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 the 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 the 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:
"Hullo! 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 shellfish 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 were iron-plated. 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...
Clive Staples Lewis, known as Jack to his friends, was born in 1898. Lewis and his good friend J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, were part of the Inklings, an informal writers’ club that met at a local pub to discuss story ideas. Lewis’s fascination with fairy tales, myths and ancient legends, coupled with inspiration drawn from his childhood, led him to write THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, one of the best-loved books of all time. Six further books followed to become the immensely popular Chronicles of Narnia. The final title in the series, THE LAST BATTLE, was awarded the Carnegie Medal, one of the highest marks of excellence in children’s literature.
