Volume Three—Chapter Three.New Formosa—No Hope of Returning.After fastening the raft they returned towards the hut, for they were hungry now, and knew it was late, when Pan set up such a tremendous barking that they first listened, and then went to see. The noise led them to the green knoll where the rabbit burries were, and they saw Pan running round under the great oak thickly grown with ivy, in which Bevis had seen the wood-pigeons alight.They went to the oak, it was very large and old, the branches partly dead and hung with ivy; they walked round and examined the ground, but could see no trace of anything. Mark hurled a fragment of a dead bough up into the ivy, it broke and came rustling down again, but nothing flew out. There did not seem to be anything in the tree.“The squirrels,” said Bevis, suddenly remembering.“Why, of course,” said Mark. “How stupid of us—Pan, you’re a donk.”They left the oak and again went homewards: now Pan had been quite quiet while they were looking on the ground and up into the tree, but directly he understood that they had given up the search he set up barking again and would not follow. At the hut Bevis went in to cut some rashers from the bacon which had not been cooked and Mark ran up on the cliff to see the time.It was already two o’clock—the work on the raft and the voyage to Serendib had taken up the morning. Bevis showed Mark where some mice had gnawed the edge of the uncooked bacon which had been lying in the store-room on the top of a number of thing’s. Mark said once he found a tomtit on the shelf pecking at the food they had left there, just like a tomtit’s impudence!“Rashers are very good,” said Bevis, “if you haven’t got to cook them.” It was his turn, and he was broiling himself as well as the bacon.“Macaroni eats his raw,” said Mark. They had often seen John Young eating thick slices of raw bacon in the shed as he sat at luncheon. “Horrible cannibal—he’s worse than Pan, who won’t touch it cooked.”He looked outside the gate—there was the slice of the cooked bacon Bevis had cut for the spaniel lying on the ground. Pan had not even taken the trouble to put it in his larder. But something else had gnawed at it.“A rat’s been here,” said Mark. “Don’t you remember the jack’s head?”“And mice in the cave,” said Bevis.“And a tomtit on the shelf.”“And a robin on the table.”“And a wagtail was in the court yesterday.”“A wren comes on the stockade.”“Spiders up there,” said Mark, pointing to the corner of the hut where there was a web.“Tarantulas,” said Bevis, “and mosquitoes in the evening.”“Everything comes to try and eat us up,” said Mark.The moment man takes up his residence all the creatures of the wood throng round him, attracted by the crumbs from his hand, or the spoil that his labour affords. Hawks dart down on his poultry, weasels creep in to the hen’s eggs, mice traverse the house, rats hasten round the sty, snakes come in for the milk, spiders for the flies, flies for the sugar, toads crawl into the cellar, snails trail up the wall, gnats arrive in the evening, robins, wrens, tomtits, wagtails enter the courtyard, starlings and sparrows nest in the roof, swallows in the chimney, martins under the eaves, rabbits in the garden among the potatoes—a favourite cover with all game—blackbirds to the cherry-trees, bullfinches to the fruit-buds, tomtits take the very bees even, cats and dogs are a matter of course, still they live on man’s labour.The sandy spot by the cliff had not been frequented by anything till the cave was made and the hut built, and already the mice were with them, and while Mark was saying that everything came to eat them up a wasp flew under the awning and settled on the table.“Frances ought to do this,” said Bevis, hot and cross, as amateur cooks always are. “Here, give me some mushrooms, they’ll be nice. Don’t you wish she was here?”“Frances!” said Mark in a tone of horror. “No, that I don’t!”In the afternoon they did nothing but wait for Charlie’s signal, which he faithfully gave, and then they idled about till tea. Pan did not come back till tea, and then he wagged his tail and looked very mysterious.“What have you been doing, sir?” said Bevis. Pan wagged and wagged and gobbled up all the buttered damper they gave him.“Now, just see,” said Mark. He got up and cut a slice of the cold half-cooked bacon from the shelf. Pan took it, rolled his great brown eyes, showing the whites at the corners, wagged his tail very short like the pendulum of a small clock, and walked outside the gate with it. Then he came back and begged for more buttered damper.After tea they worked again at the raft, putting in the bulwarks and carried the chest down to it for the locker. For a sail they meant to use the rug which was now hung up for an awning, and to put up a roof thatched with sedges in its place. The sun sank before they had finished, and they then got the matchlock—it was Mark’s day—and went into ambush by the glade to see if they could shoot another rabbit. Pan had to be tied and hit once or twice, he wanted to race after the squirrels.They sat quiet in ambush till they were weary, and the moon was shining brightly, but the rabbits did not venture out. The noise Pan had made barking after the squirrels had evidently alarmed them, and they could not forget it.“Very likely he’s been scratching at the burries too,” whispered Bevis, as the little bats flew round the glade, passing scarcely a yard in front of them like large flies. “He shan’t leave us again like he did this afternoon.”It was of no use to stay there any longer, so they went quietly round the shore of the island, and seeing something move at the edge of the weeds, though they could not distinguish what, for the willow boughs hung over, Mark aimed and fired. At the report they heard water-fowl scuttling away, and running to the spot Pan brought out two moorhens, one quite dead and the other wounded.“There,” said Bevis, “you’ve shot every single thing.”“Well, why don’t you use shot?—you’ll never kill anything with bullets.”“But I will,” said Bevis; “I will hit something with bullets. The people in India can hit a sparrow, why can’t I? It’s my turn to-morrow.”But after supper, bringing out his journal, he found to-morrow was Sunday.“No, I can’t shoot till Monday. Mamma would not like shooting on Sunday.”“No—nor chopping.”“No,” said Bevis, “we mustn’t do any work.”All the while they were on the island they were, in principle, disobedient, and crossing the wishes of the home authorities. Yet they resolved not to shoot on the Sunday, because the people at home would not like it. When Bevis had entered the launching of the raft and the voyage to Serendib in the journal, they skinned the moorhens and prepared them for cooking.“This cooking is horrible,” said Mark.“Hateful,” said Bevis; “I told you we ought to have Frances.”“O! no; she would want her own way. She wants everything just as she likes, and if she can’t have it, she won’t do anything.”“There, it’s done,” said Bevis. “What we want is a slave.”“Of course—two or three slaves, to work and chop wood, and fetch the water.”“Hit them if they don’t,” said Bevis.“Like we hit Pan.”“Tie them to a tree and lash them.”“Hard.”“Harder.”“Great marks on their backs.”“Howling!”“Jolly!”They played two games at bezique under the awning, and drank the last drop of sherry mixed with water.“Everything’s going,” said Bevis. “There’s no more sherry, and more than half the flour’s gone, and Pan had the last bit of butter on the damper at tea—”“There ought to be roots on the island,” said Mark. “People eat roots on islands.”“Don’t think there are any here,” said Bevis. “This island is too old for any to grow; it’s like Australia, a kind of grey-bearded place with nothing but kangaroos.”Soon afterwards they drew down the curtain and went to sleep. As usual, Pan waited till they were firm asleep, and then slipped out into the moonlight. He was lounging in the courtyard when they got up. By the sun-dial it was eight, and having had breakfast, and left the fire banked up under ashes—wood embers keep alight a long time like that—they went down to bathe.“How quiet it is!” said Mark. “I believe it’s quieter.”“It does seem so,” said Bevis.The still water glittered under the sun as the light south-east air drew over it, and they could hear a single lark singing on the mainland, somewhere out of sight.“Somehow we can swim ever so much better here than we used to at home,” said Mark, as they were dressing again.“Ever so much,” said Bevis; “twice as far.” This was a fact, whether from the continuous outdoor life, or from greater confidence now they were entirely alone.“How I should like to punch somebody!” said Mark, hitting out his fist.“My muscles are like iron,” said Bevis, holding out his arm.“Well, they are hard,” said Mark, feeling Bevis’s arm. So were his own.“It’s living on an island,” said Bevis. “There’s no bother, and nobody says you’re not to do anything.”“Only there’s the potatoes to clean. What a nuisance they are!”They began to dimly perceive that, perhaps, after all, women might be of some use on the earth. They had to go back to the hut to get the dinner ready.“The rats have been at the potatoes,” said Bevis. “Just look!”Mark came, and saw where something had gnawed the potatoes.“And lots are gone,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a lot gone since yesterday.”“Pan, why don’t you kill the rats?” cried Bevis. Pan looked up, as much as to say, “Teach me my business, indeed.”“Bother!” said Mark.“Bother!” said Bevis.“Hateful!”“Yah!” They flung down knives and potatoes.“Would the raft be wrong on Sunday?”“Not if it was only a little bit,” said Bevis.“Just to Pearl Island?”“No—that wouldn’t hurt.”“Let the cooking stop.”“Come on.”Away they ran to the raft, and pushed off, making Pan come with them, that he should not disturb the rabbits again. The spaniel was so lazy, he would not even follow them till he was compelled. He sat gravely on the raft by the chest, or locker, while they poled along the shore, for it was too deep to pole in the middle of the channel. But at the southern end of New Formosa the water shoaled, and they could leave the shore. One standing one side, and one the other, they thrust the raft along out among the islets, till they reached Pearl Island, easily distinguished by the glittering mussel shells.A summer snipe left the islet as they came near, circled round, and approached again, but finding they were still there, sought another strand. Pan ran round the islet, sniffing at the water’s edge, and then, finding nothing, returned to the raft and sat down on his haunches. The water on one side of Pearl Island was not more than four or five inches deep a long way out, and it was from this shelving sand that the crows got the mussels. They carried them up on the bank and left the shells, which fell over open, and the wind blew the sand into them. They found one very large shell, a span long, and took it as spoil.There was nothing else but a few small fossils like coiled snakes turned to stone. Next they poled across to the islet off the extremity of Serendib, where Pan had made such a noise. To get there they had to go some distance round, as it was so shallow. They poled the raft in among the reed-mace or bamboos, which rose above their heads out of the water besides that part of the stalk under the surface. The reed-mace is like a bulrush, but three times as tall, and larger. They cut a number of these as spoils, and then landed. Pan showed a little more activity here, but not much. He sniffed round the water’s edge, but soon returned and stretched himself on the raft.