The_Complete_Chronicles_of_Narnia_(volumes_1-7,_in_order_of_publication)

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:
"Hello! 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 shell fish 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 was ironplated. 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 of
the mast. Now its head was just beside the fighting top. Still it stretched and stretched till
its head was over the starboard bulwark. Then down it began to come - not on to the