Front matter (continued 2)

“I don’t know; of course it was something magic.”

“Perhaps they don’t like us coming into these magic places,” said Mark. “Perhaps it is to tell us to go away. No doubt Pan is eaten.”

“I shall not go away,” said Bevis, as the boom did not come again. “I shall fight first;” and he fitted his arrow to the string. “What’s that!” and in his start he let the arrow fly down among the thistles.

It was Pan looking down upon them from the edge above, where he had been waiting ever since they first called him, and wondering why they did not see him. Bevis, chancing to glance up defiantly as he fitted his arrow to shoot the genie of the boom, had caught sight of the spaniel’s face peering over the edge. Angry with Pan for making him start, Bevis picked up a stone and flung it at him, but the spaniel slipped back and escaped it.

“Fetch my arrow,” said Bevis, stamping his foot.

Mark went down and got it. As he came up the sandy slope he looked back.

“There’s a canoe,” he said.

“So it is.”

A long way off there was a black mark as it were among the glittering wavelets of the Golden Sea. They could not see it properly for the dazzling gleam.

“The cannibals have seen us,” said Mark. “They can see miles. We shall be gnawn. Let’s run out of sight before they come too near.”

They ran down the slope into the quarry, and then across to the fir-trees. Then they stopped and watched the punt, but it did not come towards them. They had not been seen. They followed the path through the firs, and crossed the head of the gulf.

A slow stream entered the lake there, and they went down to the shore, where it opened to the larger water. Under a great willow, whose tops rose as high as the firs, and an alder or two, it was so cool and pleasant, that Mark, as he played with the water with his spear, pushing it this way and that, and raising bubbles, and a splashing as a whip sings in the air, thought he should like to dabble in it. He sat down on a root and took off his shoes and stockings, while Bevis, going a little way up the stream, flung a dead stick into it, and then walked beside it as it floated gently down. But he walked much faster than the stick floated, there was so little current.

“Mark,” said he, suddenly stopping, and taking up some of the water in the hollow of his hand, “Mark!”

“Yes. What is it?”

“This is fresh water. Isn’t it lucky?”

“Why?”

“Why, you silly, of course we should have died of thirst. That’s the sea,” (pointing out). “This will save our lives.”

“So it will,” said Mark, putting one foot into the water and then the other. Then looking back, as he stood half up his ankles, “We can call here for fresh water when we have our ship—when we go to the Unknown Island.”

“So we can,” said Bevis. “We must have a barrel and fill it. But I wonder what river this is,” and he walked back again beside it.

Mark walked further out till it was over his ankles, and then till it was half as deep as his knee. He jumped up both feet together, and splashed as he came down, and shouted. Bevis shouted to him from the river. Next they both shouted together, and a dove flew out of the firs and went off.

“What river is this?” Bevis called presently.

“O!” cried Mark suddenly; and Bevis glancing round saw him stumble, and, in his endeavour to save himself, plunge his spear into the water as if it had been the ground, to steady himself; but the spear, though long, touched nothing up to his hand. He bent over. Bevis held his breath, thinking he must topple and fall headlong; but somehow he just saved himself, swung round, and immediately he could ran out upon the shore. Bevis rushed back.

“What was it?” he asked.

“It’s a hole,” said Mark, whose cheeks had turned white, and now became red, as the blood came back. “An awful deep hole—the spear won’t touch the bottom.”

As he waded out at first on shelving sand he laughed, and shouted, and jumped, and suddenly, as he stepped, his foot went over the edge of the deep hole; his spear, as he tried to save himself with it, touched nothing, so that it was only by good fortune that he recovered his balance. Once now and then in the autumn, when the water was very low, dried up by the long summer heats, this hole was visible and nearly empty, and the stream fell over a cataract into it, boiling and bubbling, and digging it deeper. But now, as the water had only just begun to recede, it was full, so that the stream ran slow, held back and checked by their sea.

This hollow was quite ten feet deep, sheer descent, but you could not see it, for the shore seemed to slope as shallow as possible.

Mark was much frightened, and sat down on the root to put on his shoes and stockings. Bevis took the spear, and going to the edge, and leaning over and feeling the bottom with it, he could find the hole, where the spear slipped and touched nothing, about two yards out.

“It is a horrid place,” he said. “How should I have got you out? I wish we could swim.”

“So do I,” said Mark. “And they will never let us go out in a boat by ourselves—I mean in a ship to the Unknown Island—till we can.”

“No; that they won’t,” said Bevis. “We must begin to swim directly. My papa will show me, and I will show you. But how should I have got you out if you had fallen? Let me see; there’s a gate up there.”

“It is so heavy,” said Mark. “You could not drag it down, and fling it in quick enough. If we had the raft up here.”

“Ah, yes. There is a pole loose there—that would have done.” He pointed to some railings that crossed the stream. The rails were nailed, but there was a pole at the side, only thrust into the bushes. “I could have pulled that out and held it to you.”

Mark had now got his shoes on, and they started again, looking for a bridge to cross the stream, and continue their journey round the New Sea. As they could not see any they determined to cross by the railings, which they did without much trouble, holding to the top bar, and putting their feet on the second, which was about three inches over the water. The stream ran deep and slow; it was dark, because it was in shadow, for the trees hung over from each side. Bevis, who was first, stopped in the middle and looked up it. There was a thick hedge and trees each side, and a great deal of fern on the banks. It was straight for a good way, so that they could see some distance till the boughs hid the rest.

“I should like to go up there,” said Mark. “Some day, if we can get a boat under these rails, let us go up it.”

“So we will,” said Bevis. “It is proper to explore a river. But what river is this?”

“Is it the Congo?” said Mark.

“O! no. The Congo is not near this sea at all. Perhaps it’s the Amazon.”

“It can’t be the Mississippi,” said Mark. “That’s a long way off now. I know—see it runs slow, and it’s not clear, and we don’t know where it comes from. It’s the Nile.”

“So it is,” said Bevis. “It is the Nile, and some day we will go up to the source.”

“What’s that swimming across up there?” said Mark.

“It is too far; I can’t tell. Most likely a crocodile. How fortunate you did not fall in.”

When they had crossed, they whistled for Pan, who had been busy among the fern on the bank, sniffing after the rabbits which had holes there. Pan came and swam over to them in a minute. They travelled on some way and found the ground almost level and so thick with sedges and grass and rushes that they walked in a forest of green up to their waists. The water was a long way off beyond the weeds. They tried to go down to it, but the ground got very soft and their feet sank into it; it was covered with horsetails there, acres and acres of them, and after these shallow water hidden under floating weeds. Some coots were swimming about the edge of the weeds too far to fear them. So they returned to the firm ground and walked on among the sedges and rushes. There was a rough path, though not much marked, which wound about so as to get the firmest footing, but every now and then they had to jump over a wet place.

“What immense swamps,” said Mark; “I wonder where ever we shall get to.”

Underfoot there was a layer of the dead sedges of last year which gave beneath their weight, and the ground itself was formed of the roots of sedges and other plants. The water had not long since covered the place where they were, and the surface was still damp, for the sunshine could not dry it, having to pass through the thick growth above and the matted stalks below. A few scattered willow bushes showed how high the water had been by the fibres on the stems which had once flourished in it and were now almost dried up by the heat. A faint malarious odour rose from the earth, drawn from the rotting stalks by the hot sun. There was no shadow, and after a while they wearied of stepping through the sedges, sinking a little at every step, which much increases the labour of walking.

The monotony, too, was oppressive, nothing but sedges, flags, and rushes, sedges and horsetails, and they did not seem to get much farther after all their walking. First they were silent, labour makes us quiet; then they stopped and looked back. The perfect level caused the distance to appear more than it really was, because there was a thin invisible haze hovering over the swamp. Beyond the swamp was the gulf they had gone round, and across it the yellow sand-quarry facing them. It looked a very long way off.

Volume One—Chapter Six.

Central Africa.

“We shall never get round,” said Mark, “just see what a way we have come, and we are not half up one side of the sea yet.”

“I wonder how far it is back to the quarry,” said Bevis. “These sedges are so tiresome.”

“We shall never get round,” said Mark, “and I am getting hungry, and Pan is tired of the rushes too.”

Pan, with his red tongue lolling out at one side of his mouth, looked up, showed his white tusks and wagged his tail at the mention of his name. He had ceased to quest about for some time; he had been walking just at their heels in the path they made.

“We must go on,” said Bevis, “we can’t go back; it is not proper. Travellers like us never go back. I wish there were no more sedges. Come on.”

He marched on again. But now they had once confessed to each other that they were tired, this spurt soon died away, and they stopped again.

“It is as hot as Central Africa,” said Mark, fanning himself with his hat.

“I am not sure that we are not in Central Africa,” said Bevis. “There are hundreds of miles of reeds in Africa, and as we have crossed the Nile very likely that’s where we are.”