“He can’t smell anything here to-day,” said Bevis. “There’s a halcyon.”A kingfisher went by, straight for New Formosa. The marks of moorhens’ feet were numerous on the shore and just under water, showing how calm it had been lately, for waves would have washed up the bottom and covered them. The islet was very small, merely the ridge of a bank, so they pushed off again. Passing the bamboos, they paused and looked at them—the tall stalks rose up around as if they were really in a thicket of bamboo.“Hark!”They spoke together. It was the stern and solemn note of a bell tolling. It startled them in the silence of the New Sea. The sound came from the hills, and they knew at once it was the bell at the church big Jack went to. The chimes, thin perhaps and weak, had been lost in the hills, but the continuous toll of the five minutes bell penetrated through miles of air. So in the bush men call each other by constantly repeating the same hollow note, “Cooing,” and in that way the human voice can be heard at an extraordinary distance. Each wave of sound drives on its predecessor, and is driven by the wave that follows, till the widening circle strikes the shore of the distant ear.“Ship’s bell,” said Bevis presently, as they listened. “In these latitudes the air is so clear you hear ships’ bells a hundred miles.”“Pirates?”“No; pirates would not make a noise.”“Frigate?”“Most likely.”“Any chance of our being taken off and rescued?”“Not the least,” said Bevis. “These islands are not down on any chart. She’ll be two hundred miles away by tea-time. Bound for Kerguelen, perhaps.”“We shall never be found,” said Mark. “No hope for us.”“No hope at all,” said Bevis. They poled towards Serendib, intending to circumnavigate that island. By the time they had gone half-way, the bell ceased.“Now listen,” said Mark. “Isn’t it still?”They had lifted their poles from the water, and there was not a sound (the lark had long finished), nothing but the drip, drip of the drops from the poles, and the slight rustle as the heavy raft dragged over a weed. They could almost hear the silence, as in the quiet night sometimes, if listening intently, you may hear a faint rushing, the sound of your own blood reverberating in the hollow of the ear; in the day it needs a shell to collect it.“It is very curious,” said Bevis. “But we have not heard a sound of anybody till that bell.”“No more we have.”There had been sounds quite audible, but absorbed in their island life they had not heard them. To-day they were not busy. The recognition of the silence which the bell had caused seemed to widen the distance between them and home.“We are a long way from home—really,” said Bevis.“Awful long way.”“But really?”“Of course—really. It feels farther to-day.”They could touch the bottom with their poles all the way round Serendib, but as before, in crossing to New Formosa, had to give a stronger push on the edge of the deep channel, to carry them over to the shallower water. It was too late now to cook the moorhens, and they resolved to be contented with rashers, and see if they could not get some more mushrooms. Directly they got near the hut, Pan rushed inside the fence and began barking. When they reached the place he was sniffing round, and every now and then giving a sharp short bark, as if he knew there was something, but could not make it out.“Rats,” said Mark, “and they’ve taken the bacon bits Pan left outside the gate.”Pan did not trouble any more when they came in. After preparing the rashers, and looking at the sun-dial, by which it was noon, Bevis went to look for mushrooms on the knoll, while Mark managed the dinner. Bevis had to go round to get to the knoll, and not wishing to disturb the rabbits more than necessary, made Pan keep close to his heels.But when he reached the open glade, Pan broke away, and rushing towards the ivy-clad oak, set up a barking. Bevis angrily called him, but Pan would not come, so he picked up a stick, but instead of returning to heel, Pan dashed into the underwood, and Bevis could hear him barking a long way across the island. He thought it was the squirrels, and looked about for mushrooms. There were plenty, and he soon filled his handkerchief. As he approached the hut, Mark came to meet him, and said that happening to look on the shelf he had missed the piece of cooked bacon left there,—had Bevis moved it?
After fastening the raft they returned towards the hut, for they were hungry now, and knew it was late, when Pan set up such a tremendous barking that they first listened, and then went to see. The noise led them to the green knoll where the rabbit burries were, and they saw Pan running round under the great oak thickly grown with ivy, in which Bevis had seen the wood-pigeons alight.
They went to the oak, it was very large and old, the branches partly dead and hung with ivy; they walked round and examined the ground, but could see no trace of anything. Mark hurled a fragment of a dead bough up into the ivy, it broke and came rustling down again, but nothing flew out. There did not seem to be anything in the tree.
“The squirrels,” said Bevis, suddenly remembering.
“Why, of course,” said Mark. “How stupid of us—Pan, you’re a donk.”
They left the oak and again went homewards: now Pan had been quite quiet while they were looking on the ground and up into the tree, but directly he understood that they had given up the search he set up barking again and would not follow. At the hut Bevis went in to cut some rashers from the bacon which had not been cooked and Mark ran up on the cliff to see the time.
It was already two o’clock—the work on the raft and the voyage to Serendib had taken up the morning. Bevis showed Mark where some mice had gnawed the edge of the uncooked bacon which had been lying in the store-room on the top of a number of thing’s. Mark said once he found a tomtit on the shelf pecking at the food they had left there, just like a tomtit’s impudence!
“Rashers are very good,” said Bevis, “if you haven’t got to cook them.” It was his turn, and he was broiling himself as well as the bacon.
“Macaroni eats his raw,” said Mark. They had often seen John Young eating thick slices of raw bacon in the shed as he sat at luncheon. “Horrible cannibal—he’s worse than Pan, who won’t touch it cooked.”
He looked outside the gate—there was the slice of the cooked bacon Bevis had cut for the spaniel lying on the ground. Pan had not even taken the trouble to put it in his larder. But something else had gnawed at it.
“A rat’s been here,” said Mark. “Don’t you remember the jack’s head?”
“And mice in the cave,” said Bevis.
“And a tomtit on the shelf.”
“And a robin on the table.”
“And a wagtail was in the court yesterday.”
“A wren comes on the stockade.”
“Spiders up there,” said Mark, pointing to the corner of the hut where there was a web.
“Tarantulas,” said Bevis, “and mosquitoes in the evening.”
“Everything comes to try and eat us up,” said Mark.
The moment man takes up his residence all the creatures of the wood throng round him, attracted by the crumbs from his hand, or the spoil that his labour affords. Hawks dart down on his poultry, weasels creep in to the hen’s eggs, mice traverse the house, rats hasten round the sty, snakes come in for the milk, spiders for the flies, flies for the sugar, toads crawl into the cellar, snails trail up the wall, gnats arrive in the evening, robins, wrens, tomtits, wagtails enter the courtyard, starlings and sparrows nest in the roof, swallows in the chimney, martins under the eaves, rabbits in the garden among the potatoes—a favourite cover with all game—blackbirds to the cherry-trees, bullfinches to the fruit-buds, tomtits take the very bees even, cats and dogs are a matter of course, still they live on man’s labour.
The sandy spot by the cliff had not been frequented by anything till the cave was made and the hut built, and already the mice were with them, and while Mark was saying that everything came to eat them up a wasp flew under the awning and settled on the table.
“Frances ought to do this,” said Bevis, hot and cross, as amateur cooks always are. “Here, give me some mushrooms, they’ll be nice. Don’t you wish she was here?”
“Frances!” said Mark in a tone of horror. “No, that I don’t!”
In the afternoon they did nothing but wait for Charlie’s signal, which he faithfully gave, and then they idled about till tea. Pan did not come back till tea, and then he wagged his tail and looked very mysterious.
“What have you been doing, sir?” said Bevis. Pan wagged and wagged and gobbled up all the buttered damper they gave him.
“Now, just see,” said Mark. He got up and cut a slice of the cold half-cooked bacon from the shelf. Pan took it, rolled his great brown eyes, showing the whites at the corners, wagged his tail very short like the pendulum of a small clock, and walked outside the gate with it. Then he came back and begged for more buttered damper.
After tea they worked again at the raft, putting in the bulwarks and carried the chest down to it for the locker. For a sail they meant to use the rug which was now hung up for an awning, and to put up a roof thatched with sedges in its place. The sun sank before they had finished, and they then got the matchlock—it was Mark’s day—and went into ambush by the glade to see if they could shoot another rabbit. Pan had to be tied and hit once or twice, he wanted to race after the squirrels.
They sat quiet in ambush till they were weary, and the moon was shining brightly, but the rabbits did not venture out. The noise Pan had made barking after the squirrels had evidently alarmed them, and they could not forget it.
“Very likely he’s been scratching at the burries too,” whispered Bevis, as the little bats flew round the glade, passing scarcely a yard in front of them like large flies. “He shan’t leave us again like he did this afternoon.”
It was of no use to stay there any longer, so they went quietly round the shore of the island, and seeing something move at the edge of the weeds, though they could not distinguish what, for the willow boughs hung over, Mark aimed and fired. At the report they heard water-fowl scuttling away, and running to the spot Pan brought out two moorhens, one quite dead and the other wounded.
“There,” said Bevis, “you’ve shot every single thing.”
“Well, why don’t you use shot?—you’ll never kill anything with bullets.”
“But I will,” said Bevis; “I will hit something with bullets. The people in India can hit a sparrow, why can’t I? It’s my turn to-morrow.”
