Chapter 7 Chapter 7 Escape

"See what?" said Edmund. "Look at the arms on the bracelet," said Caspian. " "A little hammer with a star-shaped diamond in it," said Drinian. "Why, I've seen that." "Yes!" said Caspian. "Why, of course you have. It is the mark of a noble house in Narnia. It is Lord Octesian's bracelet." "You villain," said Reepicheep to the dragon, "you have eaten a Lord of Narnia?" The dragon shook his head furiously. "You must know, perhaps," said Lucy, "that this is Lord Octesian's enchanted dragon."

"It may not be so," said Edmund, "all dragons love to hoard gold. But I think that Octesian will not be able to save this small island. " "Are you Lord Octesian?" said Lucy to the dragon, and seeing it shake its head sadly, added, "then you are enchanted—I mean a man?" It nodded desperately. Then it was said—and it was debated afterward whether it was Lucy or Edmund who said first—"You weren't—couldn't be Eustace?" Eustace straightened the dreaded dragon's head, and slapped its tail in the sea, and everyone backed away from the hot tears that welled up in his eyes.Some of the sailors were still cursing, so I won't put those words in the book.

Lucy did her best to comfort him, and even summoned up the courage to kiss his scaly face, and almost everyone said, "Put the poison away," and a few reassured Eustace, saying they were all behind him, Quite a few people said that there must be a way to disenchant him, and that within a day or two they would be quite normal with him.Of course they were eager to hear about his experiences, but he couldn't speak.In the next few days, he tried to write things out on the sand many times, but he didn't write it once.In the first place, Eustace had never read a proper book, and had no idea how to tell a story directly.Furthermore, the muscles and nerves of the Dragon Claw that he had to rely on had never learned to write, and they were not born to write anyway.As a result, before he could finish writing, the tidal sands came and washed away all the words he had written, leaving only some words that he had stepped on or occasionally swept out by his tail.So what everyone can see is like the following - the dotted part is blurred and unrecognizable by him -

I'm going to hang...especially I mean Dragon Cave because it's dead and the gold is tight...wake up no...remove the hands ahhhh..." It was well understood, however, that Eustace had grown considerably in character since he had become a dragon.He can't wait to do something.He flew all over the island and found that the island was all high mountains, only wild goats and herds of wild boars.He brought back a lot of dead sheep and pigs to supplement the supplies on board.He was also a very humane hunter, for with a flick of his tail he could kill a game, which would die without (probably without) knowing it.Of course he ate a little himself, but always alone, because now that he was a dragon, he liked to eat raw, but he couldn't bear to be seen eating something bloody.One day, flying slowly and laboriously, but triumphantly, he had brought back to camp a tall pine tree which he had uprooted in a distant valley to make a mainmast. .At night, when it got cold, as it often did after a heavy rain, he was a fire to everybody, for the whole crew came running to his hot sides, short and warm and dry. , as soon as he breathes out fire-like air, he can light the most difficult firewood.Sometimes he would pick up a few people and fly on his back so they could see the green hills, the rocks, whirling by beneath him.Hearing highlands, narrow valleys like pits, and far away on the sea facing east, there is a dark blue spot on the sky, which may be land.

Eustace's joy of being liked, and, still more, of being liked, was unprecedented for him, and kept him from despairing.Because being a dragon is very tedious.Whenever he flew over a mountain lake and saw his own reflection, he couldn't help shivering.He hated the huge bat wings, the jagged back, and the sinister curved claws.He was almost afraid of being alone, but he was too shy to be with other people.At night, when no one was using him for a hot-water bottle, he would sneak away from the camp and lie curled up like a snake between the woods and the sea.In such cases, much to his surprise, Reepicheep often came to comfort him.The noble mouse would sneak away from the merry crowd around the fire, and sit down by the tap, watching the wind and avoiding his smoky snort.So it explained that what happened to Eustace was a clear example of good luck. If Eustace was a guest at his own house in Narnia ), it can cite hundreds of examples to illustrate, such as emperors, kings, dukes, knights, poets, lovers, astronomers, philosophers, and magicians. Ronghua suddenly fell into an extremely miserable situation, and many of them recovered later, and they lived happily ever after.Perhaps that did not sound very consoling at the time, but it was a kindness, and Eustace would never forget it.

