Front matter (continued 12)
Reading edition
“You are wet,” said Bevis as he helped Frances out.
“But it’s jolly!” said Frances, laughing. “Only think what a fright he would have been in if he had known!”
Having made the boat safe—there was a lot of water in her—they walked along the old path, now covered with dead leaves damp from the thaw, to the stockade. The place was strewn with small branches whirled from the trees by the gales, and in the hut and further corner of the cave were heaps of brown oak leaves which had drifted in. Nothing else had changed; so well had they built it that the roof had neither broken down nor been destroyed by the winds.
During the frost a blackbird had roosted in a corner of the hut under the rafters, sparrows too had sought its shelter, and wrens and blue-tits had crept into the crevices of the eaves. Next they went up on the cliff, the sun-dial stood as they had left it, but the sun was now down.
From the height, where they could hardly stand against the wind, they saw a figure afar on the green hill by the sycamores, which they knew must be Big Jack waiting for them to return. Walking back to the Pinta they passed under the now leafless teak-tree marked and scored by the bullets they had fired at it.
Before embarking they baled out the water in the boat, and then inclined her, first one side and then the other, to see if she had sprung a leak, but she had not. The ice-bow was then hoisted on board, as it would no longer be required, and would impede their sailing. Frances stepped in, and Bevis and Mark settled themselves to row out of the channel. With such a wind it was impossible to tack in the narrow strait between the islands. They had to pull their very hardest to get through. So soon as they had got an offing the sculls were shipped, and the sails hoisted, but before they could get them to work they were blown back within thirty yards of the cliff. Then the sails drew, and they forged ahead.
It was the roughest voyage they had ever had. The wind was dead against them, and no matter on which tack every wave sent its spray, and sometimes the whole of its crest over the bows. The shock sometimes seemed to hold the Pinta in mid-career, and her timbers trembled. Then she leaped forward and cut through, showering the spray aside. Frances laughed and sang, though the words were inaudible in the hiss and roar and the rush of the gale through the rigging, and the sharp, whip-like cracks of the fluttering pennant.
The velocity of their course carried them to and fro the darkening waters in a few minutes, but the dusk fell quickly, and by the time they had reached Fir-Tree Gulf, where they could get a still longer “leg” or tack, the evening gloom had settled down. Big Jack stood on the shore, and beckoned them to come in: they could easily have landed Frances under the lee of the hill, but she said she should go all the way now. So they tacked through the Mozambique, past Thessaly and the bluff, the waves getting less in size as they approached the northern shore, till they glided into the harbour. Jack had walked round and met them. He held out his hand, and Frances sprang ashore. “How could you?” he said, in a tone of indignant relief. To him it had looked a terrible risk.
“Why it was splendid!” said Frances, and they went on together towards Longcot. Bevis and Mark stayed to furl sails, and leave the Pinta ship-shape. By the time they had finished it was already dark: the night had come.
On their way home they paused a moment under the great oak at the top of the Home Field, and looked back. The whole south burned with stars. There was a roar in the oak like the thunder of the sea. The sky was black, black as velvet, the black north had come down, and the stars shone and burned as if the wind reached and fanned them into flame.
Large Sirius flashed; vast Orion strode the sky, lording the heavens with his sword. A scintillation rushed across from the zenith to the southern horizon. The black north held down the buds, but there was a force in them already that must push out in leaf as Arcturus rose in the East. Listening to the loud roar of the oak as the strength of the north wind filled them,—
“I should like to go straight to the real great sea like the wind,” said Mark.
“We must go to the great sea,” said Bevis. “Look at Orion!”
The wind went seawards, and the stars are always over the ocean.
The End.
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Volume 1 Chapter 1
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Volume 1 Chapter 2
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Volume 1 Chapter 3
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Volume 1 Chapter 4
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Volume 1 Chapter 5
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Volume 1 Chapter 6
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Volume 1 Chapter 7
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Volume 1 Chapter 8
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Volume 1 Chapter 9
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Volume 1 Chapter 10
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Volume 1 Chapter 11
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Volume 1 Chapter 12
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Volume 1 Chapter 13
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Volume 1 Chapter 14
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Volume 1 Chapter 15
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Volume 1 Chapter 16
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Volume 2 Chapter 1
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Volume 2 Chapter 2
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Volume 2 Chapter 3
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Volume 2 Chapter 4
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Volume 2 Chapter 5
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Volume 2 Chapter 6
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Volume 2 Chapter 7
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Volume 2 Chapter 8
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Volume 2 Chapter 9
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Volume 2 Chapter 10
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Volume 2 Chapter 11
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Volume 2 Chapter 12
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Volume 2 Chapter 13
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Volume 2 Chapter 14
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Volume 2 Chapter 15
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Volume 2 Chapter 16
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Volume 2 Chapter 17
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Volume 2 Chapter 18
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Volume 3 Chapter 1
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Volume 3 Chapter 2
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Volume 3 Chapter 3
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Volume 3 Chapter 4
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Volume 3 Chapter 5
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Volume 3 Chapter 6
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Volume 3 Chapter 7
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Volume 3 Chapter 8
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Volume 3 Chapter 9
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Volume 3 Chapter 10
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Volume 3 Chapter 11
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Volume 3 Chapter 12
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Volume 3 Chapter 13
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Volume 3 Chapter 14
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Volume 3 Chapter 15
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Volume 3 Chapter 16
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Volume 3 Chapter 17
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Volume 3 Chapter 18
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