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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.