But hanging over them like a dark cloud was the problem of what to do with the dragon as they prepared to set sail.When he was there, everyone tried to avoid talking about it, but he couldn't help overhearing some things, such as "Is it suitable to put him on one side of the whole deck? Then we have to move all the storage to the other side below." Let the hull balance."And, "Would you like to drag him?" And, "Can he keep flying?" And, most often, "But what shall we feed him?" Poor Eustace It became clearer and clearer that he had been an utterly annoying burden since his first day on deck, and now he was an even greater burden.The thought corroded his heart as deeply as that hand tin had corroded his forelegs.He knew it would be worse to bite the hand with his big teeth, but he couldn't help but bite it from time to time, especially on hot nights.

About six days after they landed at Dragon Island, Edmund happened to wake up early one morning.It was just gray, so I could see tree trunks between me and the beach, but not in any other direction.When he woke up, he thought he heard something, so he propped himself up on an elbow and looked around: after a while he thought he saw a dark figure walking in the woods near the sea.Suddenly a thought popped into his mind, "Are we so sure there are no natives on this island at all?" Then it occurred to him that this was Caspian--about the same size--but he knew Caspian had been sleeping beside him, and he could see he hadn't moved. .Edmund saw that his sword was still there, and jumped up to examine it.

He walked lightly to the edge of the forest, but the black shadow was still there.Then he saw that the shadow was too small for Caspian and too big for Lucy.The shadow didn't escape.Edmund drew his sword and was about to challenge the shadow, when the shadow whispered. "Is that you, Edmund?" "Yes. Who are you?" he said. "You don't know me?" said the other, "it's me—Eustace." "My God," said Edmund, "that's right. Old fellow—" "Hush—" said Eustace, staggering to and fro as if about to fall. "My God!" said Edmund, steadying him, "what's the matter? Are you sick?"

Eustace was silent for a long time, and Edmund thought he had fainted, before saying at last "It's a terrible thing. You don't know . . . but it's all right now. We can go somewhere and talk." Right now I don't want to see anyone else." "Well, then, wherever you like," said Edmund, "we can go up there, and sit on the rocks. Why, it's a pleasure to see you--er--like you again. You must Did you suffer a lot?" They went to the rocks, and sat down, looking across the bay, as the day grew brighter, and all the stars were gone, except one very bright, one low near the horizon.

"I won't tell you how I became—a dragon until I can tell others, when it's all over," said Eustace. "By the way, I showed up here that morning, I know I'm a dragon when you say the word dragon. I'm going to tell you how I'm not a dragon anymore." "Go ahead," said Edmund. "Well, I was sicker than usual last night. That goddam hand anchor was strangling me to death..." "All right now?" Eustace laughed--a smile Edmund had never heard him laugh before--and slipped the bracelet from his arm easily. "Look," he said, "as far as I'm concerned, take whoever likes it. Well, I said, I was lying there awake, not knowing what was going to happen to me. And then—but listen Well, maybe it was all a dream. I don't know."

