. And when he 
jumped up on to the bulwark, forward of the snake, and set his little furry back 
against its huge scaly, slimy back, and began pushing as hard as he could, quite 
a number of people saw what he meant and rushed to both sides of the ship to do 
the same. And when, a moment later, the Sea Serpent's head appeared again, this 
time on the port side, and this time with its back to them, then everyone 
understood. 
  
 The brute had made a loop of itself round the Dawn Treader and was beginning to 
draw the loop tight. When it got quite tight - snap! - there would be floating 
matchwood where the ship had been and it could pick them out of the water one by 
one. Their only chance was to push the loop backward till it slid over the 
stern; or else (to put the same thing another way) to push the ship forward out 
of the loop. 
  
 Reepicheep alone had, of course, no more chance of doing this than of lifting 
up a cathedral, but he had nearly killed himself with trying before others 
shoved him aside. Very soon the whole ship's company except Lucy and the Mouse 
(which was fainting) was in two long lines along the two bulwarks, each man's 
chest to the back of the man in front, so that the weight of the whole line was 
in the last man, pushing for their lives. For a few sickening seconds (which 
seemed like hours) nothing appeared to happen. Joints cracked, sweat dropped, 
breath came in grunts and gasps. Then they felt that the ship was moving. They 
saw that the snake-loop was further from the mast than it had been. But they 
also saw that it was smaller. And now the real danger was at hand. Could they 
get it over the poop, or was it already too tight? Yes. It would just fit. It 
was resting on the poop rails. A dozen or more sprang up on the poop. This was 
far better. The Sea Serpent's body was so low now that they could make a line 
across the poop and push side by side. Hope rose high till everyone remembered 
the high carved stern, the dragon tail, of the Dawn Treader. It would be quite 
impossible to get the brute over that. 
  
 "An axe," cried Caspian hoarsely, "and still shove." Lucy, who knew where 
everything was, heard him where she was standing on the main deck staring up at 
the poop. In a few seconds she had been below, got the axe, and was rushing up 
the ladder to the poop. But just as she reached the top there came a great 
crashing noise like a tree coming down and the ship rocked and darted forward. 
For at that very moment, whether because the Sea Serpent was being pushed so 
hard, or because it foolishly decided to draw the noose tight, the whole of the 
carved stern broke off and the ship was free. 
  
 The others were too exhausted to see what Lucy saw. There, a few yards behind 
them, the loop of Sea Serpent's body got rapidly smaller and disappeared into a 
splash. Lucy always said (but of course she was very excited at the moment, and 
it may have been only imagination) that she saw a look of idiotic satisfaction 
on the creature's face. What is certain is that it was a very stupid animal, for 
instead of pursuing the ship it turned its head round and began nosing all along 
its own body as if it expected to find the wreckage of the Dawn Treader there. 
But the Dawn Treader was already well away, running before a fresh breeze, and 
the men lay and sat panting and groaning all about the deck, till presently they 
were able to talk about it, and then to laugh about it. And when some rum had 
been served out they even raised a cheer; and everyone praised the valour of 
Eustace (though it hadn't done any good) and of Reepicheep. 
  
 After this they sailed for three days more and saw nothing but sea and sky. On 
the fourth day the wind changed to the north and the seas began to rise; by the 
afternoon it had nearly become a gale. But at the same time they sighted land on 
their port bow. 
  
 "By your leave, Sire," said Drinian, "we will try to get under the lee of that 
country by rowing and lie in harbour, maybe till this is over." Caspian agreed, 
but a long row against the gale did not bring them to the land before evening. 
By the last light of that day they steered into a natural harbour and anchored, 
but no one went ashore that night. In the morning they found themselves in the 
green bay of a rugged, lonely-looking country which sloped up to a rocky summit. 
From the windy north beyond that summit clouds came streaming rapidly. They 
lowered the boat and loaded 
  
her with any of the water casks which were now empty. 
  
 "Which stream shall we water at, Drinian?" said Caspian as he took his seat in 
the stern-sheets of the boat. "There seem to be two coming down into the bay." 
  
"It makes little odds, Sire," said Drinian. "But I think it's a shorter pull to 
that on the starboard-the eastern one." 
  
"Here comes the rain," said Lucy. 
  
 "I should think it does!" said Edmund, for it was already pelting hard. "I say, 
let's go to the other stream. There are trees there and we'll have some 
shelter." 
  
"Yes, let's," said Eustace. "No point in getting wetter than we need." 
  
But all the time Drinian was steadily steering to the starboard, like tiresome 
people in cars who continue at forty miles an hour while you are explaining to 
them that they are on the wrong road. 
  
 "They're right, Drinian," said Caspian. "Why don't you bring her head round and 
make for the western stream?" 
  
"As your Majesty pleases," said Drinian a little shortly. He had had an anxious 
day with the weather yesterday, and he didn't like advice from landsmen. But he 
altered course; and it turned out afterwards that it was a good thing he did. 
  
 By the time they had finished watering, the rain was over and Caspian, with 
Eustace, the Pevensies, and Reepicheep, decided to walk up to the top of the 
hill and see what could be seen. It was a stiffish climb through coarse grass 
and heather and they saw neither man nor beast, except seagulls. When they 
reached the top they saw that it was a very small island, not more than twenty 
acres; and from this height the sea looked larger and more desolate than it did 
from the deck, or even the fighting top, of the Dawn Treader. 
  
 "Crazy, you know," said Eustace to Lucy in a low voice, looking at the eastern 
horizon. "Sailing on and on into that with no idea what we may get to." But he 
only said it out of habit, not really nastily as he would have done at one time. 

  
 It was too cold to stay long on the ridge for the wind still blew freshly from 
the north. 
  
 "Don't let's go back the same way," said Lucy as they turned; "let's go along a 
bit and come down by the other stream, the one Drinian wanted to go to." 
  
Everyone agreed to this and after about fifteen minutes they were at the source 
of the second river. It was a more interesting place than they had expected; a 
deep little mountain lake, surrounded by cliffs except for a narrow channel on 
the seaward side out of which the water flowed. Here at last they were out of 
the wind, and all sat down in the heather above the cliff for a rest. 
  
 All sat down, but one (it was Edmund) jumped up again very quickly. 
  
 "They go in for sharp stones on this island," he said, groping about in the 
heather. "Where is the wretched thing? . . . Ah, now I've got it . . . Hullo! It 
wasn't a stone at all, it's a sword-hilt. No, by jove, it's a whole sword; what 
the rust has left of it. It must have lain here for ages." 
  
"Narnian, too, by the look of it," said Caspian, as they all crowded round. 
  
 "I'm sitting on something too," said Lucy. "Something hard." It turned out to 
be the remains of a mail-shirt. By this time everyone was on hands and knees, 
feeling in the thick heather in every direction. Their search revealed, one by 
one, a helmet, a dagger, and a few coins; not Calormen crescents but genuine 
Narnian "Lions" and "Trees" such as you might see any day in the market-place of 
Beaversdam or Beruna. 
  
 "Looks as if this might be all that's left of one of our seven lords," said 
Edmund. 
  
 "Just what I was thinking," said Caspian. "I wonder which it was. There's 
nothing on the dagger to show. And I wonder how he died." 
  
"And how we are to avenge him," added Reepicheep. 
  
 Edmund, the only one of the party who had read several detective stories, had 
meanwhile been thinking. 
  
 "Look here," he said, "there's something very fishy about this. He can't have 
been killed in a fight." 
  
"Why not?" asked Caspian. 
  
 "No bones," said Edmund. "An enemy might take the armour and leave the body. 
But who ever heard of a chap who'd won a fight carrying away the body and 
leaving the armour?" 
  
"Perhaps he was killed by a wild animal," Lucy suggested. 
  
 "It'd be a clever animal," said Edmund, "that would take a man's mail shirt 
off." 
  
"Perhaps a dragon?" said Caspian. 
  
 "Nothing doing," said Eustace. "A dragon couldn't do it. I ought to know." 
  
"Well, let's get away from the place, anyway," said Lucy. She had not felt like 
sitting down again since Edmund had raised the question of bones. 
  
 "If you like," said Caspian, getting up. "I don't think any of this stuff is 
worth taking away." 
  
They came down and round to the little opening where the stream came out of the 
lake, and stood looking at the deep water within the circle of cliffs. If it had 
been a hot day, no doubt some would have been tempted to bathe and everyone 
would have had a drink. Indeed, even as it was, Eustace was on the very point of 
stooping down and scooping up some water in his hands when Reepicheep and Lucy 
both at the same moment cried, "Look," so he forgot about his drink and looked. 
  
 The bottom of the pool was made of large greyish-blue stones and the water was 
perfectly clear, and on the bottom lay a life-size figure of a man, made 
apparently of gold. It lay face downwards with its arms stretched out above its 
head. And it so happened that as they looked at it, the clouds parted and the 
sun shone out. The golden shape was lit up from end to end. Lucy thought it was 
the most beautiful statue she had ever seen. 
  
 "Well!" whistled Caspian. "That was worth coming to see! I wonder, can we get 
it out?" 
  
"We can dive for it, Sire," said Reepicheep. 
  
 "No good at all," said Edmund. "At least, if it's really gold - solid gold - 
it'll be far too heavy to bring up. And that pool's twelve or fifteen feet deep 
if it's an inch. Half a moment, though. It's a good thing I've brought a hunting 
spear with me. Let's see what the depth is like. Hold on to my hand, Caspian, 
while I lean out over the water a bit." Caspian took his hand and Edmund, 
leaning forward, began to lower his spear into the water. 
  
 Before it was half-way in Lucy said, "I don't believe the statue is gold at 
all. It's only the light. Your spear looks just the same colour." 
  
"What's wrong?" asked several voices at once; for Edmund had suddenly let go of 
the spear. 
  
 "I couldn't hold it," gasped Edmund, "it seemed so heavy." 
  
"And there it is on the bottom now," said Caspian, "and Lucy is right. It looks 
just the same colour as the statue." 
  
But Edmund, who appeared to be having some trouble with his boots - at least he 
was bending down and looking at them - straightened himself all at once and 
shouted out in the sharp voice which people hardly ever disobey: 
  
"Get back! Back from the water. All of you. At once!!" 
  
They all did and stared at him. 
  
 "Look," said Edmund, "look at the toes of my boots." 
  
"They look a bit yellow," began Eustace. 
  
 "They're gold, solid gold," interrupted Edmund. "Look at them. Feel them. The 
leather's pulled away from it already. And they're as heavy as lead." 
  
"By Aslan!" said Caspian. "You don't mean to say-?" 
  
"Yes, I do," said Edmund. "That water turns things into gold. It turned the 
spear into gold, that's why it got so heavy. And it was just lapping against my 
feet (it's a good thing I wasn't barefoot) and it turned the toe-caps into gold. 
And that poor fellow on the bottom - well, you see." 
  
"So it isn't a statue at all," said Lucy in a low voice. 
  
 "No. The whole thing is plain now. He was here on a hot day. He undressed on 
top of the cliff - where we were sitting. The clothes have rotted away or been 
taken by birds to line nests with; the armour's still there. Then he dived and 
-" 
  
"Don't," said Lucy. "What a horrible thing." 
  
"And what a narrow shave we've had," said Edmund. 
  
 "Narrow indeed," said Reepicheep. "Anyone's finger, anyone's foot, anyone's 
whisker, or anyone's tail, might have slipped into the water at any moment." 
  
"All the same," said Caspian, "we may as well test it." He stooped down and 
wrenched up a spray of heather. Then, very cautiously, he knelt beside the pool 
and dipped it in. It was heather that he dipped; what he drew out was a perfect 
model of heather made of the purest gold, heavy and soft as lead. 
  
 "The King who owned this island," said Caspian slowly, and his face flushed as 
he spoke, "would soon be the richest of all the Kings of the world. I claim this 
land for ever as a Narnian possession. It shall be called Goldwater Island. And 
I bind all of you to secrecy. No one must know of this. Not even Drinian - on 
pain of death, do you hear?" 
  
"Who are you talking to?" said Edmund. "I'm no subject of yours. If anything 
it's the other way round. I am one of the four ancient sovereigns of Narnia and 
you are under allegiance to the High King my brother." 
  
"So it has come to that, King Edmund, has it?" said Caspian, laying his hand on 
his sword-hilt. 
  
 "Oh, stop it, both of you," said Lucy. "That's the worst of doing anything with 
boys. You're all such swaggering, bullying idiots - oooh! -" Her voice died away 
into a gasp. And everyone else saw what she had seen. 
  
 Across the grey hillside above them - grey, for the heather was not yet in 
bloom - without noise, and without looking at them, and shining as if he were in 
bright sunlight though the sun had in fact gone in, passed with slow pace the 
hugest lion that human eyes have ever seen. In describing the scene Lucy said 
afterwards, "He was the size of an elephant," though at another time she only 
said, "The size of a cart-horse." But it was not the size that mattered. Nobody 
dared to ask what it was. They knew it was Aslan. 
  
 And nobody ever saw how or where he went. They looked at one another like 
people waking from sleep. 
  
 "What were we talking about?" said Caspian. "Have I been making rather an ass 
of myself?" 
  
"Sire," said Reepicheep, "this is a place with a curse on it. Let us get back on 
board at once. And if I might have the honour of naming this island, I should 
call it Deathwater." 
  
"That strikes me as a very good name, Reep," said Caspian, "though now that I 
come to think of it, I don't know why. But the weather seems to be settling and 
I dare say Drinian would like to be off. What a lot we shall have to tell him." 
  
But in fact they had not much to tell for the memory of the last hour had all 
become confused. 
  
 "Their Majesties all seemed a bit bewitched when they came aboard," said 
Drinian to Rhince some hours later when the Dawn Treader was once more under 
sail and Deathwater Island already below the horizon. "Something happened to 
them in that place. The only thing I could get clear was that they think they've 
found the body of one of these lords we're looking for." 
  
"You don't say so, Captain," answered Rhince. "Well, that's three. Only four 
more. At this rate we might be home soon after the New Year. And a good thing 
too. My baccy's running a bit low. Good night, Sir." 
  
  
  
 
CHAPTER NINE - THE ISLAND OF THE VOICES
  
AND now the winds which had so long been from the north-west began to blow from 
the west itself and every morning when the sun rose out of the sea the curved 
prow of the Dawn Treader stood up right across the middle of the sun. Some 
thought that the sun looked larger than it looked from Narnia, but others 
disagreed. And they sailed and sailed before a gentle yet steady breeze and saw 
neither fish nor gull- nor ship nor shore. And stores began to get low again, 
and it crept into their hearts that perhaps they might have come to a sea which 
went on for ever. But when the very last day on which they thought they could 
risk continuing their eastward voyage dawned, it showed, right ahead between 
them and the sunrise, a low land lying like a cloud. 
  
 They made harbour in a wide bay about the middle of the afternoon and landed. 
It was a very different country from any they had yet seen. For when they had 
crossed the sandy beach they found all silent and empty as if it were an 
uninhabited land, but before them there were level lawns in which the grass was 
as smooth and short as it used to be in the grounds of a great English house 
where ten gardeners were kept. The trees, of which there were many, all stood 
well apart from one another, and there were no broken branches and no leaves 
lying on the ground. Pigeons sometimes cooed but there was no other noise. 
  
 Presently they came to a long, straight, sanded path with not a weed growing on 
it and trees on either hand. Far off at the other end of this avenue they now 
caught sight of a house - very long and grey and quiet-looking in the afternoon 
sun. 
  
 Almost as soon as they entered this path Lucy noticed that she had a little 
stone in her shoe. In that unknown place it might have been wiser for her to ask 
the others to wait while she took it out. But she didn't; she just dropped 
quietly behind and sat down to take off her shoe. Her lace had got into a knot. 
  
 Before she had undone the knot the others were a fair distance ahead. By the 
time she had got the stone out and was putting the shoe on again she could no 
longer hear them. But almost at once she heard something else. It was not coming 
from the direction of the house. 
  
 What she heard was a thumping. It sounded as if dozens of strong workmen were 
hitting the ground as hard as they could with great wooden mallets. And it was 
very quickly coming nearer. She was already sitting with her back to a tree, and 
as the tree was not one she could climb, there was really nothing to do but to 
sit dead still and press herself against the tree and hope she wouldn't be seen. 

  
 Thump, thump, thump . . . and whatever it was must be very close now for she 
could feel the ground shaking. But she could see nothing. She thought the thing 
- or things must be just behind her. But then there came a thump on the path 
right in front of her. She knew it was on the path not only by the sound but 
because she saw the sand scatter as if it had been struck a heavy blow. But she 
could see nothing that had struck it. Then all the thumping noises drew together 
about twenty feet away from her and suddenly ceased. Then came the Voice. 
  
 It was really very dreadful because she could still see nobody at all. The 
whole of that park-like country still looked as quiet and empty as it had looked 
when they first landed. Nevertheless, only a few feet away from her, a voice 
spoke. And what it said was: 
  
"Mates, now's our chance." 
  