“It’s just like it,” said Mark, “I am sure it’s Africa.”

“Then there ought to be lions in the reeds,” said Bevis, “or elephants. Keep your spear ready.”

They went on again a little way.

“I want to sit down,” said Mark.

“So do I,” said Bevis; “in Africa, people generally rest in the middle of the day for fear of sunstrokes.”

“So they do; then we ought to rest.”

“We can’t sit down here,” said Bevis; “it is so wet, and it does not smell very nice: we might have the fever, you know, if we stopped still long.”

“Let’s go to the hedge,” said Mark, pointing to the hedge which surrounded the shore and was a great way on their left hand. “Perhaps there is a prairie there. And I am so thirsty, and there is no water we can drink; give me an apple.”

“But we must not go back,” said Bevis; “I can’t have that; it would never do to let the expedition fail.”

“No,” said Mark. “But let us sit down first.”

Bevis did not quite like to leave the sedges, but he could not gainsay the heat, and he was weary, so they left the rough path and went towards the hedge, pushing through the sedges and rushes. It was some distance, and as they came nearer and the ground very gradually rose and became drier, there was a thick growth of coarse grass between the other plants, and presently a dense mass of reed-grass taller than their shoulders. This was now in bloom, and the pollen covered their sleeves as they forced a way through it. The closer they got to the hedge the thicker the grasses became, and there were now stoles of willow, and tall umbelliferous plants called “gix,” which gave out an unpleasant scent as they rubbed against or pushed them down and stepped on them. It was hard work to get through, and when at last they reached the hedge they were almost done up.

Now there was a new difficulty, the hedge had grown so close and thick it was impossible to creep through it. They were obliged to follow it, searching for a gap. They could not see a yard in front, so that they could not tell how far they might have to go. The dust-like pollen flying from the shaken grasses and the flowering plants got inside their nostrils and on the roofs of their mouths and in their throats, causing an unbearable thirst and tickling. The flies, gathering in crowds, teased them, and would not be driven away. Now and then something seemed to sting their necks, and, striking the place with the flat hand, a stoatfly dropped, too bloated with blood, like a larger gnat, to attempt to escape the blow.

Pushing through the plants they stumbled into a hollow which they did not see on account of the vegetation till they stepped over the edge and fell in it. Mark struck his knee against a stone, and limped; Bevis scratched his hands and wrist with a bramble. The hollow was a little wet at the bottom, not water, but soft, sticky mud, which clung to their feet like gum; but they scrambled out of it quickly, not really hurt, but out of breath and angry. They were obliged to sit down, crushing down the grasses, to rest a minute.

“Let’s go back to the path in the sedges,” said Mark.

“I shan’t,” said Bevis savagely. He got up and went on a few steps, and then took out his knife. “Couldn’t we cut a way through the bushes?” he asked. They went nearer the hedge and looked, but it had been kept thick that cattle might not stray into the marsh. The outside twigs could be cut of course, but hawthorn is hard and close-grained. With such little tools as their pocket-knives it would take hours—very likely they would break them.

“If we only had something to drink,” said Mark. They had no more apples. Though it was a marsh, though they were on the shore, there was not a drop of water; if they went back to the sedges they could not get at the water, they would sink to the knees in mud first. The tall reed-grass and “gix,” and other plants which so impeded their progress, were not high enough to protect them in the least from the sun. The hedge ran north and south, and at noonday gave no shadow. As they went slowly forward, Mark felt the ground first with his spear to prevent their falling into another hollow. They pulled rushes, and bit the soft white part which was cool to the tongue. But the stalks of plants and grass, each so easily bent when taken by itself, in the mass like this began to prove stronger than they were.

They had to part them with their arms first, like swimming, and then push through, and the ceaseless resistance wore out their power. Even Bevis at last agreed that it was not possible, they must go back to the path in the sedges on their right. After standing still a minute to recover themselves they turned to the right and went towards the sedges. In about twenty yards Mark, who had been sounding with his spear, touched something that splashed, he stopped and thrust again, there was no mistake, it was water. On going nearer, and feeling for the bottom with the spear, Mark found it was deep too, he could not reach the bottom. The grasses grew right to the edge, and the water itself was so covered with weeds that, had they not prodded the ground before they moved, they would have stepped over the brink into it. The New Sea, receding, had left a long winding pool in a hollow which shut them off from getting to the path in the sedges unless by returning the weary way they had come.

“This is dreadful,” said Mark, when they had followed the water a little distance and were certain they could not cross. “We can’t get out and we can’t go back; I am so tired, I can’t push through much longer.”

“We must go on,” said Bevis; “somehow or other we must go on.” He too dreaded the idea of returning through the entangled vegetation. It was less dense on the verge of the pool than by the hedge, and by feeling their way with the spear they got on for a while. Thirsty as he was Mark could not drink from the weed-grown water; indeed he could not see the water at all for weeds and green scum, and if he pushed these aside with his spear the surface bubbled with marsh gases. Bevis too persuaded him not to drink it. Slowly they worked on, the marsh on one side, and the hedge on the other.

“Look,” said Mark presently. “There’s a willow; can’t we climb up and see round?”

“Yes,” said Bevis; and they changed their course to get to it; it was nearer the hedge. They felt the ground rise, it was two yards higher by the willow, and harder; when the sea came up the spot in fact was an islet. There were bushes on it, brambles, and elder in flower; none of these grow in water itself, but flourish on the edge. There were several tall willow-poles. Bevis put down his bow and arrows, took off his jacket (the pockets of which were stuffed full of things), took hold of a pole, and climbed up. Mark did the same with another. The poles were not large enough to bear their weight very high; they got up about six or eight feet.

“There’s Sindbad’s Island,” said Mark, pointing to the right. Far away, beyond the sedges and the reeds, there was a broad strip of clear water, and across it the island of Serendib. “If we only had a canoe.”

“Perhaps we could make one,” said Bevis. “They make them sometimes of willow—and from oak, only we have nothing to cover the framework; sometimes they weave the rushes so close as to keep out water—”

“I can plait rushes,” said Mark; “I can plait eight; but they would not keep out water. What’s over the hedge?”

They looked that way; they could see over the thick, close hawthorn, but behind it there rose tall ash-poles, which shut out the view completely.

“It is a thick double-mound,” said Bevis. “There’s ash in the middle; like that in our field, you know.”

In front they could see nothing but the same endless reed-grass, except that there were more bushes and willows interspersed among it, showing that there must be numerous banks. Tired of holding on to the poles, which had no boughs of size enough to rest on, they let themselves gradually slide down. As they descended Mark spied a dove’s nest in one of the hawthorn bushes; tired as he was he climbed up the pole again, and looked into it from a higher level. There was an egg in it; he had half a mind to take it, but remembered that it would be awkward to carry.

“We shall never get home,” he said, after he had told Bevis of the nest.

“Pooh,” said Bevis. “Here’s something for you to drink.” He had found a great teazle plant, whose leaves formed cups round the stem. In four of these cups there was a little darkish water, which had been there since the last shower. Mark eagerly sipped from the one which had the most, though it was full of drowned gnats; it moistened his lips, but he spluttered most of it out again. It was not only unpleasant to the taste but warm.

“I hate Africa,” he shouted; “I hate it.”

“So do I,” said Bevis; “but we’ve got to get through it somehow.” He started again; Mark followed sullenly, and Pan came behind Mark. Thus the spaniel, stepping in the track they made, had the least difficulty of either. Pan’s tail drooped, he was very hungry and very thirsty, and he knew it was about the time the dishes were rattling in the kitchen at home.

“Listen,” said Mark presently, putting his hand on Bevis’s shoulder, and stopping him.

Bevis listened. “I can’t hear anything,” he said, “except the midsummer hum.”

The hum was loud in the air above them, almost shrill, but there was not another sound. Now Mark had called attention to it the noonday silence in that wild deserted place was strange.

“Where are all the things?” said Mark, looking round. “All the birds have gone.”

Certainly they could hear none, even the brook-sparrows in the sedges by the New Sea were quiet. There was nothing in sight alive but a few swifts at an immense height above them. Neither wood-pigeon, nor dove, nor thrush called; not even a yellow-hammer.

“I know,” whispered Bevis. “I know—they are afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Yes; can’t you see Pan does not hunt about?”

“What is it?” asked Mark in an undertone, grasping his spear tightly. “There are no mummies here?”

“No,” said Bevis. “It’s the serpent, you know; he’s a hundred feet long; he’s come over from the Unknown Island, and he’s waiting in these sedges somewhere to catch something; the birds are afraid to sing.”

“Could he swallow a man?” said Mark.

“Swallow a man,” with curling lip. “Swallow a buffalo easily.”

“Hush! what’s that?” A puff of wind rustled the grasses.