But after supper, bringing out his journal, he found to-morrow was Sunday.
“No, I can’t shoot till Monday. Mamma would not like shooting on Sunday.”
“No—nor chopping.”
“No,” said Bevis, “we mustn’t do any work.”
All the while they were on the island they were, in principle, disobedient, and crossing the wishes of the home authorities. Yet they resolved not to shoot on the Sunday, because the people at home would not like it. When Bevis had entered the launching of the raft and the voyage to Serendib in the journal, they skinned the moorhens and prepared them for cooking.
“This cooking is horrible,” said Mark.
“Hateful,” said Bevis; “I told you we ought to have Frances.”
“O! no; she would want her own way. She wants everything just as she likes, and if she can’t have it, she won’t do anything.”
“There, it’s done,” said Bevis. “What we want is a slave.”
“Of course—two or three slaves, to work and chop wood, and fetch the water.”
“Hit them if they don’t,” said Bevis.
“Like we hit Pan.”
“Tie them to a tree and lash them.”
“Hard.”
“Harder.”
“Great marks on their backs.”
“Howling!”
“Jolly!”
They played two games at bezique under the awning, and drank the last drop of sherry mixed with water.
“Everything’s going,” said Bevis. “There’s no more sherry, and more than half the flour’s gone, and Pan had the last bit of butter on the damper at tea—”
“There ought to be roots on the island,” said Mark. “People eat roots on islands.”
“Don’t think there are any here,” said Bevis. “This island is too old for any to grow; it’s like Australia, a kind of grey-bearded place with nothing but kangaroos.”
Soon afterwards they drew down the curtain and went to sleep. As usual, Pan waited till they were firm asleep, and then slipped out into the moonlight. He was lounging in the courtyard when they got up. By the sun-dial it was eight, and having had breakfast, and left the fire banked up under ashes—wood embers keep alight a long time like that—they went down to bathe.
“How quiet it is!” said Mark. “I believe it’s quieter.”
“It does seem so,” said Bevis.
The still water glittered under the sun as the light south-east air drew over it, and they could hear a single lark singing on the mainland, somewhere out of sight.
“Somehow we can swim ever so much better here than we used to at home,” said Mark, as they were dressing again.
“Ever so much,” said Bevis; “twice as far.” This was a fact, whether from the continuous outdoor life, or from greater confidence now they were entirely alone.
“How I should like to punch somebody!” said Mark, hitting out his fist.
“My muscles are like iron,” said Bevis, holding out his arm.
“Well, they are hard,” said Mark, feeling Bevis’s arm. So were his own.
“It’s living on an island,” said Bevis. “There’s no bother, and nobody says you’re not to do anything.”
“Only there’s the potatoes to clean. What a nuisance they are!”
They began to dimly perceive that, perhaps, after all, women might be of some use on the earth. They had to go back to the hut to get the dinner ready.
“The rats have been at the potatoes,” said Bevis. “Just look!”
Mark came, and saw where something had gnawed the potatoes.
“And lots are gone,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a lot gone since yesterday.”
“Pan, why don’t you kill the rats?” cried Bevis. Pan looked up, as much as to say, “Teach me my business, indeed.”
“Bother!” said Mark.
“Bother!” said Bevis.
“Hateful!”
“Yah!” They flung down knives and potatoes.
“Would the raft be wrong on Sunday?”
“Not if it was only a little bit,” said Bevis.
“Just to Pearl Island?”
“No—that wouldn’t hurt.”
“Let the cooking stop.”
“Come on.”
Away they ran to the raft, and pushed off, making Pan come with them, that he should not disturb the rabbits again. The spaniel was so lazy, he would not even follow them till he was compelled. He sat gravely on the raft by the chest, or locker, while they poled along the shore, for it was too deep to pole in the middle of the channel. But at the southern end of New Formosa the water shoaled, and they could leave the shore. One standing one side, and one the other, they thrust the raft along out among the islets, till they reached Pearl Island, easily distinguished by the glittering mussel shells.
A summer snipe left the islet as they came near, circled round, and approached again, but finding they were still there, sought another strand. Pan ran round the islet, sniffing at the water’s edge, and then, finding nothing, returned to the raft and sat down on his haunches. The water on one side of Pearl Island was not more than four or five inches deep a long way out, and it was from this shelving sand that the crows got the mussels. They carried them up on the bank and left the shells, which fell over open, and the wind blew the sand into them. They found one very large shell, a span long, and took it as spoil.
There was nothing else but a few small fossils like coiled snakes turned to stone. Next they poled across to the islet off the extremity of Serendib, where Pan had made such a noise. To get there they had to go some distance round, as it was so shallow. They poled the raft in among the reed-mace or bamboos, which rose above their heads out of the water besides that part of the stalk under the surface. The reed-mace is like a bulrush, but three times as tall, and larger. They cut a number of these as spoils, and then landed. Pan showed a little more activity here, but not much. He sniffed round the water’s edge, but soon returned and stretched himself on the raft.
“He can’t smell anything here to-day,” said Bevis. “There’s a halcyon.”
A kingfisher went by, straight for New Formosa. The marks of moorhens’ feet were numerous on the shore and just under water, showing how calm it had been lately, for waves would have washed up the bottom and covered them. The islet was very small, merely the ridge of a bank, so they pushed off again. Passing the bamboos, they paused and looked at them—the tall stalks rose up around as if they were really in a thicket of bamboo.
“Hark!”
They spoke together. It was the stern and solemn note of a bell tolling. It startled them in the silence of the New Sea. The sound came from the hills, and they knew at once it was the bell at the church big Jack went to. The chimes, thin perhaps and weak, had been lost in the hills, but the continuous toll of the five minutes bell penetrated through miles of air. So in the bush men call each other by constantly repeating the same hollow note, “Cooing,” and in that way the human voice can be heard at an extraordinary distance. Each wave of sound drives on its predecessor, and is driven by the wave that follows, till the widening circle strikes the shore of the distant ear.
“Ship’s bell,” said Bevis presently, as they listened. “In these latitudes the air is so clear you hear ships’ bells a hundred miles.”
“Pirates?”
“No; pirates would not make a noise.”
“Frigate?”
“Most likely.”
“Any chance of our being taken off and rescued?”
“Not the least,” said Bevis. “These islands are not down on any chart. She’ll be two hundred miles away by tea-time. Bound for Kerguelen, perhaps.”
“We shall never be found,” said Mark. “No hope for us.”
“No hope at all,” said Bevis. They poled towards Serendib, intending to circumnavigate that island. By the time they had gone half-way, the bell ceased.
“Now listen,” said Mark. “Isn’t it still?”
They had lifted their poles from the water, and there was not a sound (the lark had long finished), nothing but the drip, drip of the drops from the poles, and the slight rustle as the heavy raft dragged over a weed. They could almost hear the silence, as in the quiet night sometimes, if listening intently, you may hear a faint rushing, the sound of your own blood reverberating in the hollow of the ear; in the day it needs a shell to collect it.
“It is very curious,” said Bevis. “But we have not heard a sound of anybody till that bell.”
“No more we have.”
There had been sounds quite audible, but absorbed in their island life they had not heard them. To-day they were not busy. The recognition of the silence which the bell had caused seemed to widen the distance between them and home.
“We are a long way from home—really,” said Bevis.
“Awful long way.”
“But really?”
“Of course—really. It feels farther to-day.”
They could touch the bottom with their poles all the way round Serendib, but as before, in crossing to New Formosa, had to give a stronger push on the edge of the deep channel, to carry them over to the shallower water. It was too late now to cook the moorhens, and they resolved to be contented with rashers, and see if they could not get some more mushrooms. Directly they got near the hut, Pan rushed inside the fence and began barking. When they reached the place he was sniffing round, and every now and then giving a sharp short bark, as if he knew there was something, but could not make it out.
“Rats,” said Mark, “and they’ve taken the bacon bits Pan left outside the gate.”
Pan did not trouble any more when they came in. After preparing the rashers, and looking at the sun-dial, by which it was noon, Bevis went to look for mushrooms on the knoll, while Mark managed the dinner. Bevis had to go round to get to the knoll, and not wishing to disturb the rabbits more than necessary, made Pan keep close to his heels.
But when he reached the open glade, Pan broke away, and rushing towards the ivy-clad oak, set up a barking. Bevis angrily called him, but Pan would not come, so he picked up a stick, but instead of returning to heel, Pan dashed into the underwood, and Bevis could hear him barking a long way across the island. He thought it was the squirrels, and looked about for mushrooms. There were plenty, and he soon filled his handkerchief. As he approached the hut, Mark came to meet him, and said that happening to look on the shelf he had missed the piece of cooked bacon left there,—had Bevis moved it?