Instantly a whole chorus of other voices replied, "Hear him. Hear him. `Now 's 
our chance', he said. Well done, Chief. You never said a truer word." 
  
"What I say," continued the first voice, "is, get down to the shore between them 
and their boat, and let every mother's son look to his weapons. Catch 'em when 
they try to put to sea." 
  
"Eh, that's the way," shouted all the other voices. "You never made a better 
plan, Chief. Keep it up, Chief. You couldn't have a better plan than that." 
  
"Lively, then, mates, lively," said the first voice. "Off we go. 
  
 "Right again, Chief," said the others. "Couldn't have a better order. Just what 
we were going to say ourselves. Off we go." 
  
Immediately the thumping began again - very loud at first but soon fainter and 
fainter, till it died out in the direction of the sea. 
  
 Lucy knew there was no time to sit puzzling as to what these invisible 
creatures might be. As soon as the thumping noise had died away she got up and 
ran along the path after the others as quickly as her legs would carry her. They 
must at all costs be warned. 
  
 While this had been happening the others had reached the house. It was a low 
building - only two stories high made of a beautiful mellow stone, 
many-windowed, and partially covered with ivy. Everything was so still that 
Eustace said, "I think it's empty," but Caspian silently pointed to the column 
of smoke which rose from one chimney. 
  
 They found a wide gateway open and passed through it into a paved courtyard. 
And it was here that they had their first indication that there was something 
odd about this island. In the middle of the courtyard stood a pump, and beneath 
the pump a bucket. There was nothing odd about that. But the pump handle was 
moving up and down, though there seemed to be no one moving it. 
  
 "There's some magic at work here," said Caspian. 
  
 "Machinery!" said Eustace. "I do believe we've come to a civilized country at 
last." 
  
At that moment Lucy, hot and breathless, rushed into the courtyard behind them. 
In a low voice she tried to make them understand what she had overheard. And 
when they had partly understood it even the bravest of them did not look very 
happy. 
  
 "Invisible enemies," muttered Caspian. "And cutting us off from the boat. This 
is an ugly furrow to plough." 
  
"You've no idea what sort of creatures they are, Lu?" asked Edmund. 
  
 "How can I, Ed, when I couldn't see them?" 
  
"Did they sound like humans from their footsteps?" 
  
"I didn't hear any noise of feet - only voices and this frightful thudding and 
thumping - like a mallet." 
  
"I wonder," said Reepicheep, "do they become visible when you drive a sword into 
them?" 
  
"It looks as if we shall find out," said Caspian. "But let's get out of this 
gateway. There's one of these gentry at that pump listening to all we say." 
  
They came out and went back on to the path where the trees might possibly make 
them less conspicuous. "Not that it's any good really," said Eustace, "trying to 
hide from people you can't see. They may be all round us." 
  
"Now, Drinian," said Caspian. "How would it be if we gave up the boat for lost, 
went down to another part of the bay, and signalled to the Dawn Treader to stand 
in and take us aboard?" 
  
"Not depth for her, Sire," said Drinian. 
  
 "We could swim," said Lucy. 
  
 "Your Majesties all," said Reepicheep, "hear me. It is folly to think of 
avoiding an invisible enemy by any amount of creeping and skulking. If these 
creatures mean to bring us to battle, be sure they will succeed. And whatever 
comes of it I'd sooner meet them face to face than be caught by the tail." 
  
"I really think Reep is in the right this time," said Edmund. 
  
 "Surely," said Lucy, "if Rhince and the others on the Dawn Treader see us 
fighting on the shore they'll be able to do something." 
  
"But they won't see us fighting if they can't see any enemy," said Eustace 
miserably. "They'll think we're just swinging our swords in the air for fun." 
  
There was an uncomfortable pause. 
  
 "Well," said Caspian at last, "let's get on with it. We must go and face them. 
Shake hands all round - arrow on the string, Lucy - swords out, everyone else - 
and now for it. Perhaps they'll parley." 
  
It was strange to see the lawns and the great trees looking so peaceful as they 
marched back to the beach. And when they arrived there, and saw the boat lying 
where they had left her, and the smooth sand with no one to be seen on it, more 
than one doubted whether Lucy had not merely imagined all she had told them. But 
before they reached the sand, a voice spoke out of the air. 
  
 "No further, masters, no further now," it said. "We've got to talk with you 
first. There's fifty of us and more here with weapons in our fists." 
  
"Hear him, hear him," came the chorus. "That's our Chief. You can depend on what 
he says. He's telling you the truth, he is." 
  
"I do not see these fifty warriors," observed Reepicheep. 
  
 "That's right, that's right," said the Chief Voice. "You don't see us. And why 
not? Because we're invisible." 
  
"Keep it up, Chief, keep it up," said the Other Voices. "You're talking like a 
book. They couldn't ask for a better answer than that." 
  
"Be quiet, Reep," said Caspian, and then added in a louder voice, "You invisible 
people, what do you want with us? And what have we done to earn your enmity?" 
  
"We want something that little girl can do for us," said the Chief Voice. (The 
others explained that this was just what they would have said themselves.) 
  
"Little girl!" said Reepicheep. "The lady is a queen." 
  
"We don't know about queens," said the Chief Voice. 
  
 ("No more we do, no more we do," chimed in the others.) "But we want something 
she can do." 
  
"What is it?" said Lucy. 
  
 "And if it is anything against her Majesty's honour or safety," added 
Reepicheep, "you will wonder to see how many we can kill before we die." 
  
"Well," said the Chief Voice. "It's a long story. Suppose we all sit down?" , 
  
The proposal was warmly approved by the other voices but the Narnians remained 
standing. 
  
 "Well," said the Chief Voice. "It's like this. This island has been the 
property of a great magician time out of mind. And we all are - or perhaps in a 
manner of speaking, I might say, we were - his servants. Well, to cut a long 
story short, this magician that I was speaking about, he told us to do something 
we didn't like. And why not? Because we didn't want to. Well, then, this same 
magician he fell into a great rage; for I ought to tell you he owned the island 
and he wasn't used to being crossed. He was terribly downright, you know. But 
let me see, where am I? Oh yes, this magician then, he goes upstairs (for you 
must know he kept all his magic things up there and we all lived down below), I 
say he goes upstairs and puts a spell on us. An uglifying spell. If you saw us 
now, which in my opinion you may thank your stars you can't, you wouldn't 
believe what we looked like before we were uglified. You wouldn't really. So 
there we all were so ugly we couldn't bear to look at one another. So then what 
did we do? Well, I'll tell you what we did. We waited till we thought this same 
magician would be asleep in the afternoon and we creep upstairs and go to his 
magic book, as bold as brass, to see if we can do anything about this 
uglification. But we were all of a sweat and a tremble, so I won't deceive you. 
But, believe me or believe me not, I do assure you that we couldn't find any 
thing in the way of a spell for taking off the ugliness. And what with time 
getting on and being afraid that the old gentleman might wake up any minute - I 
was all of a muck sweat, so I won't deceive you - well, to cut a long story 
short, whether we did right or whether we did wrong, in the end we see a spell 
for making people invisible. And we thought we'd rather be invisible than go on 
being as ugly as all that. And why? Because we'd like it better. So my little 
girl, who's just about your little girl's age, and a sweet child she was before 
she was uglified, though now - but least said soonest mended - I say, my little 
girl she says the spell, for it's got to be a little girl or else the magician 
himself, if you see my meaning, for otherwise it won't work. And why not? 
Because nothing happens. So my Clipsie says the spell, for I ought to have told 
you she reads beautifully, and there we all were as invisible as you could wish 
to see. And I do assure you it was a relief not to see one another's faces. At 
first, anyway. But the long and the short of it is we're mortal tired of being 
invisible. And there's another thing. We never reckoned on this magician (the 
one I was telling you about before) going invisible too. But we haven't ever 
seen him since. So we don't know if he's dead, or gone .away, or whether he's 
just sitting upstairs being invisible, and perhaps coming down and being 
invisible there. And, believe me, it's no manner of use listening because he 
always did go about with his bare feet on, making no more noise than a great big 
cat. And I'll tell all you gentlemen straight, it's getting more than what our 
nerves can stand." 
  
Such was the Chief Voice's story, but very much shortened, because I have left 
out what the Other Voices said. Actually he never got out more than six or seven 
words without being interrupted by their agreements and encouragements, which 
drove the Narnians nearly out of their minds with impatience. When it was over 
there was a very long silence. 
  
 "But," said Lucy at last, "what's all this got to do with us? I don't 
understand." 
  
"Why, bless me, if I haven't gone and left out the whole point," said the Chief 
Voice. 
  
 "That you have, that you have," roared the Other Voices with great enthusiasm. 
"No one couldn't have left it out cleaner and better. Keep it up, Chief, keep it 
up." 
  
"Well, I needn't go over the whole story again," began the Chief Voice. 
  
 "No. Certainly not," said Caspian and Edmund. 
  
 "Well, then, to put it in a nutshell," said the Chief Voice, "we've been 
waiting for ever so long for a nice little girl from foreign parts, like it 
might be you, Missie - that would go upstairs and go to the magic book and find 
the spell that takes off the invisibleness, and say it. And we all swore that 
the first strangers as landed on this island (having a nice little girl with 
them, I mean, for if they hadn't it'd be another matter) we wouldn't let them go 
away alive unless they'd done the needful for us. And that's why, gentlemen, if 
your little girl doesn't come up to scratch, it will be our painful duty to cut 
all your throats. Merely in the way of business, as you might say, and no 
offence, I hope." 
  
"I don't see all your weapons," said Reepicheep. "Are they invisible too?" The 
words were scarcely out of his mouth before they heard a whizzing sound and next 
moment a spear had stuck, quivering, in one of the trees behind them. 
  
 "That's a spear, that is," said the Chief Voice. 
  
 "That it is, Chief, that it is," said the others. "You couldn't have put it 
better." 
  
"And it came from my hand," the Chief Voice continued. "They get visible when 
they leave us." 
  
"But why do you want me to do this?" asked Lucy. 
  
 "Why can't one of your own people? Haven't you got any girls?" 
  
"We dursen't, we dursen't," said all the Voices. "We're not going upstairs 
again." 
  
"In other words," said Caspian, "you are asking this lady to face some danger 
which you daren't ask your own sisters and daughters to face!" 
  
"That's right, that's right," said all the Voices cheerfully. "You couldn't have 
said it better. Eh, you've had some education, you have. Anyone can see that." 
  
"Well, of all the outrageous - " began Edmund, but Lucy interrupted. 
  
 "Would I have to go upstairs at night, or would it do in daylight?" 
  
"Oh, daylight, daylight, to be sure," said the Chief Voice. "Not at night. No 
one's asking you to do that. Go upstairs in the dark? Ugh." 
  
"All right, then, I'll do it," said Lucy. "No," she said, turning to the others, 
"don't try to stop me. Can't you see it's no use? There are dozens of them 
there. We can't fight them. And the other way there is a chance." 
  
"But a magician!" said Caspian. 
  
 "I know," said Lucy. "But he mayn't be as bad as they make out. Don't you get 
the idea that these people are not very brave?" 
  
"They're certainly not very clever," said Eustace. 
  
 "Look here, Lu," said Edmund. "We really can't let you do a thing like this. 
Ask Reep, I'm sure he'll say just the same." 
  
"But it's to save my own life as well as yours," said Lucy. "I don't want to be 
cut to bits with invisible swords any more than anyone else." 
  
"Her Majesty is in the right," said Reepicheep. "If we had any assurance of 
saving her by battle, our duty would be very-plain. It appears to me that we 
have none. And the service they ask of her is in no way contrary to her 
Majesty's honour, but a noble and heroical act. If the Queen's heart moves her 
to risk the magician, I will not speak against it." 
  
As no one had ever known Reepicheep to be afraid of anything, he could say this 
without feeling at all awkward. But the boys, who had all been afraid quite 
often, grew very red. None the less, it was such obvious sense that they had to 
give in. Loud cheers broke from the invisible people when their decision was 
announced, and the Chief Voice (warmly supported by all the others) invited the 
Narnians to come to supper and spend the night. Eustace didn't want to accept, 
but Lucy said, "I'm sure they're not treacherous. They're not like that at all," 
and the others agreed. And so, accompanied by an enormous noise of thumpings 
(which became louder when they reached the flagged and echoing courtyard) they 
all went back to the house. 
  
  
  
  
  

CHAPTER TEN - THE MAGICIAN'S BOOK
  
THE invisible people feasted their guests royally. It was very funny to see the 
plates and dishes coming to the table and not to see anyone carrying them. It 
would have been funny even if they had moved along level with the floor, as you 
would expect things to do in invisible hands. But they didn't. They progressed 
up the long dining-hall in a series of bounds or jumps. At the highest point of 
each jump a dish would be about fifteen feet up in the air; then it would come 
down and stop quite suddenly about three feet from the floor. When the dish 
contained anything like soup or stew the result was rather disastrous. 
  
 "I'm beginning to feel very inquisitive about these people," whispered Eustace 
to Edmund. "Do you think they're human at all? More like huge grasshoppers or 
giant frogs, I should say." 
  
"It does look like it," said Edmund. "But don't put the idea of the grasshoppers 
into Lucy's head. She's not too keen on insects; especially big ones." 
  
The meal would have been pleasanter if it had not been so exceedingly messy, and 
also if the conversation had not consisted entirely of agreements. The invisible 
people agreed about everything. Indeed most of their remarks were the sort it 
would not be easy to disagree with: "What I always say is, when a chap's hungry, 
he likes some victuals," or "Getting dark now; always does at night," or even 
"Ah, you've come over the water. Powerful wet stuff, ain't it?" And Lucy could 
not help looking at the dark yawning entrance to the foot of the staircase - she 
could see it from where she sat - and wondering what she would find when she 
went up those stairs next morning. But it was a good meal otherwise, with 
mushroom soup and boiled chickens and hot boiled ham and gooseberries, 
redcurrants, curds, cream, milk, and mead. The others liked the mead but Eustace 
was sorry afterwards that he had drunk any. 
  
 When Lucy woke up next morning it was like waking up on the day of an 
examination or a day when you are going to the dentist. It was a lovely morning 
with bees buzzing in and out of her open window and the lawn outside looking 
very like somewhere in England. She got up and dressed and tried to talk and eat 
ordinarily at breakfast. Then, after being instructed by the Chief Voice about 
what she was to do upstairs, she bid goodbye to the others, said nothing, walked 
to the bottom of the stairs, and began going up them without once looking back. 
  
 It was quite light, that was one good thing. There was, indeed, a window 
straight ahead of her at the top of the first flight. As long as she was 9n that 
flight she could hear the tick-tock-tick-tock of a grandfather clock in the hall 
below. Then she came to the landing and had to turn to her left up the next 
flight; after that she couldn't hear the clock any more. 
  
 Now she had come to the top of the stairs. Lucy looked and saw a long, wide 
passage with a large window at the far end. Apparently the passage ran the whole 
length of the house. It was carved and panelled and carpeted and very many doors 
opened off it on each side. She stood still and couldn't hear the squeak of a 
mouse, or the buzzing of a fly, or the swaying of a curtain, or anything - 
except the beating of her own heart. 
  
 "The last doorway on the left," she said to herself. It did seem a bit hard 
that it should be the last. To reach it she would have to walk past room after 
room. And in any room there might be the magician - asleep, or awake, or 
invisible, or even dead. But it wouldn't do to think about that. She set out on 
her journey. The carpet was so thick that her feet made no noise. 
  
 "There's nothing whatever to be afraid of yet," Lucy told herself. And 
certainly it was a quiet, sunlit passage; perhaps a bit too quiet. It would have 
been nicer if there had not been strange signs painted in scarlet on the doors 
twisty, complicated things which obviously had a meaning and it mightn't be a 
very nice meaning either. It would have been nicer still if there weren't those 
masks hanging on the wall. Not that they were exactly ugly - or not so very ugly 
- but the empty eye-holes did look queer, and if you let yourself you would soon 
start imagining that the masks were doing things as soon as your back was turned 
to them. 
  
 After about the sixth door she got her first real fright. For one second she 
felt almost certain that a wicked little bearded face had popped out of the wall 
and made a grimace at her. She forced herself to stop and look at it. And it was 
not a face at all. It was a little mirror just the size and shape of her own 
face, with hair on the top of it and a beard hanging down from it, so that when 
you looked in the mirror your own face fitted into the hair and beard and it 
looked as if they belonged to you. "I just caught my own reflection with the 
tail of my eye as I went past," said Lucy to herself. "That was all it was. It's 
quite harmless." But she didn't like the look of her own face with that hair and 
beard, and went on. (I don't know what the Bearded Glass was for because I am 
not a magician.) 
  
Before she reached the last door on the left, Lucy was beginning to wonder 
whether the corridor had grown longer since she began her journey and whether 
this was part of the magic of the house. But she got to it at last. And the door 
was open. 
  