“It’s the snake,” said Mark, and off he tore. Bevis close behind him, Pan at his heels. In this wild panic they dashed quickly through the grasses, which just before had been so wearisome an obstacle. But the heat pulled them up in ten minutes, panting.

“Did you see him?” said Bevis.

“Just a little bit of him—I think,” said Mark.

“We’ve left him behind.”

“He’ll find us by our track.”

“Let’s tie Pan up, and let him swallow Pan.”

“Where’s a rope? Have you any string? Give me your handkerchief.”

They were hastily tying their handkerchiefs together, when Mark, looking round to see if the monstrous serpent was approaching, shouted,—

“There’s a tree!”

There was a large hollow willow or pollard in the hedge. They rushed to it, they clasped it as shipwrecked men a beam. Mark was first, he got inside on the “touchwood,” and scrambled up a little way, then he worked up, his back against one side, and his knees the other. Bevis got underneath, and “bunted” him up. Bunting is shoving with shoulder or hands. There were brambles on the top; Mark crushed through, and in a minute was firmly planted on the top.

“Give me my spear, and your bow, and your hand,” he said breathlessly.

The spear and the bow were passed up: Bevis followed, taking Mark’s hand just at the last. Mark put the point of his spear downwards to stab the monster. Bevis fitted an arrow to his bow. Pan looked up, but could not climb. They watched the long grasses narrowly, expecting to see them wave from side to side every instant, as the python wound his sinuous way. There was a rustling beneath, but on the other side of the hedge. Bevis looked and saw Pan, who had crept through.

“What are you going to do?” said Mark, as Bevis slung his bow on his shoulder as if it was a rifle, and began to move out on the hollow top of the tree, which as it became hollow had split, and partly arched over. Bevis did not answer: he crept cautiously out on the top which vibrated under him; then suddenly seizing a lissom bough, he slipped off and let himself down. He was inside the hedge that had so long baffled them. Mark saw in an instant, darted his spear down and followed. So soon as he touched ground, off they set running. There were no sedges here, nothing but short grasses and such herbage as grows under the perpetual shade of ash-poles, and they could run easily. The ease of motion was, in itself, a relief, after the struggle in the reed-grass. When they had raced some distance, and felt safe, they stopped.

“Why, this is a wood!” said Mark, looking round. Ash-stoles and poles surrounded them on every side.

“So it is,” said Bevis. “No, it’s a jungle.”

They walked forward and came to an open space, round about a broad spreading oak.

“I shall sit down here,” said Bevis.

But as they were about to sit down, Pan, who had woke up when he scented rabbits, suddenly disappeared in a hollow.

“What’s that,” said Mark. He went to see, and heard a sound of lapping.

“Water!” shouted Mark, and Bevis came to him. Deep down in a narrow channel there was the merest trickle of shallow water, but running, and clear as crystal. It came from chalk, and it was limpid. Pan could drink, but they could not. His hollow tongue lapped it up like a spoon; but it was too shallow to scoop up in the palm of the hand, and they had no tube of “gix,” or reed, or oat straw, or buttercup stalk to suck through. They sprang into the channel itself, alighting on a place the water did not cover, but with the stream under their feet they could not drink. Nothing but a sparrow could have done so.

Presently Bevis stooped, and with his hands scratched away the silt which formed the bottom, a fine silt of powdered chalk, almost like quicksand, till he had made a bowl-like cavity. The stream soon filled it, but then the water was thick, being disturbed, and they had to wait till it had settled. Then they lapped too, very carefully, with the hollow palm, taking care that the water which ran through their fingers should fall below, and not above the bowl, or the weight of the drops would disturb it again. With perseverance they satisfied their thirst; then they returned to the oak, and took out their provisions; they could eat now.

“This is a jolly jungle,” said Mark, with his mouth full.

“That’s a banyan,” said Bevis, pointing with the knuckle-end of the drum-stick he was gnawing at the oak over them. “It’s about eleven thousand years old.”

Then Mark took the drum-stick, and had his turn at it. When it was polished, Pan had it: he cracked it across with his teeth, just as the hyenas did in the cave days, for the animals never learnt to split bones, as the earliest men did. Pan cracked it very disconsolately: his heart was with the fleshpots.

Boom!

They starred. It was the same peculiar sound they had heard before, and seemed to come from an immense distance. A pheasant crowed as he heard it in the jungle close by them, and a second farther away.

“What can it be?” whispered Mark. “Is there anything here?”—glancing around.

“There may be some genii,” said Bevis quietly. “Very likely there are some genii: they are everywhere. But I do not know what that was. Listen!”

They listened: the wood was still; so still, they could hear a moth or a chafer entangled in the leaves of the oak overhead, and trying to get out. Looking up there, the sky was blue and clear, and the sunlight fell brightly on the open space by the streamlet. There was nothing but the hum. The long, long summer days seem gradually to dispose the mind to expect something unusual. Out of such an expanse of light, when the earth is tangibly in the midst of a vast illumined space, what may not come?—perhaps something more than is common to the senses. The mind opens with the enlarging day.

It is said the sandhills of the desert under the noonday sun emit strange sounds; that the rocky valleys are vocal; the primeval forest speaks in its depths; hollow ocean sends a muttering to the becalmed vessel; and up in the mountains the bound words are set loose. Of old times the huntsmen in our own woods met the noonday spirit under the leafy canopy.

Bevis and Mark listened, but heard nothing, except the entangled chafer, the midsummer hum, and, presently, Pan snuffling, as he buried his nostrils in his hair to bite a flea. They laughed at him, for his eyes were staring, and his flexible nostrils turned up as if his face was not alive but stuffed. The boom did not come again, so they finished their dinner.

“I feel jolly lazy,” said Mark. “You ought to put the things down on the map.”

“So I did,” said Bevis, and he got out his brown paper, and Mark held it while he worked. He drew Fir-Tree Gulf and the Nile.

“Write that there is a deep hole there,” said Mark, “and awful crocodiles: that’s it. Now Africa—you want a very long stroke there; write reeds and bamboos.”

“No, not bamboos, papyrus,” said Bevis. “Bamboos grow in India, where we are now. There’s some,” pointing to a tall wild parsnip, or “gix,” on the verge of the streamlet.

“I’m so lazy,” said Mark. “I shall go to sleep.”

“No you won’t,” said Bevis. “I ought to go to sleep, and you ought to watch. Get your spear, and now take my bow.”

Mark took the bow sullenly.

“You ought to stand up, and walk up and down.”

“I can’t,” said Mark very short.

“Very well; then go farther away, where you can see more round you. There, sit down there.”

Mark sat down at the edge of the shadow of the oak. “Don’t you see you can look into the channel; if there are any savages they are sure to creep up that channel. Do you see?”

“Yes, I see,” said Mark.

“And mind nothing comes behind that woodbine,” pointing to a mass of woodbine which hung from some ash-poles, and stretched like a curtain across the view there. “That’s a very likely place for a tiger: and keep your eye sharp on those nut-tree bushes across the brook—most likely you’ll see the barrel of a matchlock pushed through there.”

“I ought to have a matchlock,” said Mark.

“So you did; but we had to start with what we had, and it is all the more glory to us if we get through. Now mind you keep awake.”

“Yes,” said Mark.

Bevis, having given his orders, settled himself very comfortably on the moss at the foot of the oak, tilted his hat aside to shelter him still more, and, with a spray of ash in his hand to ward off the flies, began to forget. In a minute up he started.

“Mark!”

“Yes;” still sulky.

“There’s another oak—no, it’s a banyan up farther; behind you.”

“I know.”

“Well, if you hear any rustle there, it’s a python.”

“Very well.”

“And those dead leaves and sticks in the hole there by the stump of that old tree?”

“I see.”

“There’s a cobra there.”

“All right.”

“And if a shadow comes over suddenly.”

“What’s that, then?” said Mark.

“That’s the roc from Sinbad’s Island.”

“I say, Bevis,” as Bevis settled himself down again. “Bevis, don’t go to sleep.”

“Pooh!”

“But it’s not nice.”

“Rubbish.”

“Bevis.”

“Don’t talk silly.”

In a minute Bevis was fast asleep. He always slept quickly, and the heat and the exertion made him forget himself still quicker.

Volume One—Chapter Seven.

The Jungle.

Mark was alone. He felt without going nearer that Bevis was asleep, and dared not wake him lest he should be called a coward. He moved a little way so as to have the oak more at his back, and to get a clearer view on all sides. Then he looked up at the sky, and whistled very low. Pan, who was half asleep too, got up slowly, and came to him; but finding that there was nothing to eat, and disliking to be stroked and patted on such a hot day, he went back to his old place, the barest spot he could find, mere dry ground.

