The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’ - Lewis Clive Staples - Страница 3

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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.

“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.

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