The_Complete_Chronicles_of_Narnia_(volumes_1-7,_in_order_of_publication)

describe, but you will see what it was like if you imagine yourself looking into the mouth
of a railway tunnel - a tunnel either so long or so twisty that you cannot see the light at
the far end. And you know what it would be like. For a few feet you would see the rails
and sleepers and gravel in broad daylight; then there would come a place where they
were in twilight; and then, pretty suddenly, but of course without a sharp dividing line,
they would vanish altogether into smooth, solid blackness. It was just so here. For a few
feet in front of their bows they could see the swell of the bright greenish-blue water.
Beyond that, they could see the water looking pale and grey as it would look late in the
evening. But beyond that again, utter blackness as if they had come to the edge of
moonless and starless night.
Caspian shouted to the boatswain to keep her back, and all except the rowers rushed
forward and gazed from the bows. But there was nothing to be seen by gazing. Behind
them was the sea and the sun, before them the Darkness.
"Do we go into this?" asked Caspian at length.
"Not by my advice," said Drinian.
"The Captain's right," said several sailors.
"I almost think he is," said Edmund.
Lucy and Eustace didn't speak but they felt very glad inside at the turn things seemed to
be taking. But all at once the clear voice of Reepicheep broke in upon the silence.
"And why not?" he said. "Will someone explain to me why not."
No one was anxious to explain, so Reepicheep continued:
"If I were addressing peasants or slaves," he said, "I might suppose that this suggestion
proceeded from cowardice. But I hope it will never be told in Narnia that a company of
noble and royal persons in the flower of their age turned tail because they were afraid of
the dark."
"But what manner of use would it be ploughing through that blackness?" asked Drinian.
"Use?" replied Reepicheep. "Use, Captain? If by use you mean filling our bellies or our
purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for
things useful but to seek honour and adventure. And here is as great an adventure as ever
I heard of, and here, if we turn back, no tittle impeachment of all our honours."
Several of the sailors said things under their breath that sounded like "Honour be
blowed", but Caspian said: