Mara clasped the sides tightly as the stream took a sharp downward curve. The boats shot forward on a wild helter-skelter ride. Bows forward, they plunged down. Suddenly an immense splash and a great bow wave drenched everybeast, then the two longboats rocked gently on the broad surface of a great lake.
"Never again!" Pikkle wailed piteously. "All this for a bletherin' Blackstone. You chaps must be off your bally rockers. Blackstone, my aunt's whiskers! Once this hare gets his paws on dry ground he's finished boatin' for good!"
Mara stared about her in amazement. They were on the edges of a fantastic body of waterit was a veritable inland sea. The fresh morning sunlight beamed down upon tideless waters whose only movement was the outgoing ripples set up by the logboats' entry into them. As far as any eye could see, there was water, leagues of it, with no sign of island or shore on the distant horizon. To the left and right of them the broad expanse was sheltered by fringed forest with trees, bushes, shrubs and plants dipping their foliage into the water. It was vast and beautiful in its silent serenity; stillness reigned everywhere.
Log-a-log smiled at the badger maid's wide-eyed expression. "How's that for a sight on a lovely summer morning, miss?"
Mara could only shake her head in silent admiration of the scene.
"I say, you chaps, this is a bit more like it, wot? I'm feelin' much better now. Break out the brekkers, send in the scoff!"
They breakfasted on the open lake, though this time not on emergency rations. There was plumcake, honeyoat scones, mushroom salad and sparkling new cider.
Pikkle ate his using a hardtack biscuit as a plate. As he munched he stared about. "Well, give us a clue, boys.
Where's the jolly old island hidin'?"
Log-a-log pointed straight out. "Two days rowing that way."
After breakfast they took up their paddles and began the long voyage to the island. At first Mara's paws felt stiff and awkward, but she was soon rowing as well as anyone and joining in the lusty shrew boatsongs that helped keep the rhythm of the paddles steady. Pikkle stoutly denied he had ever felt sick and sang as loudly as the rest.
"I'll sing you a song of the river-o, Where the water's clean and clear, And the long fast Guosssom logboats go. We're the shrews that know no fear, So bend your back and use those paws. From gravel bank to sandy shores, Your cares and woes will disappear, Just sitting paddling here. Guossssssssom.... Guossssssssom! I'll sing you a song of the river-o. It belongs to me and you. O'er deeps and shallows we'll both go, With the finest Guosssom crew, When other creatures bound to land Will not feel half so free or grand, Or know the water shrews' great skill. So paddle with goodwill. Guosssssssssom.. .. Guossssssssssom!"
In the early noontide the two logboats were still out on the lake. Nothing could be seen on all sides save water; sky and lake met on all horizons. The paddles dipped steadily in and out of the water with short powerful strokes.
Nordo noted the sun's position and called a refreshment period. Lots of shrews dipped cupped paws into the lake and drank with relish. Mara followed suit gingerly, but found to
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her surprise that it was cold and sweet. Pikkle dabbled his paws in the water.
"I say, old Log-a-thing, how deep is this bally lake?" Log-a-log smiled mischievously. "Hmm, let me see. It comes two-thirds of the way up a boat or halfway up a duck.'' "Oh, I see." Pikkle nodded understandingly. "Now hang on a baity moment, old shrew. Who are you tryin' to fool?" Nordo laughed. "Watershrews always say that to landlubbers. Actually nobeast knows how deep this lake is, though my grandfather tried to plumb it when he was Log-a-log, and he said it was bottomless."
Pikkle turned faintly pale around the gills. "D'you hear that, Mara? Bottomless! That means there's nothin' beneath this boat for goodness knows how deep but water. Oh corks, I knew I shouldn't have come!"
Mara smiled. "Have a nap Pikkle, you'll feel better." "Hah, listen to the creature! Better, she says. I've never felt so absobloominlutely awful in me liWhat was that?" Log-a-log came alert. "What was what?" "Over there, sort of a big splash!" Pikkle pointed. Nordo was about to say something when Log-a-log shot him a warning glance and shook his head. * 'Oh, that. It was probably a fish jumping. They do that a lot."
Pikkle held on to the boat's side. "Well, I wish they'd bally well stop. It makes a chap nervous, wot!"
"There it goes again. That's no fish jumping!" A shrew paddler stood up behind them, his normally bass voice shrill and frightened.
The crews of both boats shuffled their paws restlessly and began murmuring among themselves. Log-a-log banged a paddle noisily on the prow of his logboat.
"Silence, back there. It was a fish, I saw it myself. Now stop that old mousewives* scuttlebutt and get your lunches eaten!"
Mara looked to her left. A rippling wave was building up some distance away, but it was coming toward the boats. She pointed. "That looks a bit big for one fish; it must be a shoal of them."
One of the shrews stared accusingly at Log-a-log. "You shouldn't have banged your paddle on the boat like that. It's heard you and it's coming for us. It's coming, I tell you!"
From the other boat Tubgutt could be heard yelling accusations: "It's those two, the badger and the hare. They've brought bad luck down on us all!"
Others started shouting as panic set in with the advance of the rippling wave toward the two boats.
"Back the way we came, shrews. Paddle for land!"
"It's the Deepcoiler, mates!"
"Turn back, let us off these boats!"
"If it's the Deepcoiler we're all deadbeasts!"
Log-a-log drew his rapier, rapping out commands over the hubbub. "Silence and sit down, fools, or you'll turn these boats over! If you want to save yourselves sit tight and shut up!"
The rippling hump of water had been building up as it approached the boats. Subdued by Log-a-log's authority, every creature in the boats sat silent and still. Paws gripped paddles tightly, mouths shut tight as vices, fur stood stiff on every back. With little warning the sunlit noontide surface of the immense lake had become a place of horror and dread. Every eye was fixed on the noiseless traveling swell. It was scarce more than three boat-lengths from them when there was a whoosh of water, and something long and scaly slapped the top of the lake. Both craft rose on the swell as the logboats rode the wave.
Mara moved then. Craning over the side, she looked down Bito the translucent blue-green depths and saw the thing as it passed underneath both vessels. It was enormous!
She had missed seeing the creature's head, but she watched in fascinated terror as the length of its body slipped harmlessly by, a mere paw's-length beneath the surface, round and thick as the trunk of a tree, dark green with slate-gray blotches. Trailing waterweeds clung to the heavily scaled mass of the leviathan; rippling sidefins powered it through the water as its rfength kept on passing... and passing. The pointed tailtip
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scraped the boat's underside and then it was gone, far down into the fathomless depths of the silent lake.
The badger maid breathed a long sigh of relief and mopped the beads of sweat that stood out on her nose. "By the rocks of Salamandastron! What was that?"
Nordo unclenched his paws from the paddle with a visible effort. "What you just saw was a monsterGuosssom shrews call it the Deepcoiler, though nobeast has ever set eyes on it until now."