 It was a large room with three big windows and it was lined from floor to 
ceiling with books; more books than Lucy had ever seen before, tiny little 
books, fat and dumpy books, and books bigger than any church Bible you have ever 
seen, all bound in leather and smelling old and learned and magical. But she 
knew from her instructions that she need not bother about any of these. For the 
Book, the Magic Book, was lying on a reading-desk in the very middle of the 
room. She saw she would have to read it standing (and anyway there were no 
chairs) and also that she would have to stand with her back to the door while 
she read it. So at once she turned to shut the door. 
  
 It wouldn't shut. 
  
 Some people may disagree with Lucy about this, but I think she was quite right. 
She said she wouldn't have minded if she could have shut the door, but that it 
was unpleasant to have to stand in a place like that with an open doorway right 
behind your back. I should have felt just the same. But there was nothing else 
to be done. 
  
 One thing that worried her a good deal was the size of the Book. The Chief 
Voice had not been able to give her any idea whereabouts in the Book the spell 
for making things visible came. He even seemed rather surprised at her asking. 
He expected her to begin at the beginning and go on till she came to it; 
obviously he had never thought that there was any other way of finding a place 
in a book. "But it might take me days and weeks!" said Lucy, looking at the huge 
volume, "and I feel already as if I'd been in this place for hours." 
  
She went up to the desk and laid her hand on the book; her fingers tingled when 
she touched it as if it were full of electricity. She tried to open it but 
couldn't at first; this, however, was only because it was fastened by two leaden 
clasps, and when she had undone these it opened easily enough. And what a book 
it was! 
  
It was written, not printed; written in a clear, even hand, with thick 
downstrokes and thin upstrokes, very large, easier than print, and so beautiful 
that Lucy stared at it for a whole minute and forgot about reading it. The paper 
was crisp and smooth and a nice smell came from it; and in the margins, and 
round the big coloured capital letters at the beginning of each spell, there 
were pictures. 
  
 There was no title page or title; the spells began straight away, and at first 
there was nothing very important in them. They were cures for warts (by washing 
your hands in moonlight in a silver basin) and toothache and cramp, and a spell 
for taking a swarm of bees. The picture of the man with toothache was so 
lifelike that it would have set your own teeth aching if you looked at it too 
long, and the golden bees which were dotted all round the fourth spell looked 
for a moment as if they were really flying. 
  
 Lucy could hardly tear herself away from that first page, but when she turned 
over, the next was just as interesting. "But I must get on," she told herself. 
And on she went for about thirty pages which, if she could have remembered them, 
would have taught her how to find buried treasure, how to remember things 
forgotten, how to forget things you wanted to forget, how to tell whether anyone 
was speaking the truth, how to call up (or prevent) wind, fog, snow, sleet or 
rain, how to produce enchanted sleeps and how to give a man an ass's head (as 
they did to poor Bottom). And the longer she read the more wonderful and more 
real the pictures became. 
  
 Then she came to a page which was such a blaze of pictures that one hardly 
noticed the writing. Hardly - but she did notice the first words. They were, An 
infallible spell to make beautiful her that uttereth it beyond the lot of 
mortals. Lucy peered at the pictures with her face close to the page, and though 
they had seemed crowded and muddlesome before, she found she could now see them 
quite clearly. The first was a picture of a girl standing at a reading-desk 
reading in a huge book. And the girl was dressed exactly like Lucy. In the next 
picture Lucy (for the girl in the picture was Lucy herself) was standing up with 
her mouth open and a rather terrible expression on her face, chanting or 
reciting something. In the third picture the beauty beyond the lot of mortals 
had come to her. It was strange, considering how small the pictures had looked 
at first, that the Lucy in the picture now seemed quite as big as the real Lucy; 
and they looked into each other's eyes and the real Lucy looked away after a few 
minutes because she was dazzled by the beauty of the other Lucy; though she 
could still see a sort of likeness to herself in that beautiful face. And now 
the pictures came crowding on her thick and fast. She saw herself throned on 
high at a great tournament in Calormen and all the Kings of the world fought 
because of her beauty. After that it turned from tournaments to real wars, and 
all Narnia and Archenland, Telmar and Calormen, Galma and Terebinthia, were laid 
waste with the fury of the kings and dukes and great lords who fought for her 
favour. Then it changed and Lucy, still beautiful beyond the lot of mortals, was 
back in England. And Susan (who had always been the beauty of the family) came 
home from America. The Susan in the picture looked exactly like the real Susan 
only plainer and with a nasty expression. And Susan was jealous of the dazzling 
beauty of Lucy, but that didn't matter a bit because no one cared anything about 
Susan now. 
  
 "I will say the spell," said Lucy. "I don't care. I will." 
  
She said I don't care because she had a strong feeling that she mustn't. 
  
 But when she looked back at the opening words of the spell, there in the middle 
of the writing, where she felt quite sure there had been no picture before, she 
found the great face of a lion, of The Lion, Aslan himself, staring into hers. 
It was painted such a bright gold that it seemed to be coming towards her out of 
the page; and indeed she never was quite sure afterwards that it hadn't really 
moved a little. At any rate she knew the expression on his face quite well. He 
was growling and you could see most of his teeth. She became horribly afraid and 
turned over the page at once. 
  
 A little later she came to a spell which would let you know what your friends 
thought about you. Now Lucy had wanted very badly to try the other spell, the 
one that made you beautiful beyond the lot of mortals. So she felt that to make 
up for not having said it, she really would say this one. And all in a hurry, 
for fear her mind would change, she said the words (nothing will induce me to 
tell you what they were). Then she waited for something to happen. 
  
 As nothing happened she began looking at the pictures. And all at once she saw 
the very last thing she expected - a picture of a third-class carriage in a 
train, with two schoolgirls sitting in it. She knew them at once. They were 
Marjorie Preston and Anne Featherstone. Only now it was much more than a 
picture. It was alive. She could see the telegraph posts flicking past outside 
the window. Then gradually (like when the radio is "coming on") she could hear 
what they were saying. 
  
 "Shall I see anything of you this term?" said Anne, "or are you still going to 
be all taken up with Lucy Pevensie. " 
  
"Don't know what you mean by taken up," said Marjorie. 
  
 "Oh yes, you do," said Anne. "You were crazy about her last term." 
  
"No, I wasn't," said Marjorie. "I've got more sense than that. Not a bad little 
kid in her way. But I was getting pretty tired of her before the end of term." 
  
"Well, you jolly well won't have the chance any other term!" shouted Lucy. 
"Two-faced little beast." But the sound of her own voice at once reminded her 
that she was talking to a picture and that the real Marjorie was far away in 
another world. 
  
 "Well," said Lucy to herself, "I did think better of her than that. And I did 
all sorts of things for her last term, and I stuck to her when not many other 
girls would. And she knows it too. And to Anne Featherstone of all people! I 
wonder are all my friends the same? There are lots of other pictures. No. I 
won't look at any more. I won't, I won't' and with a great effort she turned 
over the page, but not before a large, angry tear had splashed on it. 
  
 On the next page she came to a spell "for the refreshment of the spirit'. The 
pictures were fewer here but very beautiful. And what Lucy found herself reading 
was more like a story than a spell. It went on for three pages and before she 
had read to the bottom of the page she had forgotten that she was reading at 
all. She was living in the story as if it were real, and all the pictures were 
real too. When she had got to the third page and come to the end, she said, 
"That is the loveliest story I've ever read or ever shall read in my whole life. 
Oh, I wish I could have gone on reading it for ten years. At least I'll read it 
over again." 
  
But here part of the magic of the Book came into play. You couldn't turn back. 
The right-hand pages, the ones ahead, could be turned; the left-hand pages could 
not. 
  
 "Oh, what a shame!" said Lucy. "I did so want to read it again. Well, at least 
I must remember it. Let's see . . . it was about . . . about . . . oh dear, it's 
all fading away again. 
  
 And even this last page is going blank. This is a very queer book. How can I 
have forgotten? It was about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill, I 
know that much. But I can't remember and what shall I do?" 
  
And she never could remember; and ever since that day what Lucy means by a good 
story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician's 
Book. 
  
 She turned on and found to her surprise a page with no pictures at all; but the 
first words were A Spell to make hidden things visible. She read it through to 
make sure of all the hard words and then said it out loud. And she knew at once 
that it was working because as she spoke the colours came into the capital 
letters at the top of the page and the pictures began appearing in the margins. 
It was like when you hold to the fire something written in Invisible Ink and the 
writing gradually shows up; only instead of the dingy colour of lemon juice 
(which is the easiest Invisible Ink) this was all gold and blue and scarlet. 
They were odd pictures and contained many figures that Lucy did not much like 
the look of. And then she thought, "I suppose I've made everything visible, and 
not only the Thumpers. There might be lots of other invisible things hanging 
about a place like this. I'm not sure that I want to see them all." 
  
At that moment she heard soft, heavy footfalls coming along the corridor behind 
her; and of course she remembered what she had been told about the Magician 
walking in his bare feet and making no more noise than a cat. It is always 
better to turn round than to have anything creeping up behind your back. Lucy 
did so. 
  
 Then her face lit up till, for a moment (but of course she didn't know it), she 
looked almost as beautiful as that other Lucy in the picture, and she ran 
forward with a little cry of delight and with her arms stretched out. For what 
stood in the doorway was Aslan himself, The Lion, the highest of all High Kings. 
And he was solid and real and warm and he let her kiss him and bury herself in 
his shining mane. And from the low, earthquake-like sound that came from inside 
him, Lucy even dared to think that he was purring. 
  
 "Oh, Aslan," said she, "it was kind of you to come." 
  
"I have been here all the time," said he, "but you have just made me visible." 
  
"Aslan!" said Lucy almost a little reproachfully. "Don't make fun of me. As if 
anything 1 could do would make you visible!" 
  
"It did," said Aslan. "Do you think I wouldn't obey my own rules?" 
  
After a little pause he spoke again. 
  
 "Child," he said, "I think you have been eavesdropping." 
  
"Eavesdropping?" 
  
"You listened to what your two schoolfellows were saying about you." 
  
"Oh that? I never thought that was eavesdropping, Aslan. Wasn't it magic?" 
  
"Spying on people by magic is the same as spying on them in any other way. And 
you have misjudged your friend. She is weak, but she loves you. She was afraid 
of the older girl and said what she does not mean." 
  
"I don't think I'd ever be able to forget what I heard her say." 
  
"No, you won't." 
  
"Oh dear," said Lucy. "Have I spoiled everything? Do you mean we would have gone 
on being friends if it hadn't been for this - and been really great friends - 
all our lives perhaps- and now we never shall." 
  
"Child," said Aslan, "did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever 
told what would have happened?" 
  
"Yes, Aslan, you did," said Lucy. "I'm sorry. But please -" 
  
"Speak on, dear heart." 
  
"Shall I ever be able to, read that story again; the one I couldn't remember? 
Will you tell it to me, Aslan? Oh do, do, do." 
  
"Indeed, yes, I will tell it to you for years and years. But now, come. We must 
meet the master of this house." 
  
  
  
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN - THE DUFFLEPUDS MADE HAPPY
  
Lucy followed the great Lion out into the passage and at once she saw coming 
towards them an old man, barefoot, dressed in a red robe. His white hair was 
crowned with a chaplet of oak leaves, his beard fell to his girdle, and he 
supported himself with a curiously carved staff. When he saw Aslan he bowed low 
and said, 
  
"Welcome, Sir, to the least of your houses." 
  
"Do you grow weary, Coriakin, of ruling such foolish subjects as I have given 
you here?" 
  
"No," said the Magician, "they are very stupid but there is no real harm in 
them. I begin to grow rather fond of the creatures. Sometimes, perhaps, I am a 
little impatient, waiting for the day when they can be governed by wisdom 
instead of this rough magic." 
  
"All in good time, Coriakin," said Aslan. 
  
 "Yes, all in very good time, Sir," was the answer. "Do you intend to show 
yourself to them?" 
  
"Nay," said the Lion, with a little half-growl that meant (Lucy thought) the 
same as a laugh. "I should frighten them out of their senses. Many stars will 
grow old and come to take their rest in islands before your people are ripe for 
that. And today before sunset I must visit Trumpkin the Dwarf where he sits in 
the castle of Cair Paravel counting the days till his master Caspian comes home. 
I will tell him all your story, Lucy. Do not look so sad. We shall meet soon 
again." 
  
"Please, Aslan," said Lucy, "what do you call soon?" 
  
"I call all times soon," said Aslan; and instantly he was vanished away and Lucy 
was alone with the Magician. 
  
 "Gone!" said he, "and you and I quite crestfallen. It's always like that, you 
can't keep him; it's not as if he were a tame lion. And how did you enjoy my 
book?" 
  
"Parts of it very much indeed," said Lucy. "Did you know I was there all the 
time?" 
  
"Well, of course I knew when I let the Duffers make themselves invisible that 
you would be coming along presently to take the spell off. I wasn't quite sure 
of the exact day. And I wasn't especially on the watch this morning. You see 
they had made me invisible too and being invisible always makes me so sleepy. 
Heigh-ho - there I'm yawning again. Are you hungry?" 
  
"Well, perhaps I am a little," said Lucy. "I've no idea what the time is." 
  
"Come," said the Magician. "All times may be soon to Aslan; but in my home all 
hungry times are one o'clock." 
  
He led her a little way down the passage and opened a door. Passing in, Lucy 
found herself in a pleasant room full of sunlight and flowers. The table was 
bare when they entered, but it was of course a magic table, and at a word from 
the old man the tablecloth, silver, plates, glasses and food appeared. 
  
 "I hope that is-what you would like," said he. "I have tried to give you food 
more like the food of your own land than perhaps you have had lately." 
  
"It's lovely," said Lucy, and so it was; an omelette, piping hot, cold lamb and 
green peas, a strawberry ice, lemonsquash to drink with the meal and a cup of 
chocolate to follow. But the magician himself drank only wine and ate only 
bread. There was nothing alarming about him, and Lucy and he were soon chatting 
away like old friends. 
  
 "When will the spell work?" asked Lucy. "Will the Duffers be visible again at 
once?" 
  
"Oh yes, they're visible now. But they're probably all asleep still; they always 
take a rest in the middle of the day." 
  
"And now that they're visible, are you going to let them off being ugly? Will 
you make them as they were before?" 
  
"Well, that's rather a delicate question," said the Magician. "You see, it's 
only they who think they were so nice to look at before. They say they've been 
uglified, but that isn't what I called it. Many people might say the change was 
for the better." 
  
"Are they awfully conceited?" 
  
"They are. Or at least the Chief Duffer is, and he's taught all the rest to be. 
They always believe every word he says." 
  
"We'd noticed that," said Lucy. 
  
 "Yes - we'd get on better without him, in a way. Of course I could turn him 
into something else, or even put a spell on him which would make them not 
believe a word he said. But I don't like to do that. It's better for them to 
admire him than to admire nobody." 
  
"Don't they admire you?" asked Lucy. 
  
 "Oh, not me," said the Magician. "They wouldn't admire me." 
  
"What was it you uglified them for - I mean, what they call uglified?" 
  
"Well, they wouldn't do what they were told. Their work is to mind the garden 
and raise food - not for me, as they imagine, but for themselves. They wouldn't 
do it at all if I didn't make them. And of course for a garden you want water. 
There is a beautiful spring about half a mile away up the hill. And from that 
spring there flows a stream which comes right past the garden. All I asked them 
to do was to take their water from the stream instead of trudging up to the 
spring with their buckets two or three times a day and tiring themselves out 
besides spilling half of it on the way back. But they wouldn't see it. In the 
end they refused point blank." 
  
"Are they as stupid as all that?" asked Lucy. 
  
 The Magician sighed. "You wouldn't believe the troubles I've had with them. A 
few months ago they were all for washing up the plates and knives before dinner: 
they said it saved time afterwards. I've caught them planting boiled potatoes to 
save cooking them when they were dug up. One day the cat got into the dairy and 
twenty of them were at work moving all the milk out; no one thought of moving 
the cat. But I see you've finished. Let's go and look at the Duffers now they 
can be looked at." 
  
They went into another room which was full of polished instruments hard to 
understand - such as Astrolabes, Orreries, Chronoscopes, Poesimeters, 
Choriambuses and Theodolinds - and here, when they had come to the window, the 
Magician said, "There. There are your Duffers." 
  
"I don't see anybody," said Lucy. "And what are those mushroom things?" 
  
The things she pointed at were dotted all over the level grass. They were 
certainly very like mushrooms, but far too big - the stalks about three feet 
high and the umbrellas about the same length from edge to edge. When she looked 
carefully she noticed too that the stalks joined the umbrellas not in the middle 
but at one side which gave an unbalanced look to them. And there was something - 
a sort of little bundle - lying on the grass at the foot of each stalk. In fact 
the longer she gazed at them the less like mushrooms they appeared. The umbrella 
part was not really round as she had thought at first. It was longer than it was 
broad, and it widened at one end. There were a great many of them, fifty or 
more. 
  