Mark sat, bow and arrow ready in his hand, the arrow on the string, with the spear beside him, and his pocket-knife with the big blade open, and looked into the jungle. It was still and silent. The chafer had got loose, and there was nothing but the hum overhead. He kept the strictest watch, scarce allowing himself to blink his eyes. Now he looked steadily into the brushwood he could see some distance, his glance found a way through between the boughs, till presently, after he had searched out those crevices, he could command a circle of view.

Like so many slender webs his lines of sight thus drawn through mere chinks of foliage radiated from a central spot, and at the end of each he seemed as if he could feel if anything moved as much as he could see it. Each of these webs strained at his weary mind, and even in the shade the strong glare of the summer noon pressed heavily on his eyelids. Had anything moved, a bird or moth, or had the leaves rustled, it would have relieved him. This expectation was a continual effort. His eyes closed, he opened them, frowned and blinked; then he reclined on one arm as an easier position. His eyes closed, the shrill midsummer hum sounded low and distant, then loud, suddenly it ceased—he was asleep.

The sunburnt woodbine, the oaks dotted with coppery leaves where the second shoot appeared, the ash-poles rising from the hollow stoles, and whose pale sprays touching above formed a green surface, hazel with white nuts, stiff, ragged thistles on the stream bank, burrs with brown-tipped hooks, the hard dry ground, all silent, fixed, held in the light.

The sun slipped through the sky like a yacht under the shore where the light wind coming over a bank just fills the sails, but leaves the surface smooth. Through the smooth blue the sun slipped silently, and no white fleck of foam cloud marked his speed. But in the deep narrow channel of the streamlet there was a change—the tiny trickle of water was no longer illumined by the vertical beams, a slight slant left it to run in shadow.

Burr! came a humble-bee whose drone was now put out as he went down among the grass and leaves, now rose again as he travelled. Burr! The faintest breath of air moved without rustling the topmost leaves of the oaks. The humble-bee went on, and disappeared behind the stoles.

A little flicker of movement happened among the woodbine, not to be seen of itself, but as a something interrupting the light like a larger mote crossing the beam. The leaves of the woodbine in one place were drawn together and coated with a white web and a tiny bird came to take away the destroyer. Then mounting to a branch of ash he sang, “Sip, sip—chip, chip!”

Again the upper leaves of the oak moved and jostling together caused a slight sound. Coo! coo! there was a dove beyond the hazel bushes across the stream. The shadow was more aslant and rose up the stalks of the rushes in the channel. Over the green surface of the ash sprays above, the breeze drew and rippled it like water. A jay came into the farther oak and scolded a distant mate.

Presently Pan awoke, nabbed another flea, looked round and shook his ears, from which some of the hair was worn by continual rubbing against the bushes under which he had crept for so many years. He felt thirsty, and remembering the stream, went towards it, passing very lightly by Bevis, so closely as to almost brush his hat. The slight pad, pad of his paws on the moss and earth conveyed a sense of something moving near him to Bevis’ mind. Bevis instantly sat up, so quickly, that the spaniel, half alarmed, ran some yards.

Directly Bevis sat up he saw that Mark had fallen asleep. He thought for a moment, and then took a piece of string from his pocket. Stepping quietly up to Mark he made a slip-knot in the string, lifted Mark’s arm and put his hand through the loop above the wrist, then he jerked it tight. Mark scrambled up in terror—it might have been the python:—

“O! I say!”

Before he could finish, Bevis had dragged him two or three steps towards an ash-pole, when Mark, thoroughly awake, jerked his arm free, though the string hung to it.

“How dare you?” said Bevis, snatching at the string, but Mark pushed him back. “How dare you? you’re a prisoner.”

“I’m not,” said Mark very angrily.

“Yes, you are; you were asleep.”

“I don’t care.”

“I will tie you up.”

“You shan’t.”

“If you sleep at your post, you have to be tied to a tree, you know you have, and be left there to starve.”

“I won’t.”

“You must, or till the tigers have you. Do you hear? stand still!”

Bevis tried to secure him, Mark pushed him in turn.

“You’re a wretch.”

“I hate you!”

“I’ll kill you!”

“I’ll shoot you!”

Mark darted aside and took his spear; Bevis had his bow in an instant and began to draw it. Mark, knowing that Bevis would shoot his hardest, ran for the second oak. Bevis in his haste pulled hard, but let the arrow slip before he could take aim. It glanced upon a bough and shot up nearly straight into the air, gleaming as it went—a streak of light—in the sunshine. Mark stopped by the oak, and before Bevis could fetch another arrow poised his spear and threw it. The spear flew direct at the enemy, but in his haste Mark forgot to throw high enough, he hurled it point-blank, and the hardened point struck the earth and chipped up crumbling pieces of dry ground; then it slid like a serpent some way through the thin grasses.

Utterly heedless of the spear, which in his rage he never saw, Bevis picked up an arrow from the place where he had slept, fitted the notch to the string and looked for Mark, who had hidden behind the other oak. Guessing that he was there, Bevis ran towards it, when Mark shouted to him,—

“Stop! I say, it’s not fair; I have nothing, and you’ll be a coward.”

Bevis paused, and saw the spear lying on the ground.

“Come and take your spear,” he said directly; “I won’t shoot.” He put his bow on the ground. Mark ran out, and had his spear in a moment. Bevis stooped to lift his bow, but suddenly in his turn cried,—

“Stop! Don’t throw; I want to say something.”

Mark, who had poised his spear, put it down again on the grass.

“We ought not to fight now,” said Bevis. “You know we are exploring, people never fight then, else the savages kill those who are left; they wait till they get home, and then fight.”

“So they do,” said Mark; “but I shall not be left tied to a tree.”

“Very well, not this time. Now we must shake hands.”

They shook hands, and Pan, seeing that there was now no danger of a chance knock from a flying stick, came forth from the bush where he had taken shelter.

“But you want everything your own way,” said Mark sulkily.

“Of course I do,” said Bevis, glaring at him, “I’m captain.”

“But you do when you are not captain.”

“You are a big story.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

“People are not to contradict me,” said Bevis, looking very defiant indeed, and standing bolt upright. “I say I am captain.”

Mark did not reply, but picked up his bat, which had fallen off. Without another word each gathered up his things, then came the question which way to go? Bevis would not consult his companion; his companion would not speak first. Bevis shut his lips very tight, pressing his teeth together; he determined to continue on and try and get round the New Sea. He was not sure, but fancied they should do so by keeping somewhat to the right. He walked to the channel of the stream, sprang across it, and pushing his way through the hazel bushes, went in that direction; Mark followed silently, holding his arm up to stop the boughs which as Bevis parted them swung back sharply.

After the hazel bushes there was fairly clear walking between the ash-poles and especially near the oak-trees, each of which had an open space about it. Bevis went as straight as he could, but had to wind in and out round the stoles and sometimes to make a curve when there was a thick bramble bush in the way. As they passed in Indian file under some larger poles, Mark suddenly left the path and began to climb one of them. Bevis stopped, and saw that there was a wood-pigeon’s nest. The bird was on the nest, and though she felt the ash-pole tremble as Mark came up, hand over hand, cracking little dead twigs, though her nest shook under her, she stayed till his hand almost touched it. Then she flew up through the pale green ash sprays, and Mark saw there were two eggs, for the sticks of which the nest was made were so thinly put together that, now the bird was gone, he could see the light through, and part of the eggs lying on them.

He brought one of the eggs down in his left hand, sliding down the pole slowly not to break it. The pure white of the wood-pigeon’s egg is curiously and delicately mottled like the pores of the finest human skin. The enamel of the surface, though smooth and glossy, has beneath it some water-mark of under texture like the arm of the Queen of Love, glossy white and smooth, yet not encased, but imperceptibly porous to that breath of violet sweetness which announces the goddess. The sunlight fell on the oval as Mark, without a moment’s pause, took a pin from the hem of his jacket and blew the egg.

So soon as he had finished, Bevis went on again, and came to some hawthorn bushes, through which they had much trouble to push their way, receiving several stabs from the long thorns. As it was awkward with the egg in his hand, Mark dropped it.

There was a path beyond the hawthorn, very little used, if at all, and green, but still a path—a trodden line—and Bevis went along it, as it seemed to lead in the direction he wished. By the side of the path he presently found a structure of ash sticks, and stopped to look at it. At each end four sticks were driven into the ground, two and two, the tops crossing each other so as to make a small V. Longer sticks were laid in these V’s, and others across at each end.

“It’s a little house,” said Mark, forgetting the quarrel. “Here’s some of the straw on the ground; they thatch it in winter and crawl under.” (It was about three feet high.)

“I don’t know,” said Bevis.

“I’m sure it is,” said Mark. “They are little men, the savages who live here, they’re pigmies, you know.”

“So they are,” said Bevis, quite convinced, and likewise forgetting his temper. “Of course they are, and that’s why the path is so narrow. But I believe it’s not a house, I mean not a house to live in. It’s a place to worship at, where they have a fetich.”