"Go on," said Edmund, rather patiently. "Well, anyway, when I looked up, I saw a big lion walking slowly towards me, which was the last thing I expected. The reason is that there was no moon last night, but wherever the lion went, there was The moon. It's getting closer and closer, and I'm terrified. You might think, since I'm a dragon, isn't it easy to beat a lion? But it's not that kind of fear. I'm not afraid of it eating me, I'm just afraid It--if you can understand. Well, it came close to me, and kept looking into my eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut, but it was no use, because it told me to follow it." "You mean it talked?" "I don't know. Since you mentioned it, I don't think it has said it. But it told me anyway. I knew I had to do what it asked me to do, so I got up and went with it. It took me a long way, into the mountain pass, and wherever we went, the moonlight shrouded the lion all the time. And so we came at last to the top of a mountain I had never seen before, and on top of this mountain, there was a garden— — There are trees and fruit in it. There is a well in the middle of the garden. "I knew it was a well because I could see the water weeping from the bottom. But it was much bigger than most wells—like a big round bath with marble steps leading into it. Here. The well is so clear, I thought, If I could get in and take a bath, my leg would be less sore. But the lion told me I must undress first. Listen, I don't know if he said that aloud. "I was about to say that I can't strip my clothes because I don't have any clothes on, when it occurred to me that a dragon is something like a snake that sheds its skin. I thought, ah, of course that's what a lion is." Meaning. So I scratched my body randomly, and the scales began to fall all over the ground. I scratched deeper, and the scales did not fall off everywhere, but the entire skin was completely peeled off. Like after a serious illness, as if I were a banana. In a second I was out of the shell, and I could see this skin lying next to me, looking quite disgusting. It felt very pleasant. So I Down the well to take a bath. "Unexpectedly, just as I was about to put my feet into the water, I looked down and saw that my whole body was as thick, hard, wrinkled and covered with scales as before. Oh, yes, I said, this just means that I Under the first coat was a smaller piece of underwear, which I had to take off too. So I scratched and pulled again, and the inner skin was completely peeled off, and I came out of the shell, letting the body The skin fell next to the skin just now, and he went to the well to take a bath. "Unexpectedly, the same thing happened again. I thought to myself, oops, how many layers of skin do I have to shed? Because I just want to wash my legs, so I grabbed the third time and shed the third layer Skin, just like the previous two times, I got out of my shell. But when I looked at my reflection in the water, I knew something was wrong again. "Then the Lion said—but I don't know if he did—that I must strip you. I can tell you the truth, I was afraid of his claws, but this time I was at the end of my rope. So I Just lie on your back and let him do it. "It was so deep at the first rip, I thought it was deep inside. When he started pulling the skin off, I was in such pain. The only thing I could bear was the joy of being out of the shell. You who have peeled the wound know the feeling. Although it hurts a lot, seeing it fall off makes me really happy." "I understand exactly what you mean," said Edmund. "Well, he ripped that goddamn skin off right there--just like I thought I'd done with my own hands three times before, only it didn't hurt the first few times--and it just fell on the grass, just to Much thicker, darker, and more knobbly-looking than previous layers. I was now as smooth and supple as a twig with the bark peeled off, and I was a little smaller than before. So he scratched Catch me--I don't like it much because I've got no skin on me and the flesh is still tender--he throws me in the water. It hurts like hell, luckily it's only for a while. It's nice after that, wait I started swimming and splashing water, and my arm didn't hurt at all. That's when I realized what was going on. I was a kid again. I tell you, the way I touch my arm, you will be I lied. I knew there was no muscle in my arm, and it was worse than Caspian's, but I was glad to see my own. "After a while, the lion pulled me out and dressed me." Clothes you, with his paws? " "Well, I don't remember exactly. But he somehow put me in a new suit - the one I'm wearing, in fact. And then I was here all at once. That's why I figured it must have been done. A dream." "No, it's not a dream," said Edmund. "Why not?" "Speaking of which, one, you have clothes on your body, and, two, you are no longer—not a dragon." "And what do you think of it?" asked Eustace. "I see you have seen Aslan," said Edmund. "Aslan!" said Eustace, "I've heard that name mentioned a few times since we got aboard the Dawn Treader. But I feel—I don't know why—I hate it. But I hated everything at the time. I would like to apologize, by the way. I'm afraid I was quite a nuisance?" "That's all right," said Edmund. "Let's talk privately that you're not as bad as I was when I first came back to Narnia. You're only a fool, and I'm a traitor." "Well, don't tell me about it, then," said Eustace, "but who is Aslan? Do you know him?" "By the way—he knows me," said Edmund, "he's the Lion King, the son of an Overseas Emperor, and he saved me, and the kingdom of Narnia. We've all seen him, and Lucy saw him most .Maybe the place we're going is Aslan's land." For a while, neither of them said anything.The last bright star was gone too, and though they could not see the sun because the mountains on their right were in the way, they knew it was rising because the sky above them and the bay before them were rosy.Then came the sound of parrots and some other bird in the woods behind them, and they heard movement among the bushes, and finally, a burst of Caspian's horn.Activities began in the camp. There was great joy when Edmund and Eustace, transformed into a human form, entered the crowd eating breakfast round the campfire.By now, of course, everyone had heard the first half of his account.People are curious to know if another dragon killed Lord Octesian years ago, or if Octesian is the old dragon.The jewels Eustace had stuffed into his pockets in the cave were lost along with the suit he was wearing, but there was no desire to go back to the valley to find more treasure, at least not Eustace himself. desire. In two or three days the Dawn Treader was regunned, repainted, fully stocked, and ready to sail.Before embarking, Caspian had these words carved on a cliff facing the bay: dragon island Caspian X, King of Narnia, led the discovery in the fourth year of his reign. Lord Octesian is presumed to have died here Now to say "Eustace has changed since then" is apt, and almost very close to the truth.Strictly speaking, he's starting to get better.He has also had repetitions.There were still many days when he was very annoying.I mostly don't mention those things though.He started to heal. Lord Octesian's anchor had a strange ending.Eustace refused it, and gave it to Caspian, who gave it to Lucy.She doesn't care about that. "That's fine, let it be," said Caspian, and threw it up in the air.At this time, everyone stood and watched the handwriting on the cliff.I saw the hand anchor flying up into the air, shining brightly in the sun, like an iron ring that hit the target, caught a small horn of the rock, and hung on it.No one can climb up from below to remove it, and no one can climb down from above to remove it.As far as I know, it's still hanging there, probably until the end of the world.