 The clock struck three. 
  
 Instantly a most extraordinary thing happened. Each of the "mushrooms" suddenly 
turned upside-down. The little bundles which had lain at the bottom of the 
stalks were heads and bodies. The stalks themselves were legs. But not two legs 
to each body. Each body had a single thick leg right under it (not to one side 
like the leg of a one-legged man) and at the end of it, a single enormous foot-a 
broadtoed foot with the toes curling up a little so that it looked rather like a 
small canoe. She saw in a moment why they had looked like mushrooms. They had 
been lying flat on their backs each with its single leg straight up in the air 
and its enormous foot spread out above it. She learned afterwards that this was 
their ordinary way of resting; for the foot kept off both rain and sun and for a 
Monopod to lie under its own foot is almost as good as being in a tent. 
  
 "Oh, the funnies, the funnies," cried Lucy, bursting into laughter. "Did you 
make them like that?" 
  
"Yes, yes. I made the Duffers into Monopods," said the Magician. He too was 
laughing till the tears ran down his cheeks. "But watch," he added. 
  
 It was worth watching. Of course these little one-footed men couldn't walk or 
run as we do. They got about by jumping, like fleas or frogs. And what jumps 
they made! as if each big foot were a mass of springs. And with what a bounce 
they came down; that was what made the thumping noise which had so puzzled Lucy 
yesterday. For now they were jumping in all directions and calling out to one 
another, "Hey, lads! We're visible again." 
  
"Visible we are," said one in a tasselled red cap who was obviously the Chief 
Monopod. "And what I say is, when chaps are visible, why, they can see one 
another." 
  
"Ah, there it is, there it is, Chief," cried all the others. "There's the point. 
No one's got a clearer head than you. You couldn't have made it plainer." 
  
"She caught the old man napping, that little girl did," said the Chief Monopod. 
"We've beaten him this time." 
  
"Just what we were, going to say ourselves," chimed the chorus. "You're going 
stronger than ever today, Chief. Keep it up, keep it up." 
  
"But do they dare to talk about you like that?" said Lucy. "They seemed to be so 
afraid of you yesterday. Don't they know you might be listening?" 
  
"That's one of the funny things about the Duffers," said the Magician. "One 
minute they talk as if I ran everything and overheard everything and was 
extremely dangerous. The next moment they think they can take me in by tricks 
that a baby would see through - bless them!" 
  
"Will they have to be turned back into their proper shapes?" asked Lucy. "Oh, I 
do hope it wouldn't be unkind to leave them as they are. Do they really mind 
very much? They seem pretty happy. I say - look at that jump. What were they 
like before?" 
  
"Common little dwarfs," said he. "Nothing like so nice as the sort you have in 
Narnia." 
  
"It would be a pity to change them back," said Lucy. "They're so funny: and 
they're rather nice. Do you think it would make any difference if I told them 
that?" 
  
"I'm sure it would - if you could get it into their heads." 
  
"Will you come with me and try?" 
  
"No, no. You'll get on far better without me." 
  
"Thanks awfully for the lunch," said Lucy and turned quickly away. She ran down 
the stairs which she had come up so nervously that morning and cannoned into 
Edmund at the bottom. All the others were there with him waiting, and Lucy's 
conscience smote her when she saw their anxious faces and realized how long she 
had forgotten them. 
  
 "It's all right," she shouted. "Everything's all right. The Magician's a brick 
- and I've seen Him - Aslan." 
  
After that she went from them like the wind and out into the garden. Here the 
earth was shaking with the jumps and the air ringing with the shouts of the 
Monopods. Both were redoubled when they caught sight of her. 
  
 "Here she comes, here she comes," they cried. "Three cheers for the little 
girl. Ah! She put it across the old gentleman properly, she did." 
  
"And we're extremely regrettable," said the Chief Monopod, "that we can't give 
you the pleasure of seeing us as we were before we were uglified, for you 
wouldn't believe the difference, and that's the truth, for there's no denying 
we're mortal ugly now, so we won't deceive you." 
  
"Eh, that we are, Chief, that we are," echoed the others, bouncing like so many 
toy balloons. "You've said it, you've said it." 
  
"But I don't think you are at all," said Lucy, shouting to make herself heard. 
"I think you look very nice." 
  
"Hear her, hear her," said the Monopods. "True for you, Missie. Very nice we 
look. You couldn't find a handsomer lot." They said this without any surprise 
and did not seem to notice that they had changed their minds. 
  
 "She's a-saying," remarked the Chief Monopod, "as how we looked very nice 
before we were uglified." 
  
"True for you, Chief, true for you," chanted the others. "That's what she says. 
We heard her ourselves." 
  
"I did not," bawled Lucy. "I said you're very nice now." 
  
"So she did, so she did," said the Chief Monopod, "said we were very nice then." 

  
"Hear 'em both, hear 'em both," said the Monopods. "There's a pair for you. 
Always right. They couldn't have put it better." 
  
"But we're saying just the opposite," said Lucy, stamping her foot with 
impatience. 
  
 "So you are, to be sure, so you are," said the Monopods. "Nothing like an 
opposite. Keep it up, both of you." 
  
"You're enough to drive anyone mad," said Lucy, and gave it up. But the Monopods 
seemed perfectly contented, and she decided that on the whole the conversation 
had been a success. 
  
 And before everyone went to bed that evening something else happened which made 
them even more satisfied with their one-legged condition. Caspian and all the 
Narnians went back as soon as possible to the shore to give their news to Rhince 
and the others on board the Dawn Treader, who were by now very anxious. And, of 
course, the Monopods went with them, bouncing like footballs and agreeing with 
one another in loud voices till Eustace said, "I wish the Magician would make 
them inaudible instead of invisible." (He was soon sorry he had spoken because 
then he had to explain that an inaudible thing is something you can't hear, and 
though he took a lot of trouble he never felt sure that the Monopods had really 
understood, and what especially annoyed him was that they said in the end, "Eh, 
he can't put things the way our Chief does. But you'll learn, young man. Hark to 
him. He'll show you how to say things. There's a speaker for you!") When they 
reached the bay, Reepicheep had a brilliant idea. He had his little coracle 
lowered and paddled himself about in it till the Monopods were thoroughly 
interested. He then stood up in it and said, "Worthy and intelligent Monopods, 
you do not need boats. Each of you has a foot that will do instead. Just jump as 
lightly as you can on the water and see what happens." 
  
The Chief Monopod hung back and warned the others that they'd find the water 
powerful wet, but one or two of the younger ones tried it almost at once; and 
then a few others followed their example, and at last the whole lot did the 
same. It worked perfectly. The huge single foot of a Monopod acted as a natural 
raft or boat, and when Reepicheep had taught them how to cut rude paddles for 
themselves, they all paddled about the bay and round the Dawn Treader, looking 
for all the world like a fleet of little canoes with a fat dwarf standing up in 
the extreme stern of each. And they had races, and bottles of wine were lowered 
down to them from the ship as prizes, and the sailors stood leaning over the 
ship's sides and laughed till their own sides ached. 
  
 The Duffers were also very pleased with their new name of Monopods, which 
seemed to them a magnificent name though they never got it right. "That's what 
we are," they bellowed, "Moneypuds, Pomonods, Poddymons. Just what it was on the 
tips of our tongues to call ourselves." But they soon got it mixed up with their 
old name of Duffers and finally settled down to calling themselves the 
Dufflepuds; and that is what they will probably be called for centuries. 
  
 That evening all the Narnians dined upstairs with the Magician, and Lucy 
noticed how different the whole top floor looked now that she was no longer 
afraid of it. The mysterious signs on the doors were still mysterious but now 
looked as if they had kind and cheerful meanings, and even the bearded mirror 
now seemed funny rather than frightening. At dinner everyone had by magic what 
everyone liked best to eat and drink, and after dinner the Magician did a very 
useful and beautiful piece of magic. He laid two blank sheets of parchment on 
the table and asked Drinian to give him an exact account of their voyage up to 
date: and as Drinian spoke, everything he described came out on the parchment in 
fine clear lines till at last each sheet was a splendid map of the Eastern 
Ocean, showing Galma, Terebinthia, the Seven Isles, the Lone Islands, Dragon 
Island, Burnt Island, Deathwater, and the land of the Duffers itself, all 
exactly the right sizes and in the right positions. They were the first maps 
ever made of those seas and better than any that have been made since without 
magic. For on these, though the towns and mountains looked at first just as they 
would on an ordinary map, when the Magician lent them a magnifying glass you saw 
that they were perfect little pictures of the real things, so that you could see 
the very castle and slave market and streets in Narrowhaven, all very clear 
though very distant, like things seen through the wrong end of a telescope. The 
only drawback was that the coastline of most of the islands was incomplete, for 
the map showed only what Drinianhad seen with his own eyes. When they were 
finished the. Magician kept one himself and presented the other to Caspian: it 
still hangs in his Chamber of Instruments at Cair Paravel. But the Magician 
could tell them nothing about seas or lands further east. He did, however, tell 
them that about seven years before a Narnian ship had put in at his waters and 
that she had on board the lords Revilian, Argoz, Mavramorn and Rhoop: so they 
judged that the golden man they had seen lying in Deathwater must be the Lord 
Restimar. 
  
 Next day, the Magician magically mended the stern of the Dawn Treader where it 
had been damaged by the Sear Serpent and loaded her with useful gifts. There was 
a most friendly parting, and when she sailed, two hours after noon, all the 
Dufflepuds paddled out with her to the harbour mouth, and cheered until she was 
out of sound of their cheering. 
  
  
  
  
  

CHAPTER TWELVE - THE DARK ISLAND
  
AFTER this adventure they sailed on south and a little east for twelve days with 
a gentle wind, the skies being mostly clear and the air warm, and saw no bird or 
fish, except that once there were whales spouting a long way to starboard. Lucy 
and Reepicheep played a good deal of chess at this time. Then on the thirteenth 
day, Edmund, from the fighting top, sighted what looked like a great dark 
mountain rising out of the sea on their port bow. 
  
 They altered course and made for this land, mostly by oar, for the wind would 
not serve them to sail north-east. When evening fell they were still a long way 
from it and rowed all night. Next morning the weather was fair but a flat calm. 
The dark mass lay ahead, much nearer and larger, but still very dim, so that 
some thought it was still a long way off and others thought they were running 
into a mist. 
  
 About nine that morning, very suddenly, it was so close that they could see 
that it was not land at all, nor even, in an ordinary sense, a mist. It was a 
Darkness. It is rather hard to describe, but you will see what it was like if 
you imagine yourself looking into the mouth of a railway tunnel - a tunnel 
either so long or so twisty that you cannot see the light at the far end. And 
you know what it would be like. For a few feet you would see the rails and 
sleepers and gravel in broad daylight; then there would come a place where they 
were in twilight; and then, pretty suddenly, but of course without a sharp 
dividing line, they would vanish altogether into smooth, solid blackness. It was 
just so here. For a few feet in front of their bows they could see the swell of 
the bright greenish-blue water. Beyond that, they could see the water looking 
pale and grey as it would look late in the evening. But beyond that again, utter 
blackness as if they had come to the edge of moonless and starless night. 
  
 Caspian shouted to the boatswain to keep her back, and all except the rowers 
rushed forward and gazed from the bows. But there was nothing to be seen by 
gazing. Behind them was the sea and the sun, before them the Darkness. 
  
 "Do we go into this?" asked Caspian at length. 
  
 "Not by my advice," said Drinian. 
  
 "The Captain's right," said several sailors. 
  
 "I almost think he is," said Edmund. 
  
 Lucy and Eustace didn't speak but they felt very glad inside at the turn things 
seemed to be taking. But all at once the clear voice of Reepicheep broke in upon 
the silence. 
  
 "And why not?" he said. "Will someone explain to me why not." 
  
No one was anxious to explain, so Reepicheep continued: 
  
"If I were addressing peasants or slaves," he said, "I might suppose that this 
suggestion proceeded from cowardice. But I hope it will never be told in Narnia 
that a company of noble and royal persons in the flower of their age turned tail 
because they were afraid of the dark." 
  
"But what manner of use would it be ploughing through that blackness?" asked 
Drinian. 
  
 "Use?" replied Reepicheep. "Use, Captain? If by use you mean filling our 
bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we 
did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honour and adventure. And 
here is as great an adventure as ever I heard of, and here, if we turn back, no 
tittle impeachment of all our honours." 
  
Several of the sailors said things under their breath that sounded like "Honour 
be blowed", but Caspian said: 
  
"Oh, bother you, Reepicheep. I almost wish we'd left you at home. All right! If 
you put it that way, I suppose we shall have to go on. Unless Lucy would rather 
not?" 
  
Lucy felt that she would very much rather not, but what she said out loud was, 
"I'm game." 
  
"Your Majesty will at least order lights?" said Drinian. 
  
 "By all means," said Caspian. "See to it, Captain." 
  
So the three lanterns, at the stern, and the prow and the masthead, were all 
lit, and Drinian ordered two torches amidships. Pale and feeble they looked in 
the sunshine. Then all the men except some who were left below at the oars were 
ordered on deck and fully armed and posted in their battle stations with swords 
drawn. Lucy and two archers were posted on the fighting top with bows bent and 
arrows on the string. Rynelf was in the bows with his line ready to take 
soundings. Reepicheep, Edmund, Eustace and Caspian, glittering in mail, were 
with him. Drinian took the tiller. 
  
 "And now, in Aslan's name, forward!" cried Caspian. "A slow, steady stroke. And 
let every man be silent and keep his ears open for orders." 
  
With a creak and a groan the Dawn Treader started to creep forward as the men 
began to row. Lucy, up in the fighting top, had a wonderful view of the exact 
moment at which they entered the darkness. The bows had already disappeared 
before the sunlight had left the stern. She saw it go. At one minute the gilded 
stern, the blue sea, and the sky, were all in broad daylight: next minute the 
sea and sky had vanished, the stern lantern - which had been hardly noticeable 
before - was the only thing to show where the ship ended. In front of the 
lantern she could see the black shape of Drinian crouching at the tiller. Down 
below her the two torches made visible two small patches of deck and gleamed on 
swords and helmets, and forward there was another island of light on the 
forecastle. Apart from that, the fighting top, lit by the masthead light which 
was only just above her, seemed to be a little lighted world of its own floating 
in lonely darkness. And the lights themselves, as always happens with lights 
when you have to have them at the wrong time of day, looked lurid and unnatural. 
She also noticed that she was very cold. 
  
 How long this voyage into the darkness lasted, nobody knew. Except for the 
creak of the rowlocks and the splash of the oars there was nothing to show that 
they were moving at all. Edmund, peering from the bows, could see nothing except 
the reflection of the lantern in the water before him. It looked a greasy sort 
of reflection, and the ripple made by their advancing prow appeared to be heavy, 
small, and lifeless. As time went on everyone except the rowers began to shiver 
with cold. 
  
 Suddenly, from somewhere - no one's sense of direction was very clear by now - 
there came a cry, either of some inhuman voice or else a voice of one in such 
extremity of terror that he had almost lost his humanity. 
  
 Caspian was still trying to speak - his mouth was too dry - when the shrill 
voice of Reepicheep, which sounded louder than usual in that silence, was heard. 

  
 "Who calls?" it piped. "If you are a foe we do not fear you, and if you are a 
friend your enemies shall be taught the fear of us." 
  
"Mercy!" cried the voice. "Mercy! Even if you are only one more dream, have 
merry. Take me on board. Take me, even if you strike me dead. But in the name of 
all mercies do not fade away and leave me in this horrible land." 
  
"Where are you?" shouted Caspian. "Come aboard and welcome." 
  
There came another cry, whether of joy or terror, and then they knew that 
someone was swimming towards them. 
  
 "Stand by to heave him up, men," said Caspian. 
  
 "Aye, aye, your Majesty," said the sailors. Several crowded to the port bulwark 
with ropes and one, leaning far out over the side, held the torch. A wild, white 
face appeared in the blackness of the water, and then, after some scrambling and 
pulling, a dozen friendly hands had heaved the stranger on board. 
  
 Edmund thought he had never seen a wilder-looking man. Though he did not 
otherwise look very old, his hair was an untidy mop of white, his face was thin 
and drawn, and, for clothing, only a few wet rags hung about him. But what one 
mainly noticed were his eyes, which were so widely opened that he seemed to have 
no eyelids at all, and stared as if in an agony of pure fear. The moment his 
feet reached the deck he said: 
  
"Fly! Fly! About with your ship and fly! Row, row, row for your lives away from 
this accursed shore." 
  
"Compose yourself," said Reepicheep, "and tell us what the danger is. We are not 
used to flying." 
  
The stranger started horribly at the voice of the Mouse, which he had not 
noticed before. 
  
 "Nevertheless you will fly from here," he gasped. "This is the Island where 
Dreams come true." 
  