“I think it’s a house,” said Mark.

“Then where’s the fireplace?” asked Bevis decidedly.

“No more there is a fireplace,” said Mark thoughtfully. “It’s a fetich-place.”

Bevis went on again, leaving the framework behind. Across those bars the barley was thrown in autumn for the pheasants, which feed by darting up and dragging down a single ear at a time; thus by keeping the barley off the ground there is less waste. They knew this very well.

“Bevis,” said Mark presently.

“Yes.”

“Let’s leave this path.”

“Why?”

“Most likely we shall meet some savages—or perhaps a herd of wild beasts, they rush along these paths in the jungle and crush over everything—perhaps elephants.”

“So they do,” said Bevis, and hastily stepped out of the path into the wood again. They went under more ash-poles where the pigeons’ nests were numerous; they counted five all in sight at once, and only a few yards apart, for they could not see far through the boughs. Some of the birds were sitting, others were not. Mark put up his spear and pushed one off her nest. There was a continual fluttering all round them as the pigeons came down to, or left their places. Never had they seen so many nests—they walked about under them for a long time, doing nothing but look up at them, and talk about them.

“I know,” said Bevis, “I know—these savages here think the pigeons sacred, and don’t kill them—that’s why there are so many.”

Not much looking where they were going, they came out into a space where the poles had been cut in the winter, and the stoles bore only young shoots a few feet high. There was a single waggon track, the ruts overhung with grasses and bordered with rushes, and at the end of it, where it turned, they saw a cock pheasant. They tried to go through between the stoles, but the thistles were too thick and the brambles and briars too many; they could flourish here till the ash-poles grew tall and kept away the sun. So they followed the waggon track, which led them again under the tall poles.

To avoid the savages they kept a very sharp lookout, and paused if they saw anything. There was a huge brown crooked monster lying asleep in one place, they could not determine whether an elephant or some unknown beast, till, creeping nearer from stole to bush and bush to stole, they found it to be a thrown oak, from which the bark had been stripped, and the exposed sap had dried brown in the sun. So the vast iguanodon may have looked in primeval days when he laid him down to rest in the brushwood.

“When shall we come to the New Sea again?” said Mark presently, as they were moving more slowly through a thicker growth.

“I cannot think,” said Bevis. “If we get lost in this jungle, we may walk and walk and walk and never come to anything except banyan-trees, and cobras, and tigers, and savages.”

“Are you sure we have been going straight?”

“How do I know?”

“Did you follow the sun?” asked Mark. “No, indeed, I did not; if you walk towards the sun you will go round and round, because the sun moves.”

“I forgot. O! I know, where’s the compass?”

“How stupid!” said Bevis. “Of course it was in my pocket all the time.”

He took it out, and as he lifted the brazen lid the white card swung to and fro with the vibration of his hand.

“Rest your hand against a pole,” said Mark. This support steadied Bevis’s hand, and the card gently came to a standstill. The north, with the three feathers, pointed straight at him.

“Now, which way was the sea?” said Mark, trying to think of the direction in which they had last seen it. “It was that side,” he said, holding out his right hand; he faced Bevis.

“Yes, it was,” said Bevis. “It was on the right hand, now that would be east,” (to Mark), “so if we go east we must be right.”

He started with the compass in his hand, keeping his eye on it, but then he could not see the stoles or bushes, and walked against them, and the card swung so he could not make a course.

“What a bother it is,” he said, stopping, “the card won’t keep still. Let me see!” He thought a minute, and as he paused the three feathers settled again. “There’s an oak,” he said. “The oak is just east. Come on.” He went to the oak, and then stopped again.

“I see,” said Mark, watching the card till it stopped. “The elder bush is east now.”

They went to the elder bush and waited: there was a great thistle east next, and afterwards a bough which had fallen. Thus they worked a bee-line, very slow but almost quite true. The ash-poles rattled now as the breeze freshened and knocked them together.

“What a lot of leaves,” said Bevis presently; “I never saw such a lot.”

“And they are so deep,” said Mark. They had walked on dead leaves for some little while before they noticed them, being so eagerly engaged with the compass. Now they looked the ground was covered with brown beech leaves, so deep, that although their feet sunk into them, they could not feel the firm ground, but walked on a yielding substance. A thousand woodcocks might have thrown them over their heads and hidden easily had it been their time of year. The compass led them straight over the leaves, till in a minute or two they saw that they were in a narrow deep coombe. It became narrower and with steeper sides till they approached the end, when the chalk showed not white but dull as it crumbled, the flakes hanging at the roots of minute plants.

“I don’t like these leaves,” said Mark. “There may be a cobra, and you can’t see him; you may step on him without knowing.”

Hastily he and Bevis scrambled a few feet up the chalky side; the danger was so obvious they rushed to escape it before discussing. When they had got over this alarm, they found the compass still told them to go on, which they could not do without scaling the coombe. They got up a good way without much trouble, holding to hazel boughs, for the hazel grows on the steepest chalk cliffs, but then the chalk was bare of all but brambles, whose creepers came down towards them; why do bramble creepers, like water, always come down hill? Under these the chalk was all crumbled, and gave way under the foot, so that if they put one foot up higher it slipped with their weight, and returned them to the same level.

Two rabbits rushed away, and were lost beneath the brambles. Without conscious thinking they walked aslant, and so gained a few feet every ten yards, and then came to a spot where the crust of the top hung over, and from it the roots of beech-trees came curving down into the hollow space in search of earth. To one of these they clung by turns, some of the loose chalky clods fell on them, but they hauled themselves up over the projecting edge. Bevis went first, and took all the weapons from Mark; Pan went a long way round.

At the summit there was a beautiful beech-tree, with an immense round trunk rising straight up, and they sat down on the moss, which always grows at the foot of the beech, to rest after the struggle up. As they sat down they turned round facing the cliff, and both shouted at once,—“The New Sea!”

Volume One—Chapter Eight.

The Witch.

The blue water had lost its glitter, for they were now between it and the sun, and the freshening breeze, as it swept over, darkened the surface. They were too far to see the waves, but that they were rising was evident since the water no longer reflected the sky like a mirror. The sky was cloudless, but the water seemed in shadow, rough and hard. It was full half a mile or more down to where the wood touched the shore of the New Sea and shut out their view, so that they could not tell how far it extended. Serendib and the Unknown Island were opposite, and they could see the sea all round them from the height where they sat.

“We left the sea behind us,” said Mark. “The compass took us right away from it.”

“We began wrong somehow,” said Bevis. In fact they had walked in a long curve, so that when they thought the New Sea was on Mark’s right, it was really on his left hand. “I must put down on the map that people must go west, not east, or they will never get round.”

“It must be thousands of miles round,” said Mark; “thousands and thousands.”

“So it is,” said Bevis, “and only to think nobody ever saw it before you and me.”

“What a long way we can see,” said Mark, pointing to where the horizon and the blue wooded plain below, beyond the sea, became hazy together. “What country is that?”

“I do not know; no one has ever been there.”

“Which way is England?” asked Mark.

“How can I tell when I don’t know where we are?”

The ash sprays touching each other formed a green surface beneath them, extending to the right and left—a green surface into which every now and then a wood-pigeon plunged, closing his wings as the sea-birds dive into the sea. They sat in the shadow of the great beech, and the wind, coming up over the wood, blew cool against their faces. The swallows had left the sky, to go down and glide over the rising waves below.

“Come on,” said Bevis, incapable of rest unless he was dreaming. “If we keep along the top of the hill we shall know where we are going, and perhaps see a way round presently.”

They followed the edge of the low cliff as nearly as they could, walking under the beeches where it was cool and shady, and the wind blow through. Twice they saw squirrels, but they were too quick, and Bevis could not get a shot with his bow.

“We ought to take home something,” said Mark. “Something wonderful. There ought to be some pieces of gold about, or a butterfly as big as a plate. Can’t you see something?”

“There’s a dragonfly,” said Bevis. “If we can’t catch him, we can say we saw one made of emerald, and here’s a feather.”

He picked up a pheasant’s feather. The dragonfly refused to be caught, he rushed up into the air nearly perpendicularly; and seeing another squirrel some way ahead, they left the dragonfly and crept from beech trunk to beech trunk towards him.

“It’s a red squirrel,” whispered Mark. “That’s a different sort.” In summer the squirrels are thought to have redder fur than in winter. Mark stopped now, and Bevis went on by himself; but the squirrel saw Pan, who had run along and came out beyond him. Bevis shot as the squirrel rushed up a tree, and his arrow struck the bark, quivered a moment, and stuck there.

“The savages will see some one has been hunting,” said Mark. “They are sure to see that arrow.”

