The Book of Dragons (17 page)

Other boys played truant too, of course—and these went nutting or blackberrying or wild-plum gathering, but Edmund
never went on the side of the town where the green woods and hedges grew. He always went up the mountain where the great rocks were, and the tall, dark pine trees, and where other people were afraid to go because of the strange noises that came out of the caves.

Edmund was not afraid of these noises—though they were very strange and terrible. He wanted to find out what made them. And one day he did. He had invented, all by himself, a very ingenious and new kind of lantern, made with a turnip and a tumbler, and when he had taken the candle out of granny’s bedroom candlestick to put in it, it gave quite a splendid light.

He had to go to school next day, and he was caned for being absent without leave—although he very straightforwardly explained that he had been too busy making the lantern to have time to come to school.

But the day after he got up very early, and took the lunch granny had got ready for him to take to school—two boiled eggs and an apple turnover—and he took his lantern and went off as straight as a dart to the mountains to explore the caves.

The caves were very dark, but his lantern lighted them up beautifully; and they were most interesting caves, with stalactites and stalagmites and fossils, and all the things you read
about in the instructive books for the young. But Edmund did not care for any of these things just then. He wanted to find out what made the noises that people were afraid of, and there was nothing in the caves to tell him.

Presently he sat down in the biggest cave and listened very carefully, and it seemed to him that he could distinguish three different sorts of noises. There was a heavy, rumbling sound, like a very large old gentleman asleep after dinner; and there was a smaller sort of rumble going on at the same time; and there was a sort of crowing, clucking sound, such as a chicken might make if it happened to be as big as a haystack.

“It seems to me,” said Edmund to himself, “that the clucking is nearer than the others. So he started up again and explored the caves once more. He found out nothing, only, about half-way up the wall of the cave, he saw a hole. And, being a boy, he climbed up to it and crept in; and it was the entrance to a rocky passage. And now the clucking sounded more plainly than before, and he could hardly hear the rumbling at all.

“I am going to find out something at last,” said Edmund, and on he went. The passage wound and twisted, and twisted and turned, and turned and wound, but Edmund kept on.

“My lantern’s burning better and better,” said he presently, but the next minute he saw that all the light did not come from his lantern. It was a pale yellow light, and it shone down the
passage far ahead of him through what looked like the chink of a door.

“I expect it’s the fire in the middle of the earth,” said Edmund, who had not been able to help learning about that at school.

But quite suddenly the fire ahead gave a pale flicker and went down; and the clucking ceased.

The next moment Edmund turned a corner and found himself in front of a rocky door. The door was ajar. He went in, and there was a round cave, like the dome of St. Paul’s. In the middle of the cave was a hole like a very big wash-hand basin, and in the middle of the basin Edmund saw a large pale person sitting. This person had a man’s face and a griffin’s body, and big, feathery wings, and a snake’s tail, and a cock’s comb and neck-feathers.

“Whatever are you?” said Edmund.

“I’m a poor starving cockatrice,” answered the pale person, in a very faint voice, “and I shall die—oh, I know I shall! My fire’s gone out. I can’t think how it happened; I must have been asleep. I have to stir it seven times round with my tail once in a hundred years to keep it alight, and my watch must have been wrong. And now I shall die.”

I think I have said before what a kind-hearted boy Edmund was.

“Cheer up,” said he. “I’ll light your fire for you,” and off he went, and in a few minutes he came back with a great armful of sticks from the pine trees outside, and with these and a lesson book or two that he had forgotten to lose before, and which, quite by an oversight, were safe in his pocket, he lighted a fire all round the cockatrice. The wood blazed up, and presently something in the basin caught fire, and Edmund saw that it was a sort of liquid that burned like the brandy in a snapdragon. And now the cockatrice stirred it with his tail, and flapped his wings in it, so that some of it splashed out on Edmund’s hand and burnt it rather badly. But the cockatrice grew red and strong and happy, and its comb grew scarlet, and its feathers glossy, and it lifted itself up and crowed, “Cock-a-trice-a-doodle-doo!” very loudly and clearly.

Edmund’s kindly nature was charmed to see the cockatrice so much improved in health, and he said:

“Don’t mention it; delighted, I’m sure,” when the cockatrice began to thank him.

“But what can I do for you?” said the creature.

“Tell me stories,” said Edmund.

“What about?” said the cockatrice.

“About true things that they don’t know at school,” said Edmund.

So the cockatrice began, and it told him about mines and treasures, and geological formations, and about gnomes and fairies and dragons, and glaciers and the stone age, and the beginning of the world, and about the unicorn and the phoenix, and about Magic, black and white.

And Edmund ate his eggs and his turnover, and listened. And when he got hungry again he said good-bye and went home. But he came again next day for more stories, and the next day, and the next, for a long time.

He told the boys at school about the cockatrice and its wonderful true tales, and the boys liked the stories; but when he told the master he was caned for untruthfulness.

“But it’s
true,”
said Edmund; “just you look where the fire burnt my hand.”

“I see you’ve been playing with fire—in mischief as usual,” said the master, and he caned Edmund harder than ever. The master was ignorant and unbelieving: but I am told that some schoolmasters are not like that.

Now, one day Edmund made a new lantern out of something chemical which he sneaked from the school laboratory. And with it he went exploring again to see if he could find the things that made the other sorts of noises. And in quite another part of the mountain he found a dark passage, all lined with brass, so that it was like the inside of a huge telescope,
and at the very end of it he found a bright green door. There was a brass plate on the door which said: “Mrs. D. Knock and ring,” and a white label which said: “Call me at three.” Edmund had a watch: it had been given to him on his birthday two days before, and he had not yet had time to take it to pieces and see what made it go, so it was still going. He looked at it now. It said:

“A quarter to three.”