"That's the island I've been looking for this long time," said one of the 
sailors. "I reckoned I'd find I was married to Nancy if we landed here." 
  
"And I'd find Tom alive again," said another. 
  
 "Fools!" said the man, stamping his foot with rage. "That is the sort of talk 
that brought me here, and I'd better have been drowned or never born. Do you 
hear what I say? This is where dreams -dreams, do you understand, come to life, 
come real. Not daydreams: dreams." 
  
There was about half a minute's silence and then, with a great clatter of 
armour, the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they could 
and flinging themselves on the oars to row as they had never rowed before; and 
Drinian was swinging round the tiller, and the boatswain was giving out the 
quickest stroke that had ever been heard at sea. For it had taken everyone just 
that halfminute to remember certain dreams they had had - dreams that make you 
afraid of going to sleep again - and to realize what it would mean to land on a 
country where dreams come true. 
  
 Only Reepicheep remained unmoved. 
  
 "Your Majesty, your Majesty," he said, "are you going to tolerate this mutiny, 
this poltroonery? This is a panic, this is a rout." 
  
"Row, row," bellowed Caspian. "Pull for all our lives. Is her head right, 
Drinian? You can say what you like, Reepicheep. There are some things no man can 
face." 
  
"It is, then, my good fortune not to be a man," replied Reepicheep with a very 
stiff bow. 
  
 Lucy from up aloft had heard it all. In an instant that one of her own dreams 
which she had tried hardest to forget came back to her as vividly as if she had 
only just woken from it. So that was what was behind them, on the island, in the 
darkness! For a second she wanted to go down to the deck and be with Edmund and 
Caspian. But what was the use? If dreams began coming true, Edmund and Caspian 
themselves might turn into something horrible just as she reached them. She 
gripped the rail of the fighting top and tried to steady herself. They were 
rowing back to the light as hard as they could: it would be all right in a few 
seconds. But oh, if only it could be all right now! 
  
Though the rowing made a good deal of noise it did not quite conceal the total 
silence which surrounded the ship. 
  
 Everyone knew it would be better not to listen, not to strain his ears for any 
sound from the darkness. But no one could help listening. And soon everyone was 
hearing things. Each one heard something different. 
  
 "Do you hear a noise like . . . like a huge pair of scissors opening and 
shutting .. . over there?" Eustace asked Rynelf. 
  
 "Hush!" said Rynelf. "I can hear them crawling up the sides of the ship." 
  
"It's just going to settle on the mast," said Caspian. 
  
 "Ugh!" said a sailor. "There are the gongs beginning. I knew they would." 
  
Caspian, trying not to look at anything (especially not to keep looking behind 
him), went aft to Drinian. 
  
 "Drinian," he said in a very low voice. "How long did we take rowing in? - I 
mean rowing to where we picked up . the stranger." 
  
"Five minutes, perhaps," whispered Drinian. "Why?" 
  
"Because we've been more than that already trying to get out." 
  
Drinian's hand shook on the tiller and a line of cold sweat ran down his face. 
The same idea was occurring to everyone on board. "We shall never get out, never 
get' out," moaned the rowers. "He's steering us wrong. We're going round and 
round in circles. We shall never get out." The stranger, who had been lying in a 
huddled heap on the deck, sat up and burst out into a horrible screaming laugh. 
  
 "Never get out!" he yelled. "That's it. Of course. We shall never get out. What 
a fool I was to have thought they would let me go as easily as that. No, no, we 
shall never get out." 
  
Lucy leant her head on the edge of the fighting top and whispered, "Aslan, 
Aslan, if ever you loved us at all, send us help now." The darkness did not grow 
any less, but she began to feel a little - a very, very little - better. "After 
all, nothing has really happened to us yet," she thought. 
  
 "Look!" cried Rynelf's voice hoarsely from the bows. There was a tiny speck of 
light ahead, and while they watched a broad beam of light fell from it upon the 
ship. It did not alter the surrounding darkness, but the whole ship was lit up 
as if by searchlight. Caspian blinked, stared round, saw the faces of his 
companions all with wild, fixed expressions. Everyone was staring in the same 
direction: behind everyone lay his black, sharply-edged shadow. 
  
 Lucy looked along the beam and presently saw something in it. At first it 
looked like a cross, then it looked like an aeroplane, then it looked like a 
kite, and at last with a whirring of wings it was right overhead and was an 
albatross. It circled three times round the mast and then perched for an instant 
on the crest of the gilded dragon at the prow. It called out in a strong sweet 
voice what seemed to be words though no one understood them. After that it 
spread its wings, rose, and began to fly slowly ahead, bearing a little to 
starboard. Drinian steered after it not doubting that it offered good guidance. 
But no one except Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, 
"Courage, dear heart," and the voice, she felt sure, was Aslan's, and with the 
voice a delicious smell breathed in her face. 
  
 In a few moments the darkness turned into a greyness ahead, and then, almost 
before they dared to begin hoping, they had shot out into the sunlight and were 
in the warm, blue world again. And all at once everybody realized that there was 
nothing to be afraid of and never had been. They blinked their eyes and looked 
about them. The brightness of the ship herself astonished them: they had half 
expected to find that the darkness would cling to the white and the green and 
the gold in the form of some grime or scum. And then first one, and then 
another, began laughing. 
  
 "I reckon we've made pretty good fools of ourselves," said Rynelf. 
  
 Lucy lost no time in coming down to the deck, where she found the others all 
gathered round the newcomer. For a long time he was too happy to speak, and 
could only gaze at the sea and the sun and feel the bulwarks and the ropes, as 
if to make sure he was really awake, while tears rolled down his cheeks. 
  
 "Thank you," he said at last. "You have saved me from . . . but I won't talk of 
that. And now let me know who you are. I am a Telmarine of Narnia, and when I 
was worth anything men called me the Lord Rhoop." 
  
"And I," said Caspian, "am Caspian, King of Narnia, and I sail to find you and 
your companions who were my father's friends." 
  
Lord Rhoop fell on his knees and kissed the King's hand. "Sire," he said, "you 
are the man in all the world I most wished to see. Grant me a boon." 
  
"What is it?" asked Caspian. 
  
 "Never to bring me back there," he said. He pointed astern. They all looked. 
But they saw only bright blue sea and bright blue sky. The Dark Island and the 
darkness had vanished for ever. 
  
 "Why!" cried Lord Rhoop. "You have destroyed it!" 
  
"I don't think it was us," said Lucy. 
  
 "Sire," said Drinian, "this wind is fair for the southeast. Shall I have our 
poor fellows up and set sail? And after that, every man who can be spared, to 
his hammock." 
  
"Yes," said Caspian, "and let there be grog all round. Heigh-ho, I feel I could 
sleep the clock round myself." 
  
So all afternoon with great joy they sailed south-east with a fair wind. But 
nobody noticed when the albatross had disappeared. 
  
  
  
  
  

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - THE THREE SLEEPERS
  
THE wind never failed but it grew gentler every day till at length the waves 
were little more than ripples, and the ship glided on hour after hour almost as 
if they were sailing on a lake. And every night they saw that there rose in the 
east new constellations which no one had ever seen in Narnia and perhaps, as 
Lucy thought with a mixture of joy and fear, no living eye had seen at all. 
Those new stars were big and bright and the nights were warm. Most of them slept 
on deck and talked far into the night or hung over the ship's side watching the 
luminous dance of the foam thrown up by their bows. 
  
 On an evening of startling beauty, when the sunset behind them was so crimson 
and purple and widely spread that the very sky itself seemed to have grown 
larger, they came in sight of land on their starboard bow. It came slowly nearer 
and the light behind them made it look as if the capes and headlands of this new 
country were all on fire. But presently they were sailing along its coast and 
its western cape now rose up astern of them, black against the red sky and sharp 
as if it was cut out of cardboard, and then they could see better what this 
country was like. It had no mountains but many gentle hills with slopes like 
pillows. An attractive smell came from it - what Lucy called "a dim, purple kind 
of smell", which Edmund said (and Rhince thought) was rot, but Caspian said, "I 
know what you mean." 
  
They sailed on a good way, past point after point, hoping to find a nice deep 
harbour, but had to content themselves in the end with a wide and shallow bay. 
Though it had seemed calm out at sea there was of course surf breaking on the 
sand and they could not bring the Dawn Treader as far in as they would have 
liked. They dropped anchor a good way from the beach and had a wet and tumbling 
landing in the boat. The Lord Rhoop remained on board the Dawn Treader. He 
wished to see no more islands. All the time that they remained in this country 
the sound of the long breakers was in their ears. 
  
 Two men were left to guard the boat and Caspian led the others inland, but not 
far because it was too late for exploring and the light would soon go. But there 
was no need to go far to find an adventure. The level valley which lay at the 
head of the bay showed no road or track or other sign of habitation. Underfoot 
was tine springy turf dotted here and there with a low bushy growth which Edmund 
and Lucy took for heather. Eustace, who was really rather good at botany; said 
it wasn't, and he was probably right; but it was something of very much the same 
kind. 
  
 When they had gone less than a bowshot from the shore, Drinian said, "Look! 
What's that?" and everyone stopped. 
  
 "Are they great trees?" said Caspian. 
  
 "Towers, l think," said Eustace. 
  
 "It might be giants," said Edmund in a lower voice. 
  
 "The way to find out is to go right iv among them," said Reepicheep, drawing 
his sword and pattering off ahead of everyone else. 
  
 "I think it's a ruin," said Lucy when they had got a good deal nearer, and her 
guess was the best so far. What they now saw was a wide oblong space flagged 
with smooth stones and surrounded by grey pillars but unroofed. And from end to 
end of it ran a long table laid with a rich crimson cloth that came down nearly 
to the pavement. At either side of it were many chairs of stone richly carved 
and with silken cushions upon the seats. But on the table itself there was set 
out such a banquet as had never been seen, not even when Peter the High King 
kept his court at Cair Paravel. There were turkeys and geese and peacocks, there 
were boars' heads and sides of venison, there were pies shaped like ships under 
full sail or like dragons and elephants, there were ice puddings and bright 
lobsters and gleaming salmon, there were nuts and grapes, pineapples and 
peaches, pomegranates and melons and tomatoes. There were flagons of gold and 
silver and curiouslywrought glass; and the smell of the fruit and the wine blew 
towards them like a promise of all happiness. 
  
 "I say!" said Lucy. 
  
 They came nearer and nearer, all very quietly. 
  
 "But where are the guests?" asked Eustace. 
  
 "We can provide that, Sir," said Rhince. 
  
 "Look!" said Edmund sharply. They were actually within the pillars now and 
standing on the pavement. Everyone looked where Edmund had pointed. The chairs 
were not all empty. At the head of the table and in the two places beside it 
there was something- or possibly three somethings. 
  
 "What are those?" asked Lucy in a whisper. "It looks like three beavers sitting 
on the table." 
  
"Or a huge bird's nest," said Edmund. 
  
 "It looks more like a haystack to me," said Caspian. 
  
 Reepicheep ran forward, jumped on a chair and thence on to the table, and ran 
along it, threading his way as nimbly as a dancer between jewelled cups and 
pyramids of fruit and -ivory salt-cellars. He ran right up to the mysterious 
grey mass at the end: peered, touched, and then called out: 
  
"These will not fight, I think." 
  
Everyone now came close and saw that what sat in those three chairs was three 
men, though hard to recognize as men till you looked closely. Their hair, which 
was grey, had grown over their eyes till it almost concealed their, faces, and 
their beards had grown over the table, climbing pound and entwining plates and 
goblets as brambles; entwine a fence, until, all mixed in one great mat of hair, 
they flowed over the edge and down to the floor. And from their heads the hair 
hung over the backs of their chairs so that they were wholly hidden. In fact the 
three men were; nearly all hair. 
  
 "Dead?" said Caspian. 
  
 "I think not, Sire," said Reepicheep, lifting one of their hands out of its 
tangle of hair in his two paws. "This one is warm and his pulse beats." 
  
"This one, too, and this," said Drinian. 
  
 "Why, they're only asleep," said Eustace. 
  
 "It's been a long sleep, though," said Edmund, "to let their hair grow like 
this." 
  
"It must be an enchanted sleep," said Lucy. "I felt the moment we landed on this 
island that it was full of magic. Oh! do you think we have perhaps come here to 
break it?" 
  
"We can try," said Caspian, and began shaking the nearest of the three sleepers. 
For a moment everyone thought he was going to be successful, for the man 
breathed hard and muttered, "I'll go eastward no more. Out oars for Narnia." But 
he sank back almost at once into a yet deeper sleep than before: that is, his 
heavy head sagged a few inches lower towards the table and all efforts to rouse 
him again were useless. With the second it was much the same. "Weren't born to 
live like animals. Get to the east while you've a chance - lands behind the 
sun," and sank down. And the third only said, "Mustard, please," and slept hard. 

  
 "Out oars for Narnia, eh?" said Drinian. 
  
 "Yes," said Caspian, "you are right, Drinian. I think our quest is at an end. 
Let's look at their rings. Yes, these are their devices. This is the Lord 
Revilian. This is the Lord Argoz: and this, the Lord Mavramorn." 
  
"But we can't wake them," said Lucy. "What are we to do?" 
  
"Begging your Majesties' pardons all," said Rhince, "but why not fall to while 
you're discussing it? We don't see a dinner like this every day." 
  
"Not for your life!" said Caspian. 
  
 "That's right, that's right," said several of the sailors. 
  
 "Too much magic about here. The sooner we're back on board the better." 
  
"Depend upon it," said Reepicheep, "it was from eating this food that these 
three lords came by a seven years' sleep." 
  
"I wouldn't touch it to save my life," said Drinian. 
  
 "The light's going uncommon quick," said Rynelf. 
  
 "Back to ship, back to ship," muttered the men. 
  
 "I really think," said Edmund, "they're right. We can decide what to do with 
the three sleepers tomorrow. We daren't eat the food and there's no point in 
staying here for the night. The whole place smells of magic - and danger." 
  
"I am entirely of King Edmund's opinion," said Reepicheep, "as far as concerns 
the ship's company in general. But I myself will sit at this table till 
sunrise." 
  
"Why on earth?" said Eustace. 
  
 "Because," said the Mouse, "this is a very great adventure, and no danger seems 
to me so great as that of knowing when I get back to Narnia that I left a 
mystery behind me through fear." 
  
"I'll stay with you, Reep," said Edmund. 
  
 "And I too," said Caspian. 
  
 "And me," said Lucy. And then Eustace volunteered also. This was very brave of 
him because never having read of such things or even heard of them till he 
joined the Dawn Treader made it worse for him than for the others. 
  
 "I beseech your Majesty -" began Drinian. 
  
 "No, my Lord," said Caspian. "Your place is with the ship, and you have had a 
day's work while we five have idled." There was a lot of argument about this but 
in the end Caspian had his way. As the crew marched off to the shore in the 
gathering dusk none of the five watchers, except perhaps Reepicheep, could avoid 
a cold feeling in the stomach. 
  
 They took some time choosing their seats at the perilous table. Probably 
everyone had the same reason but no one said it out loud. For it was really a 
rather nasty choice. One could hardly bear to sit all night next to those three 
terrible hairy objects which, if not dead, were certainly not alive in the 
ordinary sense. On the other hand, to sit at the far end, so that you would see 
them less and less as the night grew darker, and wouldn't know if they were 
moving, and perhaps wouldn't see them at all by about two o'clock no, it was not 
to be thought of. So they sauntered round and round the table saying, "What 
about here?" and "Or perhaps a bit further on," or, "Why not on this side?" till 
at last they settled down somewhere about the middle but nearer to the sleepers 
than to the other end. It was about ten by now and almost dark. Those strange 
new constellations burned in the east. Lucy would have liked it better if they 
had been the Leopard and the Ship and other old friends of the Narnian sky. 
  
 They wrapped themselves in their sea cloaks and sat still and waited. At first 
there was some attempt at talk but it didn't come to much. And they sat and sat. 
And all the time they heard the waves breaking on the beach. 
  
 After hours that seemed like ages there came a moment when they all knew they 
had been dozing a moment before but were all suddenly wide awake. The stars were 
all in quite different positions from those they had last noticed. The sky was 
very black except for the faintest possible greyness in the east. They were 
cold, though thirsty, and stiff. And none of them spoke because now at last 
something was happening. 
  
 Before them, beyond the pillars, there was the slope of a low hill. And now a 
door opened in the hillside, and light appeared in the doorway, and a figure 
came out, and the door shut behind it. The figure carried a light, and this 
light was really all that they could see distinctly. It came slowly nearer and 
nearer till at last it stood right at the table opposite to them. Now they could 
see that it was a tall girl, dressed in a single long garment of clear blue 
which left her arms bare. She was bareheaded and her yellow hair hung down her 
back. And when they looked at her they thought they had never before known what 
beauty meant. 
  
 The light which she had been carrying was a tall candle in a silver candlestick 
which she now set upon the table. If there had been any wind off the sea earlier 
in the night it must have died down by now, for the flame of the candle burned 
as straight and still as if it were in a room with the windows shut and the 
curtains drawn. Gold and silver on the table shone in its light. 
  
 Lucy now noticed something lying lengthwise on the table which had escaped her 
attention before. It was a knife of stone, sharp as steel, a cruel-looking, 
ancient looking thing. 
  
 No one had yet spoken a word. Then - Reepicheep first, and Caspian next - they 
all rose to their feet, because they felt that she was a great lady. 
  
 "Travellers who have come from far to Aslan's table," said the girl. "Why do 
you not eat and drink?" 
  
"Madam," said Caspian, "we feared the food because we thought it had cast our 
friends into an enchanted sleep. 
  
 "They have never tasted it," she said. 
  
 "Please," said Lucy, "what happened to them?" 
  
"Seven years ago," said the girl, "they came here in a ship whose sails were 
rags and timbers ready to fall apart. There were a few others with them, 
sailors, and when they came to this table one said, `Here is the good place. Let 
us set sail and reef sail and row no longer but sit down and end our days in 
peace!' And the second said, `No, let us re-embark and sail for Narnia and the 
west; it may be that Miraz is dead.' But the third, who was a very masterful 
man, leaped up and said, `No, by heaven. We are men and Telmarines, not brutes. 
What should we do but seek adventure after adventure? We have not long to live 
in any event. Let us spend what is left in seeking the unpeopled world behind 
the sunrise.' And as they quarrelled he caught up the Knife of Stone which lies 
there on the table and would have fought with his comrades. But it is a thing 
not right for him to touch. And as his fingers closed upon the hilt, deep sleep 
fell upon all the three. And till the enchantment is undone they will never 
wake." 
  
"What is this Knife of Stone?" asked Eustace. 
  
 "Do none of you know it?" said the girl. 
  
 "I - I think," said Lucy, "I've seen something like it before. It was a knife 
like it that the White Witch used when she killed Aslan at the Stone Table long 
ago." 
  
"It was the same.," said the girl, "and it was brought here to be kept in honour 
while the world lasts." 
  
Edmund, who had been looking more and more uncomfortable for the last few 
minutes, now spoke. 
  
 "Look here," he said, "I hope I'm not a coward - about eating this food, I mean 
- and I'm sure I don't mean to be rude. But we have had a lot of queer 
adventures on this voyage of ours and things aren't always what they seem. When 
I look in your face I can't help believing all you say: but then that's just 
what might happen with a witch too. How are we to know you're a friend?" 
  
"You can't know," said the girl. "You can only believe or not." 
  
After a moment's pause Reepicheep's small voice was heard. 
  
 "Sire," he said to Caspian, "of your courtesy fill my cup with wine from that 
flagon: it is too big for me to lift. I will drink to the lady." 
  
Caspian obeyed and the Mouse, standing on the table, held up a golden cup 
between its tiny paws and said, "Lady, I pledge you." Then it fell to on cold 
peacock, and in a short while everyone else followed its example. All were very 
hungry and the meal, if not quite what you wanted for a very early breakfast, 
was excellent as a very late supper. 
  
 "Why is it called Aslan's table?" asked Lucy presently. 
  
 "It is set here by his bidding," said the girl, "for those who come so far. 
Some call this island the World's End, for though you can sail further, this is 
the beginning of the end." 
  
"But how does the food keep?" asked the practical Eustace. ? 
  
"It is eaten, and renewed every day," said the girl. "This you will see." 
  
"And what are we to do about the Sleepers?" asked Caspian. "In the world from 
which my friends come" (here, he nodded at Eustace and the Pevensies) "they have 
a story of a prince or a king coming to a castle where all the people lay in an 
enchanted sleep. In that story he could not dissolve the enchantment until he 
had kissed the Princess." 
  
"But here," said the girl, "it is different. Here he cannot kiss the Princess 
till he has dissolved the enchantment." 
  
"Then," said Caspian, "in the name of Aslan, show me how to set about that work 
at once." 
  
"My father will teach you that," said the girl. 
  
 "Your father!" said everyone. "Who is he? And where?" 
  
"Look," said the girl, turning round and pointing at the door in the hillside. 
They could see it more easily now, for while they had been talking the stars had 
grown fainter and great gaps of white light were appearing in the greyness of 
the eastern sky. 
  
  
  
  
  

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE WORLD
  
Slowly the door opened again and out there came a figure as tall and straight as 
the girl's but not so slender. It carried no light but light seemed to come from 
it. As it came nearer, Lucy saw that it was like an old man. His silver beard 
came down to his bare feet in front and his saver hair hung down to his heels 
behind and his robe appeared to be made from the fleece of silver sheep. He 
looked so mild and grave that once more all the travellers rose to their feet 
and stood in silence. 
  
 But the old man came on without speaking to the travellers and stood on the 
other side of the table opposite to his daughter. Then both of them held up 
their arms before them and turned to face the east. In that position the began 
to sing. I wish I could write down the song, but one who was present could 
remember it. Lucy said afterwards that it was high, almost shrill, but very 
beautiful, cold kind of song, an early morning kind of song. And they sang, the 
grey clouds lifted from the eastern sky a the white patches 'grew bigger and 
bigger till it was white, and the sea began to shine like silver. And long 
afterwards (but those two sang all the time) the east began to turn red and at 
last, unclouded, the sun came up out the sea and its long level ray shot down 
the length of the table on the gold and silver sand on the Stone Knife. 
  
 Once or twice before, the Narnians had wondered whether the sun at its rising 
did not look bigger in these seas than it had looked at home. This time they we 
certain. There was no mistaking it. And the brightness its ray on the dew and on 
the table was far beyond an. morning brightness they had ever seen. And as Edmu 
said afterwards, "Though lots of things happened on that trip which sound more 
exciting, that moment was really the most exciting." For now they knew that they 
had truly come to the beginning of the End of the World. 
  
 Then something seemed to be flying at them out of the very centre of the rising 
sun: but of course one couldn't look steadily in that direction to make sure. 
But presently the air became full of voices - voices which took up same song 
that the Lady and her Father were singing, but in far wilder tones and in a 
language which no one knew And soon after that the owners of these voices could 
be seen. They were birds, large and white, and they came hundreds and thousands 
and alighted on everything; the grass, and the pavement, on the table, on your 
shoulders, your hands, and your head, till it looked as heavy snow had fallen. 
For, like snow, they not only make everything white but blurred and blunted all 
shapes. But Lucy, looking out from between the wings of the birds that covered 
her, saw one bird fly to the Old Man with something in its beak that looked like 
a little fruit, unless it was a little live coal, which it might have been, for 
it was too bright to look at. And the bird laid it in the Old Man's mouth. 
  
 Then the birds stopped their singing and appeared to be very busy about the 
table. When they rose from it again everything on the table that could be eaten 
or drunk had disappeared. These birds rose from their meal in their thousands 
and hundreds and carried away all the things that could not be eaten or drunk, 
such as bones, rinds, and shells, and took their flight back to the rising sun. 
But now, because they were not singing, the whir of their wings seemed to set 
the whole air a-tremble. And there was the table pecked clean and empty, and the 
three old Lords of Narnia still fast asleep. 
  
 Now at last the Old Man turned to the travellers and bade them welcome. 
  
 "Sir," said Caspian, "will you tell us how to undo the enchantment which holds 
these three Narnian Lords asleep." 
  
"I will gladly tell you that, my son," said the Old Man. "To break this 
enchantment you must sail to the World's End, or as near as you can come to it, 
and you must come back having left at least one of your company behind." 
  
"And what must happen to that one?" asked Reepicheep. 
  
 "He must go on into the utter east and never return into the world." 
  
"That is my heart's desire," said Reepicheep. 
  
 "And are we near the World's End now, Sir?" asked Caspian. "Have you any 
knowledge of the seas and lands further east than this?" 
  
"I saw them long ago," said the Old Man, "but it was from a great height. I 
cannot tell you such things as sailor need to know." 
  
"Do you mean you were flying in the air?" Eustace blurted out. 
  
 "I was a long way above the air, my son," replied the Old Man. "I am Ramandu. 
But I see that you stare at on another and have not heard this name. And no 
wonder, for the days when I was a star had ceased long before any of you knew 
this world, and all the constellations have changed." 
  
"Golly," said Edmund under his breath. "He's a retired star." 
  
"Aren't you a star any longer?" asked Lucy. 
  
 "I am a star at rest, my daughter," answered Ramandu 
  
"When I set for the last time, decrepit and old beyond all that you can reckon, 
I was carried to this island. I am not so old now as I was then. Every morning a 
bird brings me a fire-berry from the valleys in the Sun, and each fire-berry 
takes away a little of my age. And when I have become as young as the child that 
was born yesterday, then I shall take my rising again (for we are at earth's 
eastern rim) and once more tread the great dance." 
  
"In our world," said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas." 
  
"Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made 
of. And in this world you ave already met a star, for I think you have been with 
Coriakin." 
  
"Is he a retired star, too?" said Lucy. 
  
 "Well, not quite the same," said Ramandu. "It was not quite as a rest than he 
was set to govern the Duffers. You might call it a punishment. He might have 
shone for thousands of years more in the southern winter sky if all had gone 
well." 
  
"What did he do, Sir?" asked Caspian. 
  
 "My son," said Ramandu, "it is not for you, a son of Adam, to know what faults 
a star can commit. But come, we waste time in such talk. Are you yet resolved? 
Will you sail further east and come again, leaving one to return no more, and so 
break the enchantment? Or will you sail westward?" 
  
"Surely, Sire," said Reepicheep, "there is no question about that? It is very 
plainly part of our quest to rescue these three lords from enchantment." 
  
"I think the same, Reepicheep," replied Caspian. "And even if it were not so, it 
would break my heart not to go as near the World's End as the Dawn Treader will 
take us. But I am thinking of the crew. They signed on to seek the seven lords, 
not to reach the rim of the Earth. If we sail east from here we sail to find the 
edge, the utter east. And not one knows how far it is. They're brave fellows, 
but I set signs that some of them are weary of the voyage and long to have our 
prow pointing to Narnia again. I don't think should take them further without 
their knowledge an consent. And then there's the poor Lord Rhoop. He's broken 
man." 
  
"My son," said the star, "it would be no use, even though you wished it, to sail 
for the World's End with men unwilling or men deceived. That is not how great 
unenchantments are achieved. They must know where they go and why. But who is 
this broken man you speak of?" 
  
Caspian told Ramandu the story of Rhoop. 
  
 "I can give him what he needs most," said Ramandu. "I this island there is 
sleep without stint or measure, and sleep in which no faintest footfall of a 
dream was ever heard. Let him sit beside these other three and drink oblivion 
till you return." 
  
"Oh, do let's do that, Caspian," said Lucy. "I'm sure its just what he would 
love." 
  
At that moment they were interrupted by the sound of many feet and voices: 
Drinian and the rest of the ship company were approaching. They halted in 
surprise whey they saw Ramandu and his daughter; and then, because these were 
obviously great people, every man uncovered his head. Some sailors eyed the 
empty dishes and flagons on the table with regret. 
  
 "My lord," said the King to Drinian, "pray send two men back to the Dawn 
Treader with a message to the Lord Rhoop. Tell him that the last of his old 
shipmates are here asleep - a sleep without dreams - and that he can share it." 
  
When this had been done, Caspian told the rest to sit down and laid the whole 
situation before them. When he had finished there was a long silence and some 
whispering until presently the Master Bowman got to his feet, and said: 
  
"What some of us have been wanting to ask for a long time, your Majesty, is how 
we're ever to get home when we do turn, whether we turn here or somewhere else. 
It's been west and north-west winds all the way, barring an occasional calm. And 
if that doesn't change, I'd like to know what hopes we have of seeing Narnia 
again. There's not much chance of supplies lasting while we row all that way. 
  
 "That's landsman's talk," said Drinian. "There's always a prevailing west wind 
in these seas all through the late summer, and it always changes after the New 
Year. We'll have plenty of wind for sailing westward; more than we shall like 
from all accounts." 
  
"That's true, Master," said an old sailor who was a Galmian by birth. "You get 
some ugly weather rolling up from the east in January and February. And by your 
leave, Sire, if I was in command of this ship I'd say to winter here and begin 
the voyage home in March." 
  
"What'd you eat while you were wintering here?" asked Eustace. 
  
 "This table," said Ramandu, "will be filled with a king's feast every day at 
sunset." 
  
"Now you're talking!" said several sailors. 
  
 "Your Majesties and gentlemen and ladies all," said Rynelf, "there's just one 
thing I want to say. There's not one of us chaps as was pressed on this journey. 
We're volunteers. And there's some here chat are looking very hard at that table 
and thinking about king's feasts who were talking very loud about adventures on 
the day we sailed from Cair Paravel, and swearing they wouldn't come home till 
we'd found the end of the world. And there were some standing on the quay who 
would have given all they had to come with us. It was thought a finer thing then 
to have a cabin-boy's berth on the Dawn Treader than to wear a knight's belt. I 
don't know if you get the hang of what I'm saying. But what I mean is that I 
think chaps who set out like us will look as silly as - as those Dufflepuds - if 
we come home and say we got to the beginning of the world's end and hadn't the 
heart to go further." 
  
Some of the sailors cheered at this but some said that that was all very well. 
  
 "This isn't going to be much fun," whispered Edmund to Caspian. "What are we to 
do if half those fellows hang back?" 
  
"Wait," Caspian whispered back. "I've still a card to play." 
  
"Aren't you going to say anything, Reep?" whispered Lucy. 
  
 "No. Why should your Majesty expect it?" answered Reepicheep in a voice that 
most people heard. "My owns plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn 
Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall 
swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not 
reached Aslan's country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast 
cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise and Peepiceek will be head of 
the talking mice in Narnia." 
  
"Hear, hear," said a sailor, "I'll say the same, barring the bit about the 
coracle, which wouldn't bear me." He added in a lower voice, "I'm not going to 
be outdone by a mouse." 
  
At this point Caspian jumped to his feet. "Friends," he said, "I think you have 
not quite understood our purpose. You talk as if we had come to you with our hat 
in our hand, begging for shipmates. It isn't like that at all. We and our royal 
brother and sister and their kinsman and Sir Reepicheep, the good knight, and 
the Lord Drinian have an errand to the world's edge. It is our pleasure to 
choose from among such of you as are willing those whom we deem worthy of so 
high an enterprise. We have not said that any can come for the asking. That is 
why we shall now command the Lord Drinian and Master Rhince to consider 
carefully what men among you are the hardest in battle, the most skilled seamen, 
the purest in blood, the most loyal to our person, and the cleanest of life and 
manners; and to give their names to us in a schedule." He paused and went on in 
a quicker voice, "Aslan's mane!" he exclaimed. "Do you think that the privilege 
of seeing the last things is to be bought for a song? Why, every man that comes 
with us shall bequeath the title of Dawn Treader to all his descendants, and 
when we land at Cair Paravel on the homeward voyage he shall have either gold or 
land enough to make him rich all his life. Now - scatter over the island, all of 
you. In half an hour's time I shall receive the names that Lord Drinian brings 
me." 
  
There was rather a sheepish silence and then the crew made their bows and moved 
away, one in this direction and one in that, but mostly in little knots or 
bunches, talking. 
  
 "And now for the Lord Rhoop," said Caspian. 
  
 But turning to the head of the table he saw that Rhoop was already there. He 
had arrived, silent and unnoticed, while the discussion was going on, and was 
seated beside the Lord Argoz. The daughter of Ramandu stood beside him as if she 
had just helped him into his chair; Ramandu stood behind him and laid both his 
hands on Rhoop's grey head. Even in daylight a faint silver light came from the 
hands of the star. There was a smile on Rhoop's haggard face. He held out one of 
his hands to Lucy and the other to Caspian. For a moment it looked as if he were 
going to say something. Then his smile brightened as if he were feeling) some 
delicious sensation, a long sigh of contentment came from his lips, his head 
fell forward, and he slept. 
  
 "Poor Rhoop," said Lucy. "I am glad. He must have had terrible times." ' 
  
"Don't let's even think of it," said Eustace. 
  
 Meanwhile Caspian's speech, helped perhaps by some magic of the island, was 
having just the effect he intended. A good many who had been anxious enough to 
get out of the voyage felt quite differently about being left out of it. And of 
course whenever any one sailor announced that he had made up his mind to ask for 
permission to sail, the ones who hadn't said this felt that they were getting 
fewer and more uncomfortable. So that before the half-hour was nearly over 
several people were positively "sucking up" to Drinian and Rhince (at least that 
was what they called it at my school) to get a good report. And soon there were 
only three left who didn't want to go, and those three were trying very hard to 
persuade others to stay with them. And very shortly after that there was only 
one left. And in they end he began to be afraid of being left behind all on his 
own and changed his mind. 
  