In a few minutes they came to some hazel bushes, and pushing through these there was a lane under them in a hollow ten feet deep. They scrambled down and followed it, and came to a boulder-stone, on which some specks sparkled in the sunshine, so that they had no doubt it was silver ore. Round a curve of the lane they emerged on the brow of a green hill, very steep; they had left the wood behind them. The trees from here hid the New Sea, and in front, not far off, rose the Downs.

“What are those mountains?” asked Mark.

“The Himalayas, of course,” said Bevis. “Let’s go to them.”

They went along the brow, it was delicious walking there, for the sun was now much lower, and the breeze cool, and beneath them were meadows, and a brook winding through. But suddenly they came to a deep coombe—a nullah.

“Look!” said Mark, pointing to a chimney just under them. The square top, blackened by soot, stood in the midst of apple-trees, on whose boughs the young green apples showed. The thatch of the cottage was concealed by the trees.

“A hut!” said Bevis.

“Savages!” said Mark, “I know, I’ll pitch a stone down the chimney, and you get your bow ready, and shoot them as they rush out.”

“Capital!” said Bevis. Mark picked up a flint, and “chucked” it—it fell very near the chimney, they heard it strike the thatch and roll down. Mark got another, and most likely, having found the range, would have dropped it into the chimney this time, when Bevis stopped him.

“It may be a witch,” he said. “Don’t you know what John told us? if you pitch a stone down a witch’s chimney it goes off bang! and the stone shoots up into the air like a cannon-ball.”

“I remember,” said Mark. “But John is a dreadful story. I don’t believe it.”

“No, no more do I. Still we ought to be careful. Let’s creep down and look first.”

They got down the hillside with difficulty, it was so steep and slippery—the grass being dried by the sun. At the bottom there was a streamlet running along deep in a gully, a little pool of the clearest water to dip from, and a green sparred wicket-gate in a hawthorn hedge about the garden. Peering cautiously through the gate they saw an old woman sitting under the porch beside the open door, with a black teapot on the window-ledge close by, and a blue teacup, in which she was soaking a piece of bread, in one hand.

“It’s a witch,” whispered Mark. “There’s a black cat by the wall-flowers—that’s a certain sign.”

“And two sticks with crutch-handles,” said Bevis. “But just look there.” He pointed to some gooseberry bushes loaded with the swelling fruit, than which there is nothing so pleasant on a warm, thirsty day. They looked at the gooseberries, and thirsted for them; then they looked at the witch.

“Let’s run in and pick some, and run out quick,” whispered Mark.

“You stupid; she’d turn us into anything in a minute.”

“Well—shoot her first,” said Mark. “Take steady aim; John says if you draw their blood they can’t do anything. Don’t you remember, they stuck the last one with a prong.”

“Horrid cruel,” said Bevis.

“So it was,” said Mark; “but when you want gooseberries.”

“I wish we had some moly,” said Bevis; “you know, the plant Ulysses had. Mind before we start next time we must find some. Who knows what fearful magic people we might meet?”

“It was stupid not to think of it,” said Mark. “Do you know, I believe she’s a mummy.”

“Why?”

“She hasn’t moved; and I can’t see her draw her breath.”

“No more she does. This is a terrible place.”

“Can we get away without her seeing?”

“I believe she knows we’re here now, and very likely all we have been saying.”

“Did she make that curious thunder we heard?”

“No; a witch isn’t strong enough; it wants an enchanter to do that.”

“But she knows who did it?”

“Of course she does. There, she’s moved her arm; she’s alive. Aren’t those splendid gooseberries?”

“I’ll go in,” said Bevis; “you hold the gate open, so that I can run out.”

“So I will; don’t go very near.”

Bevis fitted an arrow to the string, and went up the garden path. But as he came near, and saw how peaceful the old lady looked, he removed the arrow from the string again. She took off her spectacles as he came up; he stopped about ten yards from her.

“Mrs Old Woman, are you a witch?”

“No, I bean’t a witch,” said the old lady; “I wishes I was; I’d soon charm a crock o’ gold.”

“Then, if you are not a witch, will you let us have some gooseberries? here’s sixpence.”

“You med have some if you want’s ’em; I shan’t take yer money.”

“What country is this?” said Bevis, going closer, as Mark came up beside him.

“This be Calais.”

“Granny, don’t you know who they be?” said a girl, coming round the corner of the cottage. She was about seventeen, and very pretty, with the bloom which comes on sweet faces at that age. Though they were but boys they were tall, and both handsome; so she had put a rose in her bosom. “They be Measter Bevis and Measter Mark. You know, as lives at Longcot.”

“Aw, to be sure.” The old lady got up and curtseyed. “You’ll come in, won’t ’ee?”

They went in and sat down on chairs on the stone floor. The girl brought them a plate of the gooseberries and a jug of spring-water. Bevis had not eaten two before he was up and looking at an old gun in the corner; the barrel was rusty, the brass guard tarnished, the ramrod gone, still it was a gun.

“Will it go off?” he said.

“Feyther used to make un,” said the girl.

Next he found a big black book, and lifted up the covers, and saw a rude engraving of a plant.

“Is that a magic book?” said he.

“I dunno,” she replied. “Mebbe. Granny used to read un.”

It was an old herbal.

“Can’t you read?” said Bevis.

The girl blushed and turned away.

“A’ be a lazy wench,” said the old woman. “A’ can’t read a mossel.”

“I bean’t lazy.”

“You be.”

Bevis, quite indifferent to that question, was peering into every nook and corner, but found nothing more.

“Let’s go,” said he directly.

Mark would not stir till he had finished the gooseberries.

“Tell me the way round the—the—” he was going to say sea, but recollected that they would not be able to understand how he and Mark were on an expedition, nor would he say pond—“round the water,” he said.

“The Longpond?” said the girl. “You can’t go round, there’s the marsh—not unless you goes back to Wood Lane, and nigh handy your place.”

“Which way did ’ee come?” asked the old woman.

“They come through the wood,” said the girl. “I seen um; and they had the spannul.”

She was stroking Pan, who loved her, as she had fed him with a bone. She knew the enormity of taking a strange dog through a wood in the breeding-season.

“How be um going to get whoam?” said the old woman.

“We’re going to walk, of course,” said Bevis.

“It’s four miles.”

“Pooh! We’ve come thousands. Come on, Mark; we’ll get round somehow.”

But the girl convinced him after a time that it was not possible, because of the marsh and the brook, and showed him too how the shadows of the elms were lengthening in the meadow outside the garden at the foot of the hill. Bevis reluctantly decided that they must abandon the expedition for that day, and return home. The girl offered to show them the way into the road. She led them by a narrow path beside the streamlet in the gully, and then along the steep side of the hill, where there were three or four more cottages, all built on the slope, steep as it was. The path in front of the doors had a kind of breastwork, that folk might not inadvertently tumble over and roll—if not quite sober—into the gully beneath. Yet there were small gardens behind, which almost stood up on end, the vegetables appearing over the roofs.

Upon the breastwork or mound they had planted a few flowers, all yellow, or yellow-tinged, marigolds, sunflowers, wall-flowers, a stray tulip, the gaudiest they knew. These specks of brightness by the dingy walls and grey thatch and whitened turf, for the chalk was but an inch under, came of instinct on that southern slope, as hot Spain flaunts a yellow flag.

Six or eight children were about. One sat crying in the midst of the path, so unconscious under the wrong he had endured as not to see them, and they had to step right over his red head. Some stared at them with unchecked rudeness; one or two curtseyed or tugged at their forelocks. The happiest of all was sitting on the breastwork (of dry earth) eating a small turnip from which he had cut the dirt and rind with a rusty table-knife. As they passed he grinned and pushed the turnip in their faces, as much as to say, “Have a bite.” Two or three women looked out after they had gone by, and then some one cried, “Baa!” making a noise like a sheep, at which the girl who led them flushed up, and walked very quickly, with scorn and rage, and hatred flashing in her eye. It was a taunt. Her father was in gaol for lamb-stealing. Her name was Aholibah, and they taunted her by dwelling on the last syllable.

The path went to the top of the hill, and round under a red barn, and now they could see the village, of which these detached cottages were an outpost, scattered over the slope, and on the plain on the other side of the coombe, a quarter of a mile distant.

“There’s the windmill,” said the girl, pointing to the tower-like building. “You go tow-ward he. He be on the road. Then you turn to the right till you comes to the handing-post. Then you go to the left, and that’ll take ’ee straight whoam.”

“Thank you,” said Bevis. “I know now; it’s not far to Big Jack’s house. Please have this sixpence,” and he gave her the coin, which he had unconsciously held in his hand ever since he had taken it out to pay for the gooseberries. It was all he had; he could not keep his money.

She took it, but her eyes were on him, and not on the money; she would have liked to have kissed him. She watched them till she saw they had got into the straight road, and then went back, but not past the cottages.