Volume Three—Chapter Four.New Formosa—Something has been to the Hut.“No,” said Bevis. “I left it there last night; don’t you remember I cut a piece for Pan, and he would not eat it?”“Yes; well, it’s gone. Come and see.” They went to the shelf—the cooked bacon was certainly gone; nor was it on the ground or in any other part of the hut or cave.“Pan must have dragged it down,” said Bevis; “and yet it’s too high, and besides, he didn’t care for it.”“He could not jump so high,” said Mark. “Besides, he has been with us all the time.”“So he has.” They had kept Pan close by them, ever since he disturbed the kangaroos so much. “Then, it could not have been Pan.”“And I don’t see how rats could climb up, either,” said Mark. “The posts,” (to which the shelf was fixed) “are upright—”“Mice can run up the leg of a chair,” said Bevis.“That’s only a short way; this is—let me see—why it’s higher than your shoulder.”“If it was not Pan, nor rats, what could it be?” said Bevis.“Something’s been here,” said Mark; “Pan could smell it when he came in.”“Something was up in the oak,” said Bevis, “and now he’s gone racing light to the other end of the island.”“Something took the bit of bacon on the ground.”“And gnawed the jack’s head.”“And had the piece of damper.”“And took the potatoes.”“Took the potatoes twice—the cooked ones and the raw ones.”“It’s very curious.”“I don’t believe Pan could have jumped up—he would have shaken the other things off the shelf, too, if he had got his great paws on.”“It must have been something,” said Bevis; “things could not go off by themselves.”“There’s something in the island we don’t know,” said Mark, nodding his head up and down, as was his way at times when upset or full of an idea.“Lions!” said Bevis. “Lions could get up.”“We should have heard them roar.”“Tigers?”“They would have killed Pan.”“But you think there’s one in the reeds.”“Yes, but he did not come here.”“Boas?”“No.”“Panthers?”“No.”“Something out of the curious wave you saw?”“Perhaps. Well, itiscurious now, isn’t it?” said Mark. “Just think; first, Pan could not have had it, and then rats could not have had it, but it’s gone.”“Pan, Pan,” shouted Bevis sternly, as the spaniel came in at the gateway hesitatingly; “come here.” The spaniel crouched, knowing that he should have a thrashing.“See if anything’s bitten him,” said Mark. “What have you been after, sir?”He examined Pan carefully; there were no signs of a fight on him—nothing but cleavers or the seeds of goose-grass clinging to his coat. Bang—thump—thump! yow! Pan had his thrashing, and crept after them to and fro, not even daring to curl himself up in a corner, but dragging himself along on the ground behind them.“Think,” said Mark, as he turned the mushrooms on the gridiron; “now, what was it?”“Not a fox?” said Bevis.“No; foxes would not swim out here; there are plenty of rabbits for them in the jungle on the mainland.”“Nor eagles?”“No.”“Might be a cat.”“But there are no cats on the island, and, besides, cats would not take bacon when there were the two moorhens on the shelf.”“No; Pan would have had the moorhens too, if it had been him.”“So would anything, and that’s why it’s so curious.”“Nobody could have come here, could they?” said Bevis. “The punt’s at the bottom, and the Pinta’s chained up—”“And we must have seen them if they swam off.”“Nobody can swim,” said Bevis, “except you and me and the governor.”“No,” said Mark, “no more they can—not even Big Jack.”“Nobody in all the place but us. It could not have been the governor, because if he found the hut he would have stopped to see who lived in it.”“Of course he would. And besides, he could not have come without our knowing it; we are always about.”“Always about,” said Bevis, “and we should have seen footsteps.”“Or heard a splashing.”“And Pan would not bark at him,” said Bevis. “No, it could not have been any one; it must have been something.”“Something,” repeated Mark.“And very likely out of your magic wave.”“But whatcouldit be out of the wave?”“I can’t think; something magic. It doesn’t matter.”They had dinner, and then, as usual, went up on the cliff to wait for Charlie’s signal.“I shall try and catch some perch to-morrow,” said Mark, “if there’s any wind. We’re always eating the same thing.”“Every day,” said Bevis, “and the cooking is the greatest hatefulness ever known.”“Takes up so much time.”“Makes you hot and horrid.”“Vile.”“It wants Frances, as I said.”“No, thank you; I wish Jack would have her.”Mark looked through the telescope for Charlie, and then swept the shores of the New Sea.“How could anything get to our island?” he said. “Nothing could get to it.”From the elevation of the cliff they saw and felt the isolation of their New Formosa.“It was out of your magic wave,” said Bevis; “something magic.”“But you put the wizard’s foot on the gate?”“So I did, but perhaps I did not draw it quite right; I’ll do it again. But rats are made to gnaw the lines off sometimes, and let magic things in.”“Draw another in ink.”“So I will. There’s a sea-swallow.”“There’s two.”“There’s four or five.”The white sea-swallows passed them, going down the water, coming from the south. They flew a few yards above the surface, in an irregular line—an easy flight, so easy they scarcely seemed to know where each flap of the wing would carry them.“There will be a storm.”“A tornado.”“Not yet—the sky’s clear.”“But we must keep a watch, and be careful how we sail on the raft.”The appearance of the sea-swallow or tern in inland waters is believed, like that of the gull, to indicate tempest, though the sea-swallows usually come in the finest of weather.“There’s Charlie. There are two—three,” said Mark, snatching up the telescope. “It’s Val and Cecil. Charlie’s waving his handkerchief.”“There, it’s all right,” said Bevis.“They are pointing this way,” said Mark. “They’re talking about us. Can they see us?”“No, the brambles would not let them.”“I dare say they’re as cross as cross,” said Mark.“They want to come. I don’t know,” said Bevis, as if considering.“Know what?” said Mark sharply.“That it’s altogether nice of us.”“Rubbish—as if they would have letuscome.”“Still, we are not them, and we might if they would not.”“Now, don’t you be stupid,” said Mark appealingly. “Don’tyougo stupid.”“No,” said Bevis, laughing; “but they must come after we have done.”“O! yes, of course. See, they’re going towards the firs: there, they’re going to cross the Nile. I know, don’t you see, they’re going round the New Sea, like we did, to try and find us—”“Are they?” said Bevis. “They shan’t find us,” resentfully. The moment he thought the rest were going to try and force themselves on his plans, his mind changed. “We won’t go on the raft this afternoon.”“No,” said Mark; “nor too near the edge of the island.”“We’ll keep out of sight. Is there anything they could see?”“The raft.”“Ah! No; you think, when they get opposite so as to be where they could see the raft, then Serendib is between.”“So it is. No, there’s nothing they can see; only we will not go too near the shore.”“No.”“What shall we do this afternoon?” said Mark, as they went down to the hut. Pan was idly lying in the narrow shade of the fence.“We mustn’t shoot,” said Bevis, “and we can’t go on the raft, because the savages are prowling round, and we mustn’t play cards, nor do some chopping; let’s go round the island and explore the interior.”“First-rate,” said Mark; “just the very thing; you take your bow and arrows—you need not shoot, but just in case of savages—and I’ll take my spear in case of the tiger in the reeds, or the something that comes out of the wave.”“And a hatchet,” said Bevis, “to blaze our way. That would not be chopping.”“No, not proper chopping. Make Pan keep close. Perhaps we shall find some footmarks of the Something—spoor, you know.”“Come on. Down, sir.” Pan accordingly walked behind.First they went and looked at the raft, which was moored to an alder, taking care not to expose themselves on the shore, but looking at it from behind the boughs. They said they would finish fitting it up to-morrow morning, and then tried to think of a name for it. Bevis said there was no name in the Odyssey for Ulysses’ raft, but as Calypso gave him the tools to make it, and wove the sail for him with her loom, they agreed to call the raft the Calypso. Then they tried to find a shorter way in to the knoll, which they called Kangaroo Hill, but were stopped by the impenetrable blackthorns.As these were “wait-a-bit” thorns, Mark thought the island could not be far from Africa. Skirting the “wait-a-bits,” they found some more hazel bushes, and discovered that the nuts were ripe, and stopped and filled their pockets. After all their trouble they had to go round the old way to get to Kangaroo Hill, and as they went between the trees Bevis cut off a slice of bark from every other trunk, so that in future they could walk quickly guided by the blaze, which would show too in the dusk.From the knoll they walked across to the ivy-grown oak, and Bevis gave Mark a “bunt” up into it. Mark found a wood-pigeon’s nest (empty, of course), but nothing else. The oak was large and old, not very tall, and seemed decaying; indeed, there was a hollow into which he thrust his spear, but did not rouse any creature from its lair. There was nothing in the oak. Bevis looked at the bark of the trunk, to see if any wild beast had left the marks of its claws in climbing up, just as cats do, but there was no trace.They then went farther into the wood in the direction Pan had run away from Bevis, and found it sometimes open and sometimes much encumbered with undergrowth. Nothing appeared to them to be trampled, nor did they find any spoor. Pan showed no excitement, simply following, from which they supposed that whatever it had been it had gone.After awhile they found the trees thinner and the ground declined, and here in a hollow ash, short and very much decayed within, there was a hive, or rather a nest of bees. There was a shrill hum round it as the bees continually went in and out, returning in straight lines, radiating to all parts of the compass, so that they did not care to venture too near. They appeared to be the hive-bees, not wild bees, but a swarm that had wandered from the mainland.How to take the honey was not so easily settled, till they thought of making a powder-monkey, and so smoking them out, or rather stupefying them in the same way as the hives were taken at home with the brimstone match. By damping gunpowder and forming it into a cake it would burn slowly and send up dense fumes, which would answer the same as sulphur. Then they could chop a way into the honeycomb. Seeing a tomtit on a bough watching for a chance to take a bee if one alighted before he went in, they considered it a sign they were off the mainland of Africa, as this was the honey-bird.Several tall spruce firs grew lower down, and under these they could see over the New Sea to the south-east towards the unknown river. Here they sat down in the shade and cracked their nuts. One or two bees came to a burdock which flowered not far from their feet, but besides the hum as they passed there was no sound, for the light south-east air, playing in the tops of the firs, was too idle to sing. Yet the motion of the air, coming off the water, was just sufficient to cool them in the shade. Far away between the trunks they could see the jungle on the mainland.Just below, on the shore of the island, a large willow-tree had been overthrown by the tempest on the day of the battle, and lay prone in the water, but still attached to the land by its roots. The nuts were juicy and sweet, but the day was so pleasant that Bevis presently put the nuts down and extended himself on his back. High above hung the long brown cones of the fir, and the dark green of its branches seemed to deepen the blue of the sky. With half-closed eyes he gazed up into the azure, till Mark feared he would go to sleep.“Tell me a story,” he said. “I’ll tickle you, and you tell me a story. Here’s a parrot’s feather.”It was a wood-pigeon’s, knocked out as the bird struck a branch in his rude haste. Mark tickled Bevis’s face and neck. “Tell me a story,” he said.“My grandpa is the man for stories,” said Bevis. “If you ask him to tell you the story of his walking-stick, he’ll tell you all about it, and then two or three more; only you must be careful to ask him for the walking-stick one first, and then he’ll give you five shillings.”“Regular moke,” said Mark. “He stumped into London with the stick and a bundle, didn’t he, and made five millions of money?”“Heaps more than that.”“Now tell me a story.”“Tickle me then—very nicely.”“Now go on.”