 At the end of the half-hour they all came trooping back to Aslan's Table and 
stood at one end while Drinian and Rhince went and sat down with Caspian and 
made their report; and Caspian accepted all the man but that one who'd had 
changed his mind at the last moment. His name was Pittencream and he stayed on 
the Island of the Star all the time the others were away looking for the World's 
End, and he very much wished he had gone with them. He wasn't the sort of man 
who could enjoy talking to Ramandu and Ramandu's daughter (nor they to him), and 
it rained a good deal, and though there was a wonderful feast on the Table every 
night, he didn't very much enjoy it. He said it gave him the creeps sitting 
there alone (and in the rain as likely as not) with those four Lords asleep at 
the end of the Table. And when the others returned he felt so out of things that 
he deserted on the voyage home at the Lone Islands, and went and lived in 
Calormen, where he told wonderful stories about his adventures at the End of the 
World, until at last he came to believe them himself. So you may say, in a 
sense, that he lived happily ever after. But he could never bear mice. 
  
 That night they all ate and drank together at the great table between the 
pillars where the feast was magically renewed: and next morning the Dawn Treader 
set sail once more just when the great birds had come and gone again. 
  
 "Lady," said Caspian, "I hope to speak with you again when I have broken the 
enchantments." And Ramandu's daughter looked at him and smiled. 
  
  
  
  
  

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - THE WONDERS OF THE LAST SEA
  
VERY soon after they had left Ramandu's country they began to feel that they had 
already sailed beyond the world. All was different. For one thing they all found 
that they were needing less sleep. One did not want to go to bed. nor to eat 
much, nor even to talk except in low voices. Another thing was the light. There 
was too much of it. The sun when it came up each morning looked twice, if not; 
three times, its usual size. And every morning (which gave Lucy the strangest 
feeling of all) the huge white birds, singing their song with human voices in a 
language no one knew, streamed overhead and vanished astern on their way to 
their breakfast at Aslan's Table. A little later they came flying back and 
vanished into the east. 
  
 "How beautifully clear the water is!" said Lucy to herself, as she leaned over 
the port side early in the afternoon of the second day. 
  
 And it was. The first thing that she noticed was a little black object, about 
the size of a shoe, travelling along at the same speed as the ship. For a moment 
she thought it was something floating on the surface. But then there came 
floating past a bit of stale bread which the cook had just thrown out of the 
galley. And the bit of bread looked as if it were going to collide with the 
black thing, but it didn't. It passed above it, and Lucy now saw that the black 
thing could not be on the surface. Then the black thing suddenly got very much 
bigger and flicked back to normal size a moment later. 
  
 Now Lucy knew she had seen something just like that happen somewhere else - if 
only she could remember where. She held her hand to her head and screwed up her 
face and put out her tongue in the effort to remember. At last she did. Of 
course! It was like what you saw from a train on a bright sunny day. You saw the 
black shadow of your own coach running along the fields at the same pace as the 
train. Then you went into a cutting; and immediately the same shadow flicked 
close up to you and got big, racing :long the grass of the cutting-bank. Then 
you came out of the cutting and - Pick! - once more the black shadow had gone 
back to its normal size and was running along the fields. 
  
 "It's our shadow! - the shadow of the Dawn Treader," said Lucy. "Our shadow 
running along on the bottom of the sea. That time when it got bigger it went 
over a hill. But in that case the water must be clearer than I thought! Good 
gracious, I must he seeing the bottom of the sea; fathoms and fathoms down." 
  
As soon as she had said this she realized that the great silvery expanse which 
she had been seeing (without noticing) for some time was really the sand on the 
sea-bed and that ail sorts of darker or brighter patches were not lights and 
shadows on the surface but real things on the bottom. At present, for instance, 
they were passing over a mass of soft purply green with a broad, winding strip 
of pale grey in the middle of it But now that she knew it was on the bottom she 
saw it much better. She could see that bits of the dark stuff were much higher 
than other bits and were waving gently. "Just like trees in a wind," said Lucy. 
"And do believe that's what they are. It's a submarine forest." 
  
They passed on above it and presently the pale streak was joined by another pale 
streak. "If I was down there," thought Lucy, "that streak would be just like a 
road through the wood. And that place where it joins the other Would be a 
crossroads. Oh, I do wish I was. Hallo! the forest is coming to an end. And I do 
believe the streak really was a road! I can still see it going on across the 
open sand. It's a different colour. And it's marked out with something at the 
edges - dotted lines. Perhaps they are stones. And now it's getting wider." 
  
But it was not really getting wider, it was getting nearer. She realized this 
because of the way in which the shadow of the ship came rushing up towards her. 
And the road she felt sure it was a road now - began to go in zigzags. Obviously 
it was climbing up a steep hill. And when she held her head sideways and looked 
back, what she saw was very like what you see when you look down a winding road 
from the top of a hill. She could even see the shafts of sunlight falling 
through the deep water on to the wooded valley - and, in the extreme distance, 
everything melting away into a dim greenness. But some places - the sunny ones, 
she thought - were ultramarine blue. 
  
 She could not, however, spend much time looking back; what was coming into view 
in the forward direction was too exciting. The road had apparently now reached 
the top of the hill and ran straight forward. Little specks were moving to and 
fro on it. And now something most wonderful, fortunately in full sunlight - or 
as full as it can be when it falls through fathoms of water - flashed into 
sight. It was knobbly and jagged and of a pearly, or perhaps an ivory, colour. 
She was so nearly straight above it that at first she could hardly make out what 
it was. But everything became plain when she noticed its shadow. The sunlight 
was falling across Lucy's shoulders, so the shadow of the thing lay stretched 
out on the sand behind it. And by its shape she saw clearly that it was a shadow 
of towers and pinnacles, minarets and domes. 
  
 "Why! - it's a city or a huge castle," said Lucy to herself "But I wonder why 
they've built it on top of a high mountain?" 
  
Long afterwards when she was back in England and talked all these adventures 
over with Edmund, they thought of a reason and I am pretty sure it is the true 
one. In the sea, the deeper you go, the darker and colder it gets, and it is 
down there, in the dark and cold, that dangerous things live - the squid and the 
Sea Serpent and the Kraken. The valleys are the wild, unfriendly places. The 
sea-people feel about their valleys as we do about mountains, and feel about 
their mountains as we feel about valleys. It is on the heights (or, as we would 
say, "in the shallows") that there is warmth and peace. The reckless hunters and 
brave knights of the sea go down into the depths on quests and adventures, but 
return home to the heights for rest and peace, courtesy and council, the sports, 
the dances and the songs. 
  
 They had passed the city and the sea-bed was still rising. It was only a few 
hundred feet below the ship now. The road had disappeared. They were sailing 
above an open park-like country, dotted with little groves of brightlycoloured 
vegetation. And then - Lucy nearly squealed aloud with excitement-she had seen 
People. 
  
 There were between fifteen and twenty of them, and all mounted on sea-horses - 
not the tiny little sea-horses which you may have seen in museums but horses 
rather bigger than themselves. They must be noble and lordly people, Lucy 
thought, for she could catch the gleam of gold on some of their foreheads and 
streamers of emerald- or orange-coloured stuff fluttered from their shoulders in 
the current. Then: 
  
"Oh, bother these fish!" said Lucy, for a whole shoal of small fat fish, 
swimming quite close to the surface, had come between her and the Sea People. 
But though this spoiled her view it led to the most interesting thing of all. 
  
 Suddenly a fierce little fish of a kind she had never seen before came darting 
up from below, snapped, grabbed, and sank rapidly with one of the fat fish in 
its mouth. And all the Sea People were sitting on their horses staring up at 
what had happened. They seemed to be talking and laughing. And before the 
hunting fish had got back to them with its prey, another of the same kind came 
up from the Sea People. And Lucy was almost certain that one big Sea Man who sat 
on his sea-horse in the middle of the party had sent it or released it; as if he 
had been holdng it back till then in his hand or on his wrist. 
  
 "Why, I do declare," said Lucy, "it's a hunting party. Or more like a hawking 
party. Yes, that's it. They ride out with these little fierce fish on their 
wrists just as we used to ride out with falcons on our wrists when we were Kings 
and Queens at Cair Paravel long ago. And then they fly them - or I suppose I 
should say swim them - at the others." 
  
She stopped suddenly because the scene was changing. The Sea People had noticed 
the Dawn Treader. The shoal of fish hard scattered in every direction: the 
People themselves were coming up to find out the meaning of this big, black 
thing which had come between them and the sun. And now they were so close to the 
surface that if they had been in air, instead of water, Lucy could have spoken 
to them. There were men and women both. All wore coronets of some kind and many 
had chains of pearls. They wore no other clothes. Their bodies were the colour 
of old ivory, their hair dark purple. The King in the centre (no one could 
mistake him for anything but the King) looked proudly and fiercely into Lucy's 
face and shook a spear in his hand. His knights did the same. The faces of the 
ladies were filled with astonishment. Lucy felt sure they had never seen a ship 
or a human before - and how should they, in seas beyond the world's end where no 
ship ever came? 
  
"What are you staring at, Lu?" said a voice close beside her. 
  
 Lucy had been so absorbed in what she was seeing that she started at the sound, 
and when she turned she found that her arm had gone "dead" from leaning so long 
on the rail in one position. Drinian and Edmund were beside her. 
  
 "Look," she said. 
  
 They both looked, but almost at once Drinian said in a low voice: 
  
"Turn round at once, your Majesties - that's right, with our backs to the sea. 
And don't look as if we were talking about anything important." 
  
"Why, what's the matter?" said Lucy as she obeyed. 
  
 "It'll never do for the sailors to see all that," said Drinian. "We'll have men 
falling in love with a seawoman, or falling in love with the under-sea country 
itself, and jumping overboard. I've heard of that kind of thing happening before 
in strange seas. It's always unlucky to see these people." 
  
"But we used to know them," said Lucy. "In the old days at Cair Paravel when my 
brother Peter was High King. They came to the surface and sang at our 
coronation." 
  
"I think that must have been a different kind, Lu," said Edmund. "They could 
live in the air as well as under water. I rather think these can't. By the look 
of them they'd have surfaced and started attacking us long ago if they could. 
They seem very fierce." 
  
"At any rate," said Drinian, but at that moment two sounds were heard. One was a 
plop. The other was a voice from the fighting top shouting, "Man overboard!" 
Then everyone was busy. Some of the sailors hurried aloft to take in the sail: 
others hurried below to get to the oars; and Rhince, who was on duty on the 
poop, began to put the helm hard over so as to come round and back to the man 
who had gone overboard. But by now everyone knew that it wasn't strictly a man. 
It was Reepicheep. 
  
 "Drat that mouse!" said Drinian. "It's more trouble than all the rest of the 
ship's company put together. If there is any scrape to be got into, in it will 
get! It ought to be put in irons - keel-hauled - marooned - have its whiskers 
cut off. Can anyone see the little blighter?" 
  
All this didn't mean that Drinian really disliked Reepicheep. On the contrary he 
liked him very much and was therefore frightened about him, and being frightened 
put him in a bad temper - just as your mother is much angrier with you for 
running out into the road in front of a car than a stranger would be. No one, of 
course, was afraid of Reepicheep's drowning, for he was an excellent swimmer; 
but the three who knew what was going on below the water were afraid of those 
long, cruel spears in the hands of the Sea People. 
  
 In a few minutes the Dawn Treader had come round and everyone could see the 
black blob in the water which was Reepicheep. He was chattering with the 
greatest excitement but as his mouth kept on getting filled with water nobody 
could understand what he was saying. 
  
 "He'll blurt the whole thing out if we don't shut him up," cried Drinian. To 
prevent this he rushed to the side and lowered a rope himself, shouting to the 
sailors, "All right, all right. Back to your places. I hope I can heave a mouse 
up without help." And as Reepicheep began climbing up the rope not very nimbly 
because his wet fur made him heavy - Drinian leaned over and whispered to him, 
  
"Don't tell. Not a word." 
  
But when the dripping Mouse had reached the deck it turned out not to be at all 
interested in the Sea People. 
  
 "Sweet!" he cheeped. "Sweet, sweet!" 
  
"What are you talking about?" asked Drinian crossly. "And you needn't shake 
yourself all over me, either." 
  
"I tell you the water's sweet," said the Mouse. "Sweet, fresh. It isn't salt." 
  
For a moment no one quite took in the importance of this. But then Reepicheep 
once more repeated the old prophecy: 
  
"Where the waves grow sweet, Doubt not, Reepicheep, There is the utter East." 
  
Then at last everyone understood. 
  
 "Let me have a bucket, Rynelf," said Drinian. 
  
 It was handed him and he lowered it and up it came again. The water shone in it 
like glass. 
  
 "Perhaps your Majesty would like to taste it first," said Drinian to Caspian. 
  
 The King took the bucket in both hands, raised it to his lips, sipped, then 
drank deeply and raised his head. His face was changed. Not only his eyes but 
everything about him seemed to be brighter. 
  
 "Yes," he said, "it is sweet. That's real water, that. I'm not sure that it 
isn't going to kill me. But it is the death I would have chosen - if I'd known 
about it till now." 
  
"What do you mean?" asked Edmund. 
  
 "It - it's like light more than anything else," said Caspian. 
  
 "That is what it is," said Reepicheep. "Drinkable light. We must be very near 
the end of the world now." 
  
There was a moment's silence and then Lucy knelt down on the deck and drank from 
the bucket. 
  
 "It's the loveliest thing I have ever tasted," she said with a kind of gasp. 
"But oh - it's strong. We shan't need to eat anything now." 
  
And one by one everybody on board drank. And for a long time they were all 
silent. They felt almost too well and strong to bear it; and presently they 
began to notice another result. As I have said before, there had been too much 
light ever since they left the island of Ramandu - the sun too large (though not 
too hot), the sea too bright, the air too shining. Now, the light grew no less - 
if anything, it increased - but they could bear it. They could look straight up 
at the sun without blinking. They could see more light than they had ever seen 
before. And the deck and the sail and their own faces and bodies became brighter 
and brighter and every rope shone. And next morning, when the sun rose, now five 
or six times its old size, they stared hard into it and could see the very 
feathers of the birds that came flying from it. 
  
 Hardly a word was spoken on board all that day, till about dinner-time (no one 
wanted any dinner, the water was enough for them) Drinian said: 
  
"I can't understand this. There is not a breath of wind. The sail hangs dead. 
The sea is as flat as a pond. And yet we drive on as fast as if there were a 
gale behind us." 
  
"I've been thinking that, too," said Caspian. "We must be caught in some strong 
current." 
  
"H'm," said Edmund. "That's not so nice if the World really has an edge and 
we're getting near it." 
  
"You mean," said Caspian, "that we might be just well, poured over it?" 
  
"Yes, yes," cried Reepicheep, clapping his paws together. "That's how I've 
always imagined it - the World like a great round table and the waters of all 
the oceans endlessly pouring over the edge. The ship will tip up stand on her 
head - for one moment we shall see over the edge - and then, down, down, the 
rush, the speed -" 
  
"And what do you think will be waiting for us at the bottom, eh?" said Drinian. 
  
 "Aslan's country perhaps," said the Mouse, its eyes shining. "Or perhaps there 
isn't any bottom. Perhaps it goes down for ever and ever. But whatever it is, 
won't it be worth anything just to have looked for one moment beyond the edge of 
the world." 
  
"But look -here," said Eustace, "this is all rot. The world's round - I mean, 
round like a ball, not like a table." 
  
"Our world is," said Edmund. "But is this?" 
  
"Do you mean to say," asked Caspian, "that you three come from a round world 
(round like a ball) and you've never told me! It's really too bad of you. 
Because we have fairy-tales in which there are round worlds and I always loved 
them. I never believed there were any real ones. But I've always wished there 
were and I've always longed to live in one. Oh, I'd give anything - I wonder why 
you can get into our world and we never get into yours? If only I had the 
chance! It must be exciting to live on a thing like a ball. Have you ever been 
to the parts where people walk about upside-down?" 
  
Edmund shook his head. "And it isn't like that," he added. "There's nothing 
particularly exciting about a round world when you're there. 
  
  
  
  
  

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - THE VERY END OF THE WORLD
  
REEPICHEEP was the only person on board besides Drinian and the two Pevensies 
who had noticed the Sea People. He had dived in at once when he saw the Sea King 
shaking his spear, for he regarded this as a sort of threat or challenge and 
wanted to have the matter out there and then. The excitement of discovering that 
the water was now fresh had distracted his attention, and before he remembered 
the Sea People again Lucy and Drinian had taken him aside and warned him not to 
mention what he had seen. 
  