Did I tell you before what a kind-hearted boy Edmund was? He sat down on the brass door-step and waited till three o’clock. Then he knocked and rang, and there was a rattling and puffing inside. The great door flew open, and Edmund had only just time to hide behind it when out came an immense yellow dragon that wriggled off down the brass cave, like a long, rattling worm—or perhaps more like a monstrous centipede.

Edmund crept slowly out, and saw the dragon stretching herself on the rocks in the sun, and he crept past the great creature and tore down the hill into the town and burst into school, crying out:

“There’s a great dragon coming! Somebody ought to do something, or we shall all be destroyed.”

He was caned for untruthfulness without any delay. His master was never one for postponing a duty.

“But it’s
true,”
said Edmund; “you just see if it isn’t.”

He pointed out of the window, and everyone could see a vast yellow cloud rising up into the air above the mountain.

“It’s only a thunder-shower,” said the master, and caned Edmund more than ever. This master was not like some masters I know: he was very obstinate, and would not believe his own eyes if they told him anything different from what he had been saying before his eyes spoke.

So while the master was writing, “Lying is very wrong, and liars must be caned. It is all for their own good,” on the black-board for Edmund to copy out seven hundred times, Edmund sneaked out of school, and ran for his life across the town to warn his granny, but she was not at home. So then he made off by the back door of the town, and raced up the hill to tell the cockatrice, and ask for its help. It never occurred to him that the cockatrice might not believe him. You see, he had heard so many wonderful tales from it and had believed them all—and when you believe all a person’s stories they ought to believe yours. This is only fair.

At the mouth of the cockatrice’s cave Edmund stopped, very much out of breath, to look back at the town. As he ran he had felt his little legs tremble and shake, while the shadows of the great yellow cloud fell upon him. Now he stood once more between warm earth and blue sky, and looked down on the green plain, dotted with fruit trees and red-roofed farms and
plots of gold corn. In the middle of that plain the gray town lay, with its strong walls, with the holes pierced for the archers, and its square towers with holes in for dropping melted lead on the heads of strangers, its bridges, and its steeples, the quiet river edged with willow and alder, and the pleasant green garden-place in the middle of the town, where people sat on holidays to smoke their pipes and listen to the band.

Edmund saw it all; and he saw, too, creeping across the plain, marking her way by a black line, as everything withered at her touch, the great yellow dragon—and he saw that she was many times bigger than the whole town.

“Oh, my poor, dear granny,” said Edmund, for he had a feeling heart, as I ought to have told you before.

The yellow dragon crept nearer and nearer, licking her greedy lips with her long, red tongue, and Edmund knew that in the school his master was still teaching earnestly, and still not believing Edmund’s tale the least little bit.

“He’ll jolly well
have
to believe it soon, anyhow,” said Edmund to himself, and though he was a very tenderhearted boy—I think it only fair to tell you that he was this—I am afraid he was not so sorry as he ought to have been to think of the way in which his master was going to learn how to believe what Edmund said. Then the dragon opened her jaws wider and wider and wider. Edmund shut his eyes close, for though his master
was
in the town, yet the amiable Edmund shrank from beholding the awful sight.

Creeping across the plain

When he opened his eyes again there was no town—only a bare place where it had stood, and the dragon licking her lips and curling herself up to go to sleep, just as a pussy does when she has quite finished with a mouse. Edmund gasped once or twice, and then ran into the cave to tell the cockatrice.

“Well,” said the cockatrice, thoughtfully, when the tale had been told, “what then?”

“I don’t think you quite understand,” said Edmund, gently; “the dragon has swallowed up the town.”

“Does it matter?” said the cockatrice.

“But I live there,” said Edmund, blankly.

“Never mind,” said the cockatrice, turning over in the pool of fire to warm its other side, which was chilly, because Edmund had, as usual, forgotten to close the cave door, “you can live here with me.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t made my meaning clear,” said Edmund, patiently. “You see, my granny is in the town, and I can’t bear to lose my granny like this.”

“I don’t know what a granny may be,” said the cockatrice, who seemed to be growing weary of the subject; “but if it’s a possession to which you attach any importance—”

“Of course it is,” said Edmund, losing patience at last. “Oh—do help me. What can I do?”

“If I were you,” said his friend, stretching itself out in the pool of flame so that the waves covered it up to the chin, “I should find the drakling and bring it here.”

“But why?” said Edmund. He had got into the habit of asking why at school, and the master had always found it trying. As for the cockatrice, it was not going to stand that sort of thing for a moment.

“Oh, don’t talk to me!” it said, splashing angrily in the flames. “I give you advice; take it or leave it—I shan’t bother about you any more. If you bring the drakling here to me, I’ll tell you what to do next. If not, not.”

And the cockatrice drew the fire up close round its shoulders, tucked itself up in it, and went to sleep.

Now this was exactly the right way to manage Edmund, only no one had ever thought of trying to do it before.

He stood for a moment looking at the cockatrice; it looked at him out of the corner of its eye, and began to snore very loudly, and Edmund understood, once and for all, that it wasn’t going to put up with any nonsense. He respected the cockatrice very much from that moment, and set off at once to do exactly as he was told—for perhaps the first time in his life.

Though he had played truant so often, he knew one or two things that perhaps you don’t know, though you have always been so good and gone to school regularly. For instance, he knew that a drakling is a dragon’s baby, and he felt sure that what he had to do was to find the third of the three noises that people used to hear coming from the mountains. Of course, the clucking had been the cockatrice, and the big noise like a large gentleman asleep after dinner had been the big dragon. So the smaller rumbling must have been the drakling.