They found the road very long, very long and dull, and dusty and empty, except that there was a young labourer—a huge fellow—lying across a flint heap asleep, his mouth open and the flies thick on his forehead. Bevis pulled a spray from the hedge and laid it gently across his face. Except for the sleeping labourer, the road was vacant, and every step they took they went slower and slower. There were no lions here, or monstrous pythons, or anything magic.

“We shall never get home,” said Mark.

“I don’t believe we ever shall,” said Bevis; “I hate this road.”

While they yawned and kicked at stray flints, or pelted the sparrows on the hedge, a dog-cart came swiftly up behind them. It ran swift and smooth and even balanced, the slender shafts bending slightly like the spars of a yacht.

It was drawn by a beautiful chestnut mare, too powerful by far for many, which struck out with her fore-feet as if measuring space and carrying the car of a god in the sky, throwing her feet as if there were no road but elastic air beneath them. The man was very tall and broad and sat upright—a wonderful thing in a countryman. His head was broad like himself, his eyes blue, and he had a long thick yellowy beard. The reins were strained taut like a yacht’s cordage, but the mare was in the hollow of his strong hand.

They did not hear the hoofs till he was close, for they were on a flint heap, searching for the best to throw.

“It’s Jack,” said Mark.

Jack looked them very hard in the face, but it did not seem to dawn upon him who they were till he had gone past a hundred yards, and then he pulled up and beckoned. He said nothing but tapped the seat beside him. Bevis climbed up in front, Mark knelt on the seat behind—so as to look in the direction they were going. They drove two miles and Jack said nothing, then he spoke:—

“Where have you been?”

“To Calais.”

“Bad—bad,” said Jack. “Don’t go there again.” At the turnpike it took him three minutes to find enough to pay the toll. He had a divine mare, his harness, his cart were each perfect. Yet for all his broad shoulders he could barely muster up a groat. He pulled up presently when there were but two fields between them and the house at Longcot; he wanted to go down the lane, and they alighted to walk across the fields. After they had got down and were just turning to mount the gate, and the mare obeying the reins had likewise half turned. Jack said,—

“Hum!”

“Yes,” said Mark from the top bar.

“How are they all at home?” i.e. at Mark’s.

“Quito well,” said Mark.

“All?” said Jack again.

“Frances bruised her arm—”

“Much?” anxiously.

“You can’t see it—her skin’s like a plum,” said Mark; “if you just pinch it it shows.”

“Hum!” and Jack was gone.

Late in the evening they tried hard to catch the donkey, that Mark might ride home. It was not far, but now the day was over he was very tired, so too was Bevis. Tired as they were, they chased the donkey up and down—six times as far as it was to Mark’s house—but in vain, the moke knew them of old, and was not to be charmed or cowed. He showed them his heels, and they failed. So Mark stopped and slept with Bevis, as he had done so many times before. As they lay awake in the bedroom, looking out of the window opposite at a star, half awake and half asleep, suddenly Bevis started up on his arm.

“Let’s have a war,” he said.

“That would be first-rate,” said Mark, “and have a great battle.”

“An awful battle,” said Bevis, “the biggest and most awful ever known.”

“Like Waterloo?” said Mark.

“Pooh!”

“Agincourt?”

“Pooh!”

“Mal—Mal,” said Mark, trying to think of Malplaquet.

“Oh! more than anything,” said Bevis; “somebody will have to write a history about it.”

“Shall we wear armour?”

“That would be bow and arrow time. Bows and arrows don’t make any banging.”

“No more they do. It wants lots of banging and smoke—else its nothing.”

“No; only chopping and sticking.”

“And smashing and yelling.”

“No—and that’s nothing.”

“Only if we have rifles,” said Mark thoughtfully; “you see, people don’t see one another; they are so far off, and nobody stands on a bridge and keeps back all the enemy all by himself.”

“And nobody has a triumph afterwards with elephants and chariots, and paints his face vermilion.”

“Let’s have bow and arrow time,” said Mark; “it’s much nicer—and you sell the prisoners for slaves and get heaps of money, and do just as you like, and plough up the cities that don’t please you.”

“Much nicer,” said Bevis; “you very often kill all the lot and there’s nothing silly. I shall be King Richard and have a battle-axe—no, let’s be the Normans.”

“Wouldn’t King Arthur do?”

“No; he was killed, that would be stupid. I’ve a great mind to be Charlemagne.”

“Then I shall be Roland.”

“No; you must be a traitor.”

“But I want to fight your side,” said Mark.

“How many are there we can get to make the war?”

They consulted, and soon reckoned up fourteen or fifteen.

“It will be jolly awful,” said Mark; “there will be heaps of slain.”

“Let’s have Troy,” said Bevis.

“That’s too slow,” said Mark; “it lasted ten years.”

“Alexander the Great—let’s see; whom did he fight?”

“I don’t know; people nobody ever heard of—nobody particular, Indians and Persians and all that sort.”

“I know,” said Bevis; “of course! I know. Of course I shall be Julius Caesar!”

“And I shall be Mark Antony.”

“And we will fight Pompey.”

“But who shall be Pompey?” said Mark.

“Pooh! there’s Bill, and Wat, and Ted; anybody will do for Pompey.”

Volume One—Chapter Nine.

Swimming.

“Put your hands on the rail. Hold it as far off as you can. There—now let the water lift your feet up behind you.”

Bevis took hold of the rail, which was on a level with the surface, and then leaning his chest forward upon the water, felt his legs and feet gradually lifted up, till he floated. At first he grasped the rail as tight as he could, but in a minute he found that he need not do so. Just to touch the rail lightly was enough, for his extended body was as buoyant as a piece of wood. It was like taking a stick and pressing it down to the bottom, and then letting it go, when it would shoot up directly. The water felt deliciously soft under him, bearing him up far more gently than the grass, on which he was so fond of lying.

“Mark!” he shouted. “Do like this. Catch hold of the rail—it’s capital!”

Mark, who had been somewhat longer undressing than impatient Bevis, came in and did it, and there they both floated, much delighted. The water was between three and four feet deep. When Bevis’s papa found that they could not be kept from roaming, and were bent on boating on the Longpond, which was a very different thing to the shallow brook, where they were never far from shore, and out of which they could scramble, he determined to teach Bevis and his friend to swim. Till Bevis could swim, he should never feel safe about him; and unless his companion could swim too, it was of no use, for in case of accident, one would be sure to try and save the other, and perhaps be dragged down.

They had begged very hard to be allowed to have one of the boats in order to circumnavigate the New Sea, which it was so difficult to walk round; and he promised them if they would really try and learn to swim, that they should have the boat as a reward. He took them to a place near the old quarry they had discovered, in one corner of Fir-Tree Gulf, where the bottom was of sand, and shelved gently for a long way out; a line of posts and rails running into the water, to prevent cattle straying, as they could easily do where it was shallow like this. The field there, too, was away from any road, so that they could bathe at all times. It was a sunny morning, and Bevis, eager for his lesson, had torn off his things, and dashed into the water, like Pan.

“Now try one hand,” said his “governor.”

“Let one hand lie on the water—put your arm out straight—and hold the rail with the other.”

Bevis, rather reluctantly, did as he was told. He let go with his right hand, and stretched it out,—his left hand held him up just as easily, and his right arm seemed to float of itself on the surface. But now, as the muscles of his back and legs unconsciously relaxed, his legs drew up under him, and he bottomed with his feet and stood upright.

“Why’s that?” he said. “Why did I come up like that?”

“You must keep yourself a little stiff,” said the governor; “not rigid—not quite stiff—just feel your muscles then.”

Bevis did it again, and floated with one hand only on the rail: he found he had also to keep his left arm quite straight and firm. Then he had to do it with only two fingers on; while Mark and the governor stood still, that no ripple might enter his mouth, which was only an inch above the surface. Next, Mark was taken in hand, and learnt the same things; and having seen Bevis do it, he had not the least difficulty. The governor left them awhile to practise by themselves, and swam across to the mouth of the Nile, on the opposite side of the gulf. When he came back he found they had got quite confident; so confident, that Bevis, thinking to surpass this simple lesson, had tried letting go with both hands, when his chin immediately went under, and he struggled up spluttering.

The governor laughed. “I thought you would do that,” he said. “You only want a little—a very little support, just two fingers on the rail; but you must have some, and when you swim you have to supply it by your own motion. But you see how little is wanted.”

“I see,” said Bevis. “Why, we can very nearly swim now—can’t we, Mark?”

“Of course we can,” said Mark, kicking up his heels and making a tremendous splash.

“Now,” said the governor, “come here;” and he made Bevis go on his knees in shallow water, and told him to put both hands on the bottom. He did so; and when he was on all fours, facing the shore, the water only reached just above his elbow, which was not deep enough, so he had to move backwards till it touched his chest. He had then to extend his legs behind him, till the water lifted them up, while his hands remained on the bottom. His chest rested on the water, and all his body was buoyed up in the same pleasant way as when he had hold of the rail.