 As things turned out they need hardly have bothered, for by this time the Dawn 
Treader was gliding over a part of the sea which seemed to be uninhabited. No 
one except Lucy saw anything more of the People, and even she had only one short 
glimpse. All morning on the following day they sailed in fairly shallow water 
and the bottom was weedy. Just before midday Lucy saw a large shoal of fishes 
grazing on the weed. They were all eating steadily and all moving in the same 
direction. "Just like a flock of sheep," thought Lucy. Suddenly she saw a little 
Sea Girl of about her own age in the middle of them - a quiet, lonely-looking 
girl with a sort of crook in her hand. Lucy felt sure that this girl must be a 
shepherdess - or perhaps a fish-herdess and that the shoal was really a flock at 
pasture. Both the fishes and the girl were quite close to the surface. And just 
as the girl, gliding in the shallow water, and Lucy, leaning over the bulwark, 
came opposite to one another, the girl looked up and stared straight into Lucy's 
face. Neither could speak to the other and in a moment the Sea Girl dropped 
astern. But Lucy will never forget her face. It did not look frightened or angry 
like those of the other Sea People. Lucy had liked that girl and she felt 
certain the girl had liked her. In that one moment they had somehow become 
friends. There does not seem to be much chance of their meeting again in that 
world or any other. But if ever they do they will rush together with their hands 
held out. 
  
 After that for many days, without wind in her shrouds or foam at her bows, 
across a waveless sea, the Dawn Treader glided smoothly east. Every day and 
every hour the light became more brilliant and still they could bear it. No one 
ate or slept and no one wanted to, but they drew buckets of dazzling water from 
the sea, stronger than wine and somehow wetter, more liquid, than ordinary 
water, and pledged one another silently in deep draughts of it. And one or two 
of the sailors who had been oldish men when the voyage began now grew younger 
every day. Everyone on board was filled with joy and excitement, but not an 
excitement that made one talk. The further they sailed the less they spoke, and 
then almost in a whisper. The stillness of that last sea laid hold on them. 
  
 "My Lord," said Caspian to Drinian one day, "what do you see ahead?" 
  
"Sire," said Drinian, "I see whiteness. All along the horizon from north to 
south, as far as my eyes can reach." 
  
"That is what I see too," said Caspian, "and I cannot imagine what it is." 
  
"If we were in higher latitudes, your Majesty," said Drinian, "I would say it 
was ice. But it can't be that; not here. All the same, we'd better get men to 
the oars and hold the ship back against the current. Whatever the stuff is, we 
don't want to crash into it at this speed!" 
  
They did as Drinian said, and so continued to go slower and slower. The 
whiteness did not get any less mysterious as they- approached it. If it was land 
it must be a very strange land, for it seemed just as smooth as the water and on 
the same level with it. When they got very close to it Drinian put the helm hard 
over and turned the Dawn Treader south so that she was broadside on to the 
current and rowed a little way southward along the edge of the whiteness. In so 
doing they accidentally made the important discovery that the current was only 
about forty feet wide and the rest of the sea as still as a pond. This was good 
news for the crew, who had already begun to think that the return journey to 
Ramandu's land, rowing against stream all the way, would be pretty poor sport. 
(It also explained why the shepherd girl had dropped so quickly astern. She was 
not in the current. If she had been she would have been moving east at the same 
speed as the ship.) 
  
And still no one could make out what the white stuff was. Then the boat was 
lowered and it put off to investigate. Those who remained on the Dawn Treader 
could see that the boat pushed right in amidst the whiteness. Then they could 
hear the voices of the party in the boat clear across the still water) talking 
in a shrill and surprised way. Then there was a pause while Rynelf in the bows 
of the boat took a sounding; and when, after that, the boat came rowing back 
there seemed to be plenty of the white stuff inside her. Everyone crowded to the 
side to hear the news. 
  
 "Lilies, your Majesty!" shouted Rynelf, standing up in the bows. 
  
 "What did you say?" asked Caspian. 
  
 "Blooming lilies, your Majesty," said Rynelf. "Same as in a pool or in a garden 
at home." 
  
"Look!" said Lucy, who was in the stern of the boat. She held up her wet arms 
full of white petals and broad flat leaves. 
  
 "What's the depth, Rynelf?" asked Drinian. 
  
 "That's the funny thing, Captain," said Rynelf. "It's still deep. Three and a 
half fathoms clear." 
  
"They can't be real lilies - not what we call lilies," said Eustace. 
  
 Probably they were not, but they were very like them. And when, after some 
consultation, the Dawn Treader turned back into the current and began to glide 
eastward through the Lily Lake or the Silver Sea (they tried both these names 
but it was the Silver Sea that stuck and is now on Caspian's map) the strangest 
part of their travels began. Very soon the open sea which they were leaving was 
only a thin rim of blue on the western horizon. Whiteness, shot with faintest 
colour of gold, spread round them on every side, except just astern where their 
passage had thrust the lilies apart and left an open lane of water that shone 
like dark green glass. To look at, this last sea was very like the Arctic; and 
if their eyes had not by now grown as strong as eagles' the sun on all that 
whiteness - especially at early morning when the sun was hugest would have been 
unbearable. And every evening the same whiteness made the daylight last longer. 
There seemed no end to the lilies. Day after day from all those miles and 
leagues of flowers there rose a smell which Lucy found it very hard to describe; 
sweet - yes, but not at all sleepy or overpowering, a fresh, wild, lonely smell 
that seemed to get into your brain and make you feel that you could go up 
mountains at a run or wrestle with an elephant. She and Caspian said to one 
another, "I feel that I can't stand much more of this, yet I don't want it to 
stop." 
  
They took soundings very often but it was only several days later that the water 
became shallower. After that it went on getting shallower. There came a day when 
they had to row out of the current and feel their way forward at a snail's pace, 
rowing. And soon it was clear that the Dawn Treader could sail no further east. 
Indeed it was only by very clever handling that they saved her from grounding. 
  
 "Lower the boat," cried Caspian, "and then call the men aft. I must speak to 
them." 
  
"What's he going to do?" whispered Eustace to Edmund. "There's a queer look in 
his eyes." 
  
"I think we probably all look the same," said Edmund. 
  
 They joined Caspian on the poop and soon all the men were crowded together at 
the foot of the ladder to hear the King's speech. "Friends," said Caspian, "we 
have now fulfilled the quest on which you embarked. The seven lords are all 
accounted for and as Sir Reepicheep has sworn never to return, when you reach 
Ramandu's Land you will doubtless find the Lords Revilian and Argoz and 
Mavramorn awake. To you, my Lord Drinian, I entrust this ship, bidding you sail 
to Narnia with all the speed you may, and above all not to land on the Island of 
Deathwater. And instruct my regent, the Dwarf Trumpkin, to give to all these, my 
shipmates, the rewards I promised them. They have been earned well. And if I 
come not again it is my will that the Regent, and Master Cornelius, and 
Trufflehunter the Badger, and the Lord Drinian choose a King of Narnia with the 
consent-" 
  
"But, Sire," interrupted Drinian, "are you abdicating?" 
  
"I am going with Reepicheep to see the World's End," said Caspian. 
  
 A low murmur of dismay ran through the sailors. 
  
 "We will take the boat," said Caspian. "You will have no need of it in these 
gentle seas and you must build a new one in Ramandu's island. And now-" 
  
"Caspian," said Edmund suddenly and sternly, "you can't do this." 
  
"Most certainly," said Reepicheep, "his Majesty cannot." 
  
"No indeed," said Drinian. 
  
 "Can't?" said Caspian sharply, looking for a moment not unlike his uncle Miraz. 

  
 "Begging your Majesty's pardon," said Rynelf from the deck below, "but if one 
of us did the same it would be called deserting." 
  
"You presume too much on your long service, Rynelf," said Caspian. 
  
 "No, Sire! He's perfectly right," said Drinian. 
  
 "By the Mane of Aslan," said Caspian, "I had thought you were all my subjects 
here, not my schoolmasters." 
  
"I'm not," said Edmund, "and I say you can not do this." 
  
"Can't again," said Caspian. "What do you mean?" 
  
"If it please your Majesty, we mean shall not," said Reepicheep with a very low 
bow. "You are the King of Narnia. You break faith with all your subjects, and 
especially with Trumpkin, if you do not return. You shall not please yourself 
with adventures as if you were a private person. And if your Majesty will not 
hear reason it will be the truest loyalty of every man on board to follow me in 
disarming and binding you till you come to your senses." 
  
"Quite right," said Edmund. "Like they did with Ulysses when he wanted to go 
near the Sirens." 
  
Caspian's hand had gone to his sword hilt, when Lucy said, "And you've almost 
promised Ramandu's daughter to go back." 
  
Caspian paused. "Well, yes. There is that," he said. He stood irresolute for a 
moment and then shouted out to the ship in general. 
  
 "Well, have your way. The quest is ended. We all return. Get the boat up 
again." 
  
"Sire," said Reepicheep, "we do not all return. I, as I explained before -" 
  
"Silence!" thundered Caspian. "I've been lessoned but I'll not be baited. Will 
no one silence that Mouse?" 
  
"Your Majesty promised," said Reepicheep, "to be good lord to the Talking Beasts 
of Narnia." 
  
"Talking beasts, yes," said Caspian. "I said nothing about beasts that never 
stop talking." And he flung down the ladder in a temper and went into the cabin, 
slamming the door. 
  
 But when the others rejoined him a little later they found him changed; he was 
white and there were tears in his eyes. 
  
 "It's no good," he said. "I might as well have behaved decently for all the 
good I did with my temper and swagger. Aslan has spoken to me. No - I don't mean 
he was actually here. He wouldn't fit into the cabin, for one thing. But that 
gold lion's head on the wall came to life and spoke to me. It was terrible his 
eyes. Not that he was at all rough with me - only a bit stern at first. But it 
was terrible all the same. And he said - he said - oh, I can't bear it. The 
worst thing he could have said. You're to go on - Reep and Edmund, and Lucy, and 
Eustace; and I'm to go back. Alone. And at once. And what is the good of 
anything?" 
  
"Caspian, dear," said Lucy. "You knew we'd have to go back to our own world 
sooner or later." 
  
"Yes," said Caspian with a sob, "but this is sooner." 
  
"You'll feel better when you get back to Ramandu's Island," said Lucy. 
  
 He cheered up a little later on, but it was a grievous parting oo both sides 
and I will not dwell on it. About two o'clock in the afternoon, well victualled 
and watered (though they thought they would need neither food nor drink) and 
with Reepicheep's coracle on board, the boat pulled away from the Dawn Treader 
to row through the endless carpet of lilies. The Dawn Trader flew all her flags 
and hung out her shields to honour their departure. Tall and big and homelike 
she looked from their low position with the lilies all round them. And before 
she was out of sight they saw her turn and begin rowing slowly westward. Yet 
though Lucy shed a few tears, she could not feel it as much as you might have 
expected. The light, the silence, the tingling smell of the Silver Sea, even (in 
some odd way) the loneliness itself, were too exciting. 
  
 There was no need to row, for the current drifted them steadily to the east. 
None of them slept or ate. All that night and all next day they glided eastward, 
and when the third day dawned - with a brightness you or I could not bear even 
if we had dark glasses on - they saw a wonder ahead. It was as if a wall stood 
up between them and the sky, a greenish-grey, trembling, shimmering wall. Then 
up came the sun, and at its first rising they saw it through the wall and it 
turned into wonderful rainbow colours. Then they knew that the wall was really a 
long, tall wave - a wave endlessly fixed in one place as you may often see at 
the edge of a waterfall. It seemed to be about thirty feet high, and the current 
was gliding them swiftly towards it. You might have supposed they would have 
thought of their danger. They didn't. I don't think anyone could have in their 
position. For now they saw something not only behind the wave but behind the 
sun. They could not have seen even the sun if their eyes had not been 
strengthened by the water of the Last Sea. But now they could look at the rising 
sun and see it clearly and see things beyond it. What they saw - eastward, 
beyond the sun - was a range of mountains. It was so high that either they never 
saw the top of it or they forgot it. None of them remembers seeing any sky in 
that direction. And the mountains must really have been outside the world. For 
any mountains even a quarter of a twentieth of that height ought to have had ice 
and snow on them. But these were warm and green and full, of forests and 
waterfalls however high you looked. And suddenly there came a breeze from the 
east, tossing the top of the wave into foamy shapes and ruffling the smooth 
water all round them. It lasted only a second or so but what it brought them in 
that second none of those three children will ever forget. It brought both a 
smell and a sound, a musical sound Edmund and Eustace would never talk about it 
afterwards. Lucy could only say, "It would break your heart." "Why," said I, 
"was it so sad: " "Sad!! No," said Lucy. 
  
 No one in that boat doubted chat they were seeing beyond the End of the World 
into Aslan's country. 
  
 At that moment, with a crunch, the boat ran aground. The water was too shallow 
now for it. "This," said Reepicheep, "is where I go on alone." 
  
They did not even try to stop dim, for everything now felt as if it had been 
fated or had happened before. They helped him to lower his little coracle. Then 
he took off his sword ("I shall need it no more," he said) and flung it far away 
across the Idled sea. Where it fell it stood upright with the hilt above the 
surface. Then he bade them goodbye trying to be sad for their sakes but he was 
quivering with happiness. Lucy, for the first and last time, did what she had 
always wanted to do, taking him in her arms and caressing him. Then hastily he 
got into his coracle and took his paddle, and the current caught it and away he 
went, very black against the lilies. But no lilies grew on the wave; it was a 
smooth green slope. The coracle went more and more quickly, and beautifully it 
rushed up the wave's side. For one split second they saw its shape and 
Reepicheep's on the very top. Then it vanished, and since that moment no one can 
truly claim to have seen Reepicheep the Mouse. But my belief is that he came 
safe to Aslan's country and is alive there to this day. 
  
 As the sun rose the sight of those mountains outside the world faded away. The 
wave remained but there was only blue sky behind it. 
  
 The children got out of the boat and waded - not towards the wave but southward 
with the wall of water on their left. They could not have told you why they did 
this; it was their fate. And though they had felt - and been very grown-up on 
the Dawn Treader, they now felt just the opposite and held hands as they waded 
through the lilies. They never felt tired. The water was warm and all the time 
it got shallower. At last they were on dry sand, and then on grass - a huge 
plain of very fine short grass, almost level with the Silver Sea and spreading 
in every direction without so much as a molehill. 
  
 And of course, as it always does in a perfectly flat place without trees, it 
looked as if the sky came down to meet the grass in front of them. But as they 
went on they got the strangest impression that here at last the sky did really 
come down and join the earth - a blue wall, very bright, but real and solid: 
more like glass than anything else. And soon they were quite sure of it. It was 
very near now. 
  
 But between them and the foot of the sky there was something so white on the 
green grass that even with their eagles' eyes they could hardly look at it. They 
came on and saw that it was a Lamb. 
  
 "Come and have breakfast," said the Lamb in its sweet milky voice. 
  
 Then they noticed for the first time that there was a fire lit on the grass and 
fish roasting on it. They sat down and ate the fish, hungry now for the first 
time for many days. And it was the most delicious food they had ever tasted. 
  
 "Please, Lamb," said Lucy, "is this the way to Aslan's country?" 
  
"Not for you," said the Lamb. "For you the door into Aslan's country is from 
your own world." 
  
"What!" said Edmund. "Is there a way into Aslan's country from our world too?" 
  
"There is a way into my country from all the worlds," said the Lamb; but as he 
spoke his snowy white flushed into tawny gold and his size changed and he was 
Aslan himself, towering above them and scattering light from his mane. 
  
 "Oh, Aslan," said Lucy. "Will you tell us how to get into your country from our 
world?" 
  
"I shall be telling you all the time," said Aslan. "But I will not tell you how 
long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear 
that, for I am the great Bridge Builder. And now come; I will open the door in 
the sky and send you to your own land." 
  
"Please, Aslan," said Lucy. "Before we go, will you tell us when we can come 
back to Narnia again? Please. And oh, do, do, do make it soon." ' 
  
"Dearest," said Aslan very gently, "you and your brother will never come balk to 
Narnia." 
  
"Oh, Aslan!!" said Edmund and Lucy both together in despairing voices. 
  
 "You are too old, children," said Aslan, "and you must begin to come close to 
your own world now." 
  
"It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. 
And how can we live, never meeting you?" 
  
"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan. 
  
 "Are are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund. 
  
 "I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me 
by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by 
knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there." 
  
"And is Eustace never to come back here either?" said Lucy. 
  
 "Child," said Aslan, "do you really need to know that? Come, I am opening the 
door in the sky." Then all in one moment there was a rending of the blue wall 
(like a curtain being torn) and a terrible white light from beyond the sky, and 
the feel of Aslan's mane and a Lion's kiss on their foreheads and then - the 
bark bedroom in Aunt Alberta's home in Cambridge. 
  
 Only two more things need to be told. One is that Caspian and his men all came 
safely back to Ramandu's Island. And the three lords woke from their sleep. 
Caspian married Ramandu's daughter and they all reached Narnia in the end, and 
she became a great queen and the mother and grandmother of great kings. The 
other is that back in our own world everyone soon started saying how Eustace had 
improved, and how "You'd never know him for the same boy": everyone except Aunt 
Alberta, who said he had become very commonplace and tiresome and it must have 
been the influence of those Pevensie children.