“No,” said Bevis. “I left it there last night; don’t you remember I cut a piece for Pan, and he would not eat it?”
“Yes; well, it’s gone. Come and see.” They went to the shelf—the cooked bacon was certainly gone; nor was it on the ground or in any other part of the hut or cave.
“Pan must have dragged it down,” said Bevis; “and yet it’s too high, and besides, he didn’t care for it.”
“He could not jump so high,” said Mark. “Besides, he has been with us all the time.”
“So he has.” They had kept Pan close by them, ever since he disturbed the kangaroos so much. “Then, it could not have been Pan.”
“And I don’t see how rats could climb up, either,” said Mark. “The posts,” (to which the shelf was fixed) “are upright—”
“Mice can run up the leg of a chair,” said Bevis.
“That’s only a short way; this is—let me see—why it’s higher than your shoulder.”
“If it was not Pan, nor rats, what could it be?” said Bevis.
“Something’s been here,” said Mark; “Pan could smell it when he came in.”
“Something was up in the oak,” said Bevis, “and now he’s gone racing light to the other end of the island.”
“Something took the bit of bacon on the ground.”
“And gnawed the jack’s head.”
“And had the piece of damper.”
“And took the potatoes.”
“Took the potatoes twice—the cooked ones and the raw ones.”
“It’s very curious.”
“I don’t believe Pan could have jumped up—he would have shaken the other things off the shelf, too, if he had got his great paws on.”
“It must have been something,” said Bevis; “things could not go off by themselves.”
“There’s something in the island we don’t know,” said Mark, nodding his head up and down, as was his way at times when upset or full of an idea.
“Lions!” said Bevis. “Lions could get up.”
“We should have heard them roar.”
“Tigers?”
“They would have killed Pan.”
“But you think there’s one in the reeds.”
“Yes, but he did not come here.”
“Boas?”
“No.”
“Panthers?”
“No.”
“Something out of the curious wave you saw?”
“Perhaps. Well, itiscurious now, isn’t it?” said Mark. “Just think; first, Pan could not have had it, and then rats could not have had it, but it’s gone.”
“Pan, Pan,” shouted Bevis sternly, as the spaniel came in at the gateway hesitatingly; “come here.” The spaniel crouched, knowing that he should have a thrashing.
“See if anything’s bitten him,” said Mark. “What have you been after, sir?”
He examined Pan carefully; there were no signs of a fight on him—nothing but cleavers or the seeds of goose-grass clinging to his coat. Bang—thump—thump! yow! Pan had his thrashing, and crept after them to and fro, not even daring to curl himself up in a corner, but dragging himself along on the ground behind them.
“Think,” said Mark, as he turned the mushrooms on the gridiron; “now, what was it?”
“Not a fox?” said Bevis.
“No; foxes would not swim out here; there are plenty of rabbits for them in the jungle on the mainland.”
“Nor eagles?”
“No.”
“Might be a cat.”
“But there are no cats on the island, and, besides, cats would not take bacon when there were the two moorhens on the shelf.”
“No; Pan would have had the moorhens too, if it had been him.”
“So would anything, and that’s why it’s so curious.”
“Nobody could have come here, could they?” said Bevis. “The punt’s at the bottom, and the Pinta’s chained up—”
“And we must have seen them if they swam off.”
“Nobody can swim,” said Bevis, “except you and me and the governor.”
“No,” said Mark, “no more they can—not even Big Jack.”
“Nobody in all the place but us. It could not have been the governor, because if he found the hut he would have stopped to see who lived in it.”
“Of course he would. And besides, he could not have come without our knowing it; we are always about.”
“Always about,” said Bevis, “and we should have seen footsteps.”
“Or heard a splashing.”
“And Pan would not bark at him,” said Bevis. “No, it could not have been any one; it must have been something.”
“Something,” repeated Mark.
“And very likely out of your magic wave.”
“But whatcouldit be out of the wave?”
“I can’t think; something magic. It doesn’t matter.”
They had dinner, and then, as usual, went up on the cliff to wait for Charlie’s signal.
“I shall try and catch some perch to-morrow,” said Mark, “if there’s any wind. We’re always eating the same thing.”
“Every day,” said Bevis, “and the cooking is the greatest hatefulness ever known.”
“Takes up so much time.”
“Makes you hot and horrid.”
“Vile.”
“It wants Frances, as I said.”
“No, thank you; I wish Jack would have her.”
Mark looked through the telescope for Charlie, and then swept the shores of the New Sea.
“How could anything get to our island?” he said. “Nothing could get to it.”
From the elevation of the cliff they saw and felt the isolation of their New Formosa.
“It was out of your magic wave,” said Bevis; “something magic.”
“But you put the wizard’s foot on the gate?”
“So I did, but perhaps I did not draw it quite right; I’ll do it again. But rats are made to gnaw the lines off sometimes, and let magic things in.”
“Draw another in ink.”
“So I will. There’s a sea-swallow.”
“There’s two.”
“There’s four or five.”
The white sea-swallows passed them, going down the water, coming from the south. They flew a few yards above the surface, in an irregular line—an easy flight, so easy they scarcely seemed to know where each flap of the wing would carry them.
“There will be a storm.”
“A tornado.”
“Not yet—the sky’s clear.”
“But we must keep a watch, and be careful how we sail on the raft.”
The appearance of the sea-swallow or tern in inland waters is believed, like that of the gull, to indicate tempest, though the sea-swallows usually come in the finest of weather.
“There’s Charlie. There are two—three,” said Mark, snatching up the telescope. “It’s Val and Cecil. Charlie’s waving his handkerchief.”
“There, it’s all right,” said Bevis.
“They are pointing this way,” said Mark. “They’re talking about us. Can they see us?”
“No, the brambles would not let them.”
“I dare say they’re as cross as cross,” said Mark.
“They want to come. I don’t know,” said Bevis, as if considering.
“Know what?” said Mark sharply.
“That it’s altogether nice of us.”
“Rubbish—as if they would have letuscome.”
“Still, we are not them, and we might if they would not.”
“Now, don’t you be stupid,” said Mark appealingly. “Don’tyougo stupid.”
“No,” said Bevis, laughing; “but they must come after we have done.”
“O! yes, of course. See, they’re going towards the firs: there, they’re going to cross the Nile. I know, don’t you see, they’re going round the New Sea, like we did, to try and find us—”
“Are they?” said Bevis. “They shan’t find us,” resentfully. The moment he thought the rest were going to try and force themselves on his plans, his mind changed. “We won’t go on the raft this afternoon.”
“No,” said Mark; “nor too near the edge of the island.”
“We’ll keep out of sight. Is there anything they could see?”
“The raft.”
“Ah! No; you think, when they get opposite so as to be where they could see the raft, then Serendib is between.”
“So it is. No, there’s nothing they can see; only we will not go too near the shore.”
“No.”
“What shall we do this afternoon?” said Mark, as they went down to the hut. Pan was idly lying in the narrow shade of the fence.
“We mustn’t shoot,” said Bevis, “and we can’t go on the raft, because the savages are prowling round, and we mustn’t play cards, nor do some chopping; let’s go round the island and explore the interior.”
“First-rate,” said Mark; “just the very thing; you take your bow and arrows—you need not shoot, but just in case of savages—and I’ll take my spear in case of the tiger in the reeds, or the something that comes out of the wave.”
“And a hatchet,” said Bevis, “to blaze our way. That would not be chopping.”
“No, not proper chopping. Make Pan keep close. Perhaps we shall find some footmarks of the Something—spoor, you know.”
“Come on. Down, sir.” Pan accordingly walked behind.
First they went and looked at the raft, which was moored to an alder, taking care not to expose themselves on the shore, but looking at it from behind the boughs. They said they would finish fitting it up to-morrow morning, and then tried to think of a name for it. Bevis said there was no name in the Odyssey for Ulysses’ raft, but as Calypso gave him the tools to make it, and wove the sail for him with her loom, they agreed to call the raft the Calypso. Then they tried to find a shorter way in to the knoll, which they called Kangaroo Hill, but were stopped by the impenetrable blackthorns.
As these were “wait-a-bit” thorns, Mark thought the island could not be far from Africa. Skirting the “wait-a-bits,” they found some more hazel bushes, and discovered that the nuts were ripe, and stopped and filled their pockets. After all their trouble they had to go round the old way to get to Kangaroo Hill, and as they went between the trees Bevis cut off a slice of bark from every other trunk, so that in future they could walk quickly guided by the blaze, which would show too in the dusk.
From the knoll they walked across to the ivy-grown oak, and Bevis gave Mark a “bunt” up into it. Mark found a wood-pigeon’s nest (empty, of course), but nothing else. The oak was large and old, not very tall, and seemed decaying; indeed, there was a hollow into which he thrust his spear, but did not rouse any creature from its lair. There was nothing in the oak. Bevis looked at the bark of the trunk, to see if any wild beast had left the marks of its claws in climbing up, just as cats do, but there was no trace.
