"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.

他们离开拉曼杜那地方以后，一下子就感到自己已把船开到了世界外面。一切都变样了。一是他们全都觉得不大需要睡觉了。大家都不想上床，也不想多吃，连话也不多，要说也是细声细气的。二是亮光

。真是太亮太亮了。每天早晨太阳出来看上去即使没有通常三倍那么大，也有两倍那么大。而且每天早晨(这点给露茜的感受最奇特)那些大白鸟用人类的声音唱着歌，谁也听不懂唱的是什么语言，它们川

流不息地飞过头顶，飞去阿斯兰的餐桌吃早餐，飞到船尾处就不见踪影了。不一会儿，它们又飞回来，飞到东边又不见了。

“海水清澈得多美啊!”第二天刚到午后，露茜就趴在左舷侧自言自语道。

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