They then went farther into the wood in the direction Pan had run away from Bevis, and found it sometimes open and sometimes much encumbered with undergrowth. Nothing appeared to them to be trampled, nor did they find any spoor. Pan showed no excitement, simply following, from which they supposed that whatever it had been it had gone.
After awhile they found the trees thinner and the ground declined, and here in a hollow ash, short and very much decayed within, there was a hive, or rather a nest of bees. There was a shrill hum round it as the bees continually went in and out, returning in straight lines, radiating to all parts of the compass, so that they did not care to venture too near. They appeared to be the hive-bees, not wild bees, but a swarm that had wandered from the mainland.
How to take the honey was not so easily settled, till they thought of making a powder-monkey, and so smoking them out, or rather stupefying them in the same way as the hives were taken at home with the brimstone match. By damping gunpowder and forming it into a cake it would burn slowly and send up dense fumes, which would answer the same as sulphur. Then they could chop a way into the honeycomb. Seeing a tomtit on a bough watching for a chance to take a bee if one alighted before he went in, they considered it a sign they were off the mainland of Africa, as this was the honey-bird.
Several tall spruce firs grew lower down, and under these they could see over the New Sea to the south-east towards the unknown river. Here they sat down in the shade and cracked their nuts. One or two bees came to a burdock which flowered not far from their feet, but besides the hum as they passed there was no sound, for the light south-east air, playing in the tops of the firs, was too idle to sing. Yet the motion of the air, coming off the water, was just sufficient to cool them in the shade. Far away between the trunks they could see the jungle on the mainland.
Just below, on the shore of the island, a large willow-tree had been overthrown by the tempest on the day of the battle, and lay prone in the water, but still attached to the land by its roots. The nuts were juicy and sweet, but the day was so pleasant that Bevis presently put the nuts down and extended himself on his back. High above hung the long brown cones of the fir, and the dark green of its branches seemed to deepen the blue of the sky. With half-closed eyes he gazed up into the azure, till Mark feared he would go to sleep.
“Tell me a story,” he said. “I’ll tickle you, and you tell me a story. Here’s a parrot’s feather.”
It was a wood-pigeon’s, knocked out as the bird struck a branch in his rude haste. Mark tickled Bevis’s face and neck. “Tell me a story,” he said.
“My grandpa is the man for stories,” said Bevis. “If you ask him to tell you the story of his walking-stick, he’ll tell you all about it, and then two or three more; only you must be careful to ask him for the walking-stick one first, and then he’ll give you five shillings.”
“Regular moke,” said Mark. “He stumped into London with the stick and a bundle, didn’t he, and made five millions of money?”
“Heaps more than that.”
“Now tell me a story.”
“Tickle me then—very nicely.”
“Now go on.”
Volume Three—Chapter Five.New Formosa—The Story of the Other Side.“Once upon a time,” said Bevis, closing his eyes now, “there was a great traveller who went sailing all round every sea—”“Except the New Sea,” said Mark. “Yes, except the New Sea which we found, and went riding over all the lands and countries, and climbing up all the mountains, and tramping through all the forests, and shooting the elephants and Indians and sticking pigs, and skinning boa-constrictors, and finding magicians—”“What did the magicians do?”“O! they did nothing very particular, one turned himself into a tree and was chopped up and burned in a bonfire and walked out of the smoke, and little things like that; and he went spying everywhere, and learned everything, and—”“Go on—what next?”“He went on till he said it was all no good, because if you went into the biggest forest that ever was you walked through it in about three years—”“Like they did through Africa?”“Just like it; and if you climbed up a mountain, after a day or two you got to the top; and if you sailed across the sea, if it was the greatest sea there ever was, you came to the other side in six months or so; so that it did not matter what you did, there was always an end to it.”“Very stupid.”“Very stupid, very; and he got tired of it always coming to the other side. He did so hate the other side, and he used to dawdle through the forests and lose his way, and he used to pull down the sails and let the ship go anyhow, and never touch the helm. But it was no use he always dawdled through the forest after awhile, and—”“The wind always took the ship somewhere.”“Yes, to the hateful other side, and he got so miserable and what to do he did not know, and he could not stop still very well—nobody can stop still—and that’s why people have got a way of spinning on their heels in some countries, I forget their names—”“Dervishes?”“Dervishes of course; well, he became a Dervish, and used to spin round and round furiously, but you know a top always runs down, and so he got to the other side again.”“Stupid.”“Awful stupid. Now tell me what else he did and could not help coming to the other side?” said Bevis.“But it’s you who are telling the story.”“O! but you can put some of that in.”“Well,” said Mark, “if you walk across this island, you come to the other side, or sail down the New Sea in the Pinta, or if you swim out to Serendib, or if you climb up the fir-tree to the cones—”“Always the other side,” continued Bevis, “and so he said that this was such a little world he hated it, you could go all round the earth and come back to yourself and meet yourself in your own house at home in no time.”“It’s not very big, is it?” said Mark. “Nothing is very big that you could go round like that.”“No, and the quicker you get round the smaller it is, though it’s thousands and thousands of miles, so he said; and so he set out again to find a place where he could wander and never get to the other side, and after he had walked across Persia and Khorasan and Beloochistan—”“And Afghanistan?”“Yes, and crossed the Indus and Ganges, and been over the Himalayas, and inquired at every temple and of all the wise men who live in caves and hang themselves up with hooks stuck through their backs—”“Fakirs.”“At last a very old man took pity on him, seeing how miserable he was, and whispered to him where to go, and so he went on—”“Where?”“To Thibet.”“But nobody is allowed to enter Thibet.”“No; but he had the pass-word, which the aged man whispered to him, and so they let him come in, and then he wandered about again for a long while, and by this time he was getting very old himself and could not walk so fast, so that it took longer and longer to get to the other side each time. Till at last, inquiring at all the temples as he went, they promised to show him a forest to which there was no other side. But he had to bathe and be purified first, and they burned incense and did a lot of magical things—”“In circles?”“I suppose so. And then one night in the darkness, so that he should not see which way they went, they led him along, and in the morning he was in a very narrow valley with a wall across so that you could not go any farther down the valley, nor could you climb up, because the rocks were so steep. Now, when they came to the wall he saw a little narrow bronze door in it—very low and very narrow—and the door was all covered with carvings and curious inscriptions—”“Magic?”“Yes, very magic. And the man who showed it to him, and who wore a crimson robe, over which his white beard flowed nearly down to the ground—I am sure that is right, flowed nearly down to the ground, that is just what my grandpa said—the old man went to the door and spoke to it in some language he did not understand and a voice answered, and then he saw the door open a little way, just a chink. Then he had to go on his hands and knees, and press his head and neck through the chink between the bronze door and the wall, and he could see over the country which has no other side to it. Though you may wander straight on for a thousand years, or ten thousand years, you can never get to the other side, but you always go on, and go on, and go on—”“And what was it like?”“Well, the air was so clear that he was certain he could see over at least a hundred miles of the plain, just as you can see over twenty miles of sea from the top of a cliff. But this was not a cliff, it was a level plain, and he could see at least a hundred miles. Now, behind him he had left the sun shining brightly, and he could feel the hot sunshine on his back—”“Just as I did on my foot while I was fishing in the shadow?”“Very likely—he could feel the hot sunshine on his back. But inside the wall there was no sun—”“No sun?”“No. Ever so far away, hung up as our sun looks hung up like a lamp when you are on the hill by Jack’s house—ever so far away and not so very high up, there was an opal star. It was a very large star and so bright that you could see the beams of light shooting out from it, but so soft and gentle and pleasant that you could look straight at it without hurting your eyes, and see the flashes change exactly like an opal—a beautiful great opal star. All the air seemed full of the soft light from the star, so that the trees and plants and the ground even seemed to float in it, just like an island seems to float in the water when it is very still, and there was no shadow—”“Noshadow?”“No. Nothing cast any shadow, because the light came all round everything, and he put his hand out into it and it did not cast any shadow, but instead his hand looked transparent, and as if there was a light underneath it—”“Go on.”“And among the trees,” said Bevis, pouring out the story from his memory word for word, exactly as he had heard it, like water from a pitcher filled at the spring, “among the trees the blue sky came down and they stood in it, just close by you could not see it, but farther off it was blue like a mist in the forest, only you could see through it and it shimmered blue like the blue-bells in the copse.“He could see thousands of flowers, but he forgot what they were like except one which was like a dome of gold and larger than any temple he had ever seen. The grass grew up round it so tall he could not see the stalk, so that it looked as if it hung from the sky, and though it was gold he could see through it and see the blue the other side which looked purple through the gold, and the opal star was reflected on the dome. Nor could he remember all about the trees, having so much to look at, except one with a jointed stem like a bamboo which grew not far from the bronze door. This one rose up, up, till he could not strain his neck back to see to the top, and it was as large round as our round summer-house at home, but transparent, so that you could see the sap bubbling and rushing up inside in a running stream, and a sweet odour came down like rain from the boughs above.“Now, while he was straining his neck to try and see the top of this tree, as his eyes were turned away from the opal sun, he could see the stars of heaven, and immediately heard the flute of an organ. For these stars—which were like our stars—were not scattered about, but built up in golden pipes or tubes; there were twelve tubes, all of stars, one larger than the other, and behind these other pipes, and behind these others tier on tier. Only there were twelve in front, the rest he could not count, and it was from these that the flute sound came and filled him with such transport that he quite forgot himself, and only lived in the music. At last his neck wearied of looking up, and he looked down again, and instantly he did not hear the starry organ, but saw instead the opal sun, and the shimmering sky among the trees.“From the bronze door there was a footpath leading out, out, winding a little, but always out and out, and so clear was the air, that though it was only a footpath, he could trace it for nearly half the hundred miles he could see. The footpath was strewn with leaves fallen from the trees, oval-pointed leaves, some were crimson, and some were gold, and some were black, and all had marks on them.“One of these was lying close to the bronze door, and as he had put his hand through, as you know, he stretched himself and reached it, and when he held it up the light of the opal sun came through it—it was transparent—and he could see words written on it which he read, and they told him the secret of the tree from which it had fallen.“Now, all these leaves that were strewn on the footpath each of them had a secret written on it—a magic secret about the trees, and the plants, and the birds, and the stars, and the opal sun—every one had a magic secret on it, and you might go on first picking up one and then another, till you had travelled a hundred miles, and then another hundred miles, a thousand years, or ten thousand years, and there was always a fresh secret and a fresh leaf.“Or you might sit down under one of the trees whose branches came to the ground like the weeping ash at home, or you might climb up into another—but no matter how, if you took hold of the leaves and turned them aside, so that the light of the opal sun came through, you could read a magic secret on every one, and it would take you fifty years to read one tree. Some of the leaves strewed the footpath, and some lay on the grass, and some floated on the water, but they did not decay, and the one he held in his hand went throb, throb, like the pulse in your wrist.“And from secret to secret you might wander, always a new secret, till you went beyond the horizon, and then there was another horizon, and after that another, and you could go on and on, and on, and though you could walk for ever without weariness, because the air was so pure and delicious, still you could never, never, never get to the other side.“Some have been walking there these millions of years, and some have been sitting up in the trees, and some have been lying under the golden dome flowers all that time, and never found and never will find the other side, which is why they are so happy. They do not sleep, because they never feel sleepy; they just turn over from the opal sun and look up at the stars and then the music begins, and as it plays they become strong, and then they go on again gathering more of the leaves, and travelling towards the opal sun, and the nearer they get the happier they are, and yet they can never get to it.“While he looked he felt as if he must get through and go on too, and he struggled and struggled, but the bronze door was hard and the wall hard, so that it was no use. His mind though and soul had gone through; and he saw a white shoulder, like alabaster, pure, white, and transparent among the grass by the golden dome flower, and a white arm stretched out towards him, so white it gleamed polished, and a white hand, soft, warm-looking, delicious, transparent white, beckoning to him. So he struggled and struggled till it seemed as if he would get through to his soul, which had gone on down the footpath, when the aged man behind dragged him back, and the bronze door shut with an awful resonance—”“What was that?”“Hark!”“Hark!”Mark seized his spear; Bevis his bow.“Is it something coming from the wave?”“No, it’s in the sky.”“Listen!”There was a whirr above like wheels in the air, and a creaking sound with it. They stood up, but could not see what it was, though it grew louder and came nearer with a rushing noise. Suddenly something white appeared above the trees which had concealed its approach, and a swan passed over descending. It was the noise of its wings and their creaking which sounded like wheels. The great bird descended aslant quite a quarter of a mile into the water to the south in front of them, and there floated among the glittering ripples.“I thought it was the roc,” said Mark, sitting down again.“Or a genie,” said Bevis. “What a creaking and whirring it made!” Rooks’ wings often creak as they go over like stiff leather, but the noise of a swan’s flight is audible a mile or more.“Go on with the story,” said Mark.“It’s finished.”“But what did he do when they pulled him back? Didn’t he burst the door open?”“He couldn’t. When he was pulled back it was night on that side of the wall, and the sudden change made him so bewildered that they led him away as if he was walking in his sleep down to the temple.”“What did he do with the magic leaf he had in his hand?”“O! the wind of the bronze door as it slammed up blew it out of his hand. But when he came to himself and began to reproach them for pulling him away before he had had time even to look, they told him he had been looking three days and that it was the third night when the door was shut—”“I see—it went so quick.”“It went so quick, like when you go to sleep and wake up next minute, and it’s morning. But when he came to himself he found that his right hand which he had put through and which had cast no shadow was changed, it was white and smooth and soft, while the other hand and his face (as he was so old) was wrinkled and hard, so he was quite sure that what he had seen was real and true.”“Didn’t he try to go back and find the door.”“Of course he did. But there was nothing but jungle, and he could not find the narrow valley; nor would they show him the way there again. They told him that only one was let through about every thousand years, and the reason they are so careful people shall not enter Thibet is that they may not stumble on the bronze door.”“And what became of him?”“O! he lived to be the oldest man there ever was, which was because he had breathed the delicious air, and his hand was always white and soft like Frances’s. Every night when he went to sleep, he could hear some of the star flute music of the organ, and dreamed he could see it; but he could hear it plainly. At last he died and went to join his soul, which had travelled on down the footpath, you know, towards the opal sun.”“How stupid to keep the door shut, and never let any one find it!”“Ah, but don’t you see the reason is because if it was open and people could find it, they would all run there and squeeze through, one after the other, like sheep through a gap, till the world was left empty without anybody in it, and they told him that was the reason. Grandpa says it is a pleasant thought that at least one goes through in a thousand years; if only one, that is something. My grandpa told me the story, and the son of the man told him—I mean the man who just looked through, or else it was his grandson or his great-great-grandson, for I know it was a long time ago. And there is no other side to that place.”“Let’s go there,” said Mark, after a pause, “you and me, and take some powder and blow the door open.”“If we could find it.”“O! we could find it; let’s go to Thibet.”“So we will.”“And blow the bronze door open.”“And read the magic leaves.”“And go on down the footpath.”“And talk to the people under the golden dome flowers.”“I’m surewecould find the door.”“Wewillfind it.”“Very soon.”“Some day.”Watching the swan among the glittering ripples, they cracked the rest of the nuts, and did not get up to go till the sun was getting low. It was not a wild swan, but one whose feathers had not been clipped. The wind rose a little, and sighed dreamily through the tops of the tall firs as they walked under them. They returned along the shore where the weeds came to the island, and had gone some way, when Mark suddenly caught hold of Bevis and drew him behind a bush.
“Once upon a time,” said Bevis, closing his eyes now, “there was a great traveller who went sailing all round every sea—”
“Except the New Sea,” said Mark. “Yes, except the New Sea which we found, and went riding over all the lands and countries, and climbing up all the mountains, and tramping through all the forests, and shooting the elephants and Indians and sticking pigs, and skinning boa-constrictors, and finding magicians—”
“What did the magicians do?”
“O! they did nothing very particular, one turned himself into a tree and was chopped up and burned in a bonfire and walked out of the smoke, and little things like that; and he went spying everywhere, and learned everything, and—”
“Go on—what next?”
“He went on till he said it was all no good, because if you went into the biggest forest that ever was you walked through it in about three years—”
“Like they did through Africa?”
“Just like it; and if you climbed up a mountain, after a day or two you got to the top; and if you sailed across the sea, if it was the greatest sea there ever was, you came to the other side in six months or so; so that it did not matter what you did, there was always an end to it.”
“Very stupid.”
“Very stupid, very; and he got tired of it always coming to the other side. He did so hate the other side, and he used to dawdle through the forests and lose his way, and he used to pull down the sails and let the ship go anyhow, and never touch the helm. But it was no use he always dawdled through the forest after awhile, and—”
“The wind always took the ship somewhere.”
“Yes, to the hateful other side, and he got so miserable and what to do he did not know, and he could not stop still very well—nobody can stop still—and that’s why people have got a way of spinning on their heels in some countries, I forget their names—”
“Dervishes?”
“Dervishes of course; well, he became a Dervish, and used to spin round and round furiously, but you know a top always runs down, and so he got to the other side again.”
“Stupid.”
“Awful stupid. Now tell me what else he did and could not help coming to the other side?” said Bevis.
“But it’s you who are telling the story.”
“O! but you can put some of that in.”
“Well,” said Mark, “if you walk across this island, you come to the other side, or sail down the New Sea in the Pinta, or if you swim out to Serendib, or if you climb up the fir-tree to the cones—”
“Always the other side,” continued Bevis, “and so he said that this was such a little world he hated it, you could go all round the earth and come back to yourself and meet yourself in your own house at home in no time.”
“It’s not very big, is it?” said Mark. “Nothing is very big that you could go round like that.”
“No, and the quicker you get round the smaller it is, though it’s thousands and thousands of miles, so he said; and so he set out again to find a place where he could wander and never get to the other side, and after he had walked across Persia and Khorasan and Beloochistan—”
“And Afghanistan?”
“Yes, and crossed the Indus and Ganges, and been over the Himalayas, and inquired at every temple and of all the wise men who live in caves and hang themselves up with hooks stuck through their backs—”
“Fakirs.”
“At last a very old man took pity on him, seeing how miserable he was, and whispered to him where to go, and so he went on—”
“Where?”
“To Thibet.”
“But nobody is allowed to enter Thibet.”
“No; but he had the pass-word, which the aged man whispered to him, and so they let him come in, and then he wandered about again for a long while, and by this time he was getting very old himself and could not walk so fast, so that it took longer and longer to get to the other side each time. Till at last, inquiring at all the temples as he went, they promised to show him a forest to which there was no other side. But he had to bathe and be purified first, and they burned incense and did a lot of magical things—”
“In circles?”
“I suppose so. And then one night in the darkness, so that he should not see which way they went, they led him along, and in the morning he was in a very narrow valley with a wall across so that you could not go any farther down the valley, nor could you climb up, because the rocks were so steep. Now, when they came to the wall he saw a little narrow bronze door in it—very low and very narrow—and the door was all covered with carvings and curious inscriptions—”
“Magic?”
“Yes, very magic. And the man who showed it to him, and who wore a crimson robe, over which his white beard flowed nearly down to the ground—I am sure that is right, flowed nearly down to the ground, that is just what my grandpa said—the old man went to the door and spoke to it in some language he did not understand and a voice answered, and then he saw the door open a little way, just a chink. Then he had to go on his hands and knees, and press his head and neck through the chink between the bronze door and the wall, and he could see over the country which has no other side to it. Though you may wander straight on for a thousand years, or ten thousand years, you can never get to the other side, but you always go on, and go on, and go on—”
“And what was it like?”
“Well, the air was so clear that he was certain he could see over at least a hundred miles of the plain, just as you can see over twenty miles of sea from the top of a cliff. But this was not a cliff, it was a level plain, and he could see at least a hundred miles. Now, behind him he had left the sun shining brightly, and he could feel the hot sunshine on his back—”
“Just as I did on my foot while I was fishing in the shadow?”
“Very likely—he could feel the hot sunshine on his back. But inside the wall there was no sun—”
“No sun?”
“No. Ever so far away, hung up as our sun looks hung up like a lamp when you are on the hill by Jack’s house—ever so far away and not so very high up, there was an opal star. It was a very large star and so bright that you could see the beams of light shooting out from it, but so soft and gentle and pleasant that you could look straight at it without hurting your eyes, and see the flashes change exactly like an opal—a beautiful great opal star. All the air seemed full of the soft light from the star, so that the trees and plants and the ground even seemed to float in it, just like an island seems to float in the water when it is very still, and there was no shadow—”
“Noshadow?”
“No. Nothing cast any shadow, because the light came all round everything, and he put his hand out into it and it did not cast any shadow, but instead his hand looked transparent, and as if there was a light underneath it—”
“Go on.”
“And among the trees,” said Bevis, pouring out the story from his memory word for word, exactly as he had heard it, like water from a pitcher filled at the spring, “among the trees the blue sky came down and they stood in it, just close by you could not see it, but farther off it was blue like a mist in the forest, only you could see through it and it shimmered blue like the blue-bells in the copse.
“He could see thousands of flowers, but he forgot what they were like except one which was like a dome of gold and larger than any temple he had ever seen. The grass grew up round it so tall he could not see the stalk, so that it looked as if it hung from the sky, and though it was gold he could see through it and see the blue the other side which looked purple through the gold, and the opal star was reflected on the dome. Nor could he remember all about the trees, having so much to look at, except one with a jointed stem like a bamboo which grew not far from the bronze door. This one rose up, up, till he could not strain his neck back to see to the top, and it was as large round as our round summer-house at home, but transparent, so that you could see the sap bubbling and rushing up inside in a running stream, and a sweet odour came down like rain from the boughs above.
“Now, while he was straining his neck to try and see the top of this tree, as his eyes were turned away from the opal sun, he could see the stars of heaven, and immediately heard the flute of an organ. For these stars—which were like our stars—were not scattered about, but built up in golden pipes or tubes; there were twelve tubes, all of stars, one larger than the other, and behind these other pipes, and behind these others tier on tier. Only there were twelve in front, the rest he could not count, and it was from these that the flute sound came and filled him with such transport that he quite forgot himself, and only lived in the music. At last his neck wearied of looking up, and he looked down again, and instantly he did not hear the starry organ, but saw instead the opal sun, and the shimmering sky among the trees.
“From the bronze door there was a footpath leading out, out, winding a little, but always out and out, and so clear was the air, that though it was only a footpath, he could trace it for nearly half the hundred miles he could see. The footpath was strewn with leaves fallen from the trees, oval-pointed leaves, some were crimson, and some were gold, and some were black, and all had marks on them.
“One of these was lying close to the bronze door, and as he had put his hand through, as you know, he stretched himself and reached it, and when he held it up the light of the opal sun came through it—it was transparent—and he could see words written on it which he read, and they told him the secret of the tree from which it had fallen.
“Now, all these leaves that were strewn on the footpath each of them had a secret written on it—a magic secret about the trees, and the plants, and the birds, and the stars, and the opal sun—every one had a magic secret on it, and you might go on first picking up one and then another, till you had travelled a hundred miles, and then another hundred miles, a thousand years, or ten thousand years, and there was always a fresh secret and a fresh leaf.
“Or you might sit down under one of the trees whose branches came to the ground like the weeping ash at home, or you might climb up into another—but no matter how, if you took hold of the leaves and turned them aside, so that the light of the opal sun came through, you could read a magic secret on every one, and it would take you fifty years to read one tree. Some of the leaves strewed the footpath, and some lay on the grass, and some floated on the water, but they did not decay, and the one he held in his hand went throb, throb, like the pulse in your wrist.
“And from secret to secret you might wander, always a new secret, till you went beyond the horizon, and then there was another horizon, and after that another, and you could go on and on, and on, and though you could walk for ever without weariness, because the air was so pure and delicious, still you could never, never, never get to the other side.
“Some have been walking there these millions of years, and some have been sitting up in the trees, and some have been lying under the golden dome flowers all that time, and never found and never will find the other side, which is why they are so happy. They do not sleep, because they never feel sleepy; they just turn over from the opal sun and look up at the stars and then the music begins, and as it plays they become strong, and then they go on again gathering more of the leaves, and travelling towards the opal sun, and the nearer they get the happier they are, and yet they can never get to it.
“While he looked he felt as if he must get through and go on too, and he struggled and struggled, but the bronze door was hard and the wall hard, so that it was no use. His mind though and soul had gone through; and he saw a white shoulder, like alabaster, pure, white, and transparent among the grass by the golden dome flower, and a white arm stretched out towards him, so white it gleamed polished, and a white hand, soft, warm-looking, delicious, transparent white, beckoning to him. So he struggled and struggled till it seemed as if he would get through to his soul, which had gone on down the footpath, when the aged man behind dragged him back, and the bronze door shut with an awful resonance—”
“What was that?”
“Hark!”
“Hark!”
Mark seized his spear; Bevis his bow.
“Is it something coming from the wave?”
“No, it’s in the sky.”
“Listen!”
There was a whirr above like wheels in the air, and a creaking sound with it. They stood up, but could not see what it was, though it grew louder and came nearer with a rushing noise. Suddenly something white appeared above the trees which had concealed its approach, and a swan passed over descending. It was the noise of its wings and their creaking which sounded like wheels. The great bird descended aslant quite a quarter of a mile into the water to the south in front of them, and there floated among the glittering ripples.
“I thought it was the roc,” said Mark, sitting down again.
“Or a genie,” said Bevis. “What a creaking and whirring it made!” Rooks’ wings often creak as they go over like stiff leather, but the noise of a swan’s flight is audible a mile or more.
“Go on with the story,” said Mark.
“It’s finished.”
“But what did he do when they pulled him back? Didn’t he burst the door open?”
“He couldn’t. When he was pulled back it was night on that side of the wall, and the sudden change made him so bewildered that they led him away as if he was walking in his sleep down to the temple.”
“What did he do with the magic leaf he had in his hand?”
“O! the wind of the bronze door as it slammed up blew it out of his hand. But when he came to himself and began to reproach them for pulling him away before he had had time even to look, they told him he had been looking three days and that it was the third night when the door was shut—”
“I see—it went so quick.”
“It went so quick, like when you go to sleep and wake up next minute, and it’s morning. But when he came to himself he found that his right hand which he had put through and which had cast no shadow was changed, it was white and smooth and soft, while the other hand and his face (as he was so old) was wrinkled and hard, so he was quite sure that what he had seen was real and true.”
“Didn’t he try to go back and find the door.”
“Of course he did. But there was nothing but jungle, and he could not find the narrow valley; nor would they show him the way there again. They told him that only one was let through about every thousand years, and the reason they are so careful people shall not enter Thibet is that they may not stumble on the bronze door.”
“And what became of him?”
“O! he lived to be the oldest man there ever was, which was because he had breathed the delicious air, and his hand was always white and soft like Frances’s. Every night when he went to sleep, he could hear some of the star flute music of the organ, and dreamed he could see it; but he could hear it plainly. At last he died and went to join his soul, which had travelled on down the footpath, you know, towards the opal sun.”
“How stupid to keep the door shut, and never let any one find it!”
“Ah, but don’t you see the reason is because if it was open and people could find it, they would all run there and squeeze through, one after the other, like sheep through a gap, till the world was left empty without anybody in it, and they told him that was the reason. Grandpa says it is a pleasant thought that at least one goes through in a thousand years; if only one, that is something. My grandpa told me the story, and the son of the man told him—I mean the man who just looked through, or else it was his grandson or his great-great-grandson, for I know it was a long time ago. And there is no other side to that place.”
“Let’s go there,” said Mark, after a pause, “you and me, and take some powder and blow the door open.”
“If we could find it.”
“O! we could find it; let’s go to Thibet.”
“So we will.”
“And blow the bronze door open.”
“And read the magic leaves.”
“And go on down the footpath.”
“And talk to the people under the golden dome flowers.”
“I’m surewecould find the door.”
“Wewillfind it.”
“Very soon.”
“Some day.”
Watching the swan among the glittering ripples, they cracked the rest of the nuts, and did not get up to go till the sun was getting low. It was not a wild swan, but one whose feathers had not been clipped. The wind rose a little, and sighed dreamily through the tops of the tall firs as they walked under them. They returned along the shore where the weeds came to the island, and had gone some way, when Mark suddenly caught hold of Bevis and drew him behind a bush.