By letting his arms bend or give a little, he could tell exactly how much the water would bear him up, exactly how strong it was under him. He let himself sink till his chin was in the water and it came halfway to his lower lip, while he had his head well back, and looked up at the sycamore-trees growing in the field above the quarry. Then he floated perfectly, and there seemed not the least pressure on his hands; there was a little, but so little it appeared nothing, and he could fancy himself swimming.

“Now walk along with your hands,” said the governor.

Bevis did so; and putting one hand before the other, as a tumbler does standing on his head, moved with ease, his body floating, and having no weight at all. One hand would keep him, or even one finger when he put it on a stone at the bottom so that it did not sink in as it would have done into the sand; but if he extended his right arm, it had a tendency to bring his toes down to the bottom. Mark did the same thing, and there they crawled about in the shallow water on their hands only, and the rest floating, laughing at each other. They could hardly believe that it was the water did it; it kept them up just as if they were pieces of wood. The governor left them to practise this while he dressed, and then made them get out, as they had been in long enough for one morning.

“Pan does not swim like you do,” said Mark, as they were walking home.

“No,” said the governor, “he paddles; he runs in the water the same as he does on land.”

“Why couldn’t we do that?” asked Mark.

“You can, but it is not much use: you only get along so slowly. When you can swim properly, you can copy Pan in a minute.”

The governor could not go with them again for two days on account of business; but full of their swimming, they looked in the old bookcase, and found a book in which there were instructions, and among other things they read that the frog was the best model. Out they ran to look for a frog; but as it was sunny there were none visible, till Mark remembered there was generally one where the ivy of the garden wall had spread over the ground in the corner.

In that cool place they found one, and Bevis picked it up. The frog was cold to the touch even in the summer day, so they put it on a cabbage-leaf and carried it to the stone trough in the yard. No sooner did it feel the water than the frog struck out and crossed the trough, first in one direction, and then in another, afterwards swimming all round close to the sides, but unable to land, as the stone was to it like a wall.

“He kicks,” said Mark, leaning over the trough; “he only kicks; he doesn’t use his arms.”

The frog laid out well with his legs, but kept his forelegs, or arms, still, or nearly so.

“Now, what’s the good of a frog?” said Bevis; “men don’t swim like that.”

“It’s very stupid,” said Mark; “he’s no model at all.”

“Not a bit.”

The frog continued to go round the trough much more slowly.

“No use watching him.”

So they went away, but before they had gone ten yards Bevis ran back.

“He can’t get out,” he said; and placing the cabbage-leaf under the frog, he lifted the creature out of the trough and put him on the ground. No sooner was the frog on the ground than he went under the trough in the moist shade there, for the cattle as they drank splashed a good deal over. When they told the governor, he said that what they had noticed was correct, but the frog was a good model in two things nevertheless; first in the way he kicked, and secondly in the way he leaned his chest on the water. But a man had to use his arms so as to balance his body and keep his chin and mouth from going under, besides the assistance they give as oars to go forward.

Next morning they went to the bathing-place again. Bevis had now to hold the rail as previously, but when he had got it at arm’s length he was told to kick like the frog.

“Draw your knees up close together and kick, and send your feet wide apart,” said the governor. Bevis did so, and the thrust of his legs sent him right up against the rail. He did this several times, and was then ordered to go on hands and knees in the shallow water, just as he had done before, and let his legs float up. When they floated he had to kick, to draw his knees up close together, and then strike his feet back wide apart. The thrust this time lifted his hands off the bottom on which they had been resting, lifted them right up, and sent him quite a foot nearer the shore. His chest was forced against the water like an inclined plane, and he was thus raised an inch or so. When the impulse ceased he sank as much, and his hands touched the bottom once more.

This pleased him greatly—it was quite half-swimming; but he found it necessary to be careful while practising it that there were no large stones on the bottom, and that he did not get in too shallow water, else he grazed his knees. In the water you scarcely feel these kind of hurts, and many a bather has been surprised upon getting out to find his knees or legs bruised, or even the skin off, from contact with stones or gravel, of which he was unaware at the time.

Mark had no difficulty in doing the same, it was even easier for him, as he had only to imitate, which is not so hard as following instructions. The second, indeed, often learns quicker than the first. They kicked themselves along in fine style.

“Keep your feet down,” said the governor; “don’t let them come above the surface, and don’t splash. Mark, you are not drawing your knees up, you are only lifting your heels; it makes all the difference.”

He then made them hold on to the rail in the deepest water they could fathom—standing himself between them and the deeper water—and after letting their legs float, ordered them to kick there, but to keep their arms straight and stiff, not to attempt to progress, only to practise the kick. The object was that they might kick deep and strong, and not get into a habit of shallow kicking, as they might while walking on their hands on the sand. All that lesson they had to do nothing but kick.

In a day or two they were all in the water again, and after a preliminary splashing, just to lot off their high spirits—otherwise they would not pay attention—serious business began.

“Now,” said the governor, “you must begin to use your arms. You are half-independent of touching the bottom already—you can feel that you can float without your feet touching anything; now you must try to float altogether. You know the way I use mine.”

They had seen him many times, and had imitated the motion on shore, first putting the flat hands together, thumb to thumb; the thumbs in their natural position, and not held under the palm; the tips of the thumbs crossing (as sculls cross in sculling); the fingers together, but not squeezed tight, a little interstice between them matters nothing, while if always squeezed tight it causes a strain on the wrist. The flat hands thus put together held four to six inches in front of the breast, and then shot out—not with a jerk, quick, but no savage jerk, which wastes power—and the palms at the extremity of the thrust turned partly aside, and more as they oar the water till nearly vertical.

Do not attempt a complete sweep—a complete half-circle—oar them round as far as they will go easily without an effort to the shoulders, and then bring them back. The object of not attempting a full sweep is that the hands may come back easily, and without disturbing the water in front of the chest and checking progress, as they are apt to do. They should slip back, and then the thumbs being held naturally, just as you would lay your flat hand on the table, they do not meet with resistance as they do if held under the palm. If the fingers are kept squeezed tight together when the hands are brought back to the chest, should they vary a hair’s breadth from a level position they stop progress exactly like an oar held still in the water, and it is very difficult to keep them absolutely level. But if the fingers are the least degree apart, natural, if the hand inclines a trifle, the fingers involuntarily open and the water slips through, besides which, as there is no strain, the hands return level with so much greater ease. The thrust forward is so easy—it is learnt in a moment—you can imitate it the first time you see it—that the bringing back is often thought of no account. In fact, the bringing back is the point, and if it be not studied you will never swim well. This he had told them from time to time on shore, and they had watched him as he swam slowly by them, on purpose that they might observe the manner. But to use the arms properly on shore, when they pass through air and meet with no resistance, is very different to using them properly in the water.

Bevis had to stand facing the shore in water as deep as his chest; then to stoop a little—one foot in front of the other for ease—till his chin nearly rested on the surface, and then to strike out with his arms. He was not to attempt anything with his feet, simply to stand and try the stroke. He put his flat hands together, pushed them out, and oared them round as he had often done on land. As he oared them round they pushed him forward, so that he had to take a step on the bottom; they made him walk a step forward. This he had to repeat twenty times, the governor standing by, and having much trouble to make him return his hands to his chest without obstructing his forward progress.

Bevis became very impatient now to swim arms and legs together; he was sure he could do it, for his arms, as they swept back, partly lifted him up and pushed him on.

“Very well,” said the governor. “Go and try. Here, Mark.”

He took Mark in hand, but before they had had one trial Bevis had started to swim, and immediately his head went under unexpectedly, so that he came up spluttering, and had to sit on the rail till he could get the water out of his throat. While he sat there in no good temper Mark had his lesson. The governor then went for a swim himself, being rather tired of reiterating the same instructions, leaving them to practise. On his return—he did not go far, only just far enough to recover his patience—he set them to work at another thing.

Bevis had to go on his hands on the bottom as he had done before, and let his limbs float behind. Then he was told to try striking out with the right hand, keeping the left on the sand to support himself. He did so, and as his arm swept back it pushed him forward just as an oar would a boat. The next time he did it he kicked with his legs at the same moment, and the impetus of the kick and the motion of his right arm together lifted his left hand momentarily off the bottom, and sent him along. This he did himself without being told, the idea of doing so would occur to any one in the same position.

“That’s right,” said the governor. “Do that again.”

Bevis did it again and again, and felt now that he was three-parts swimming; he swam with his legs, and his right arm, and only just touched the bottom with his left hand. After he had repeated it six or seven times he lifted his left hand a little way, and made a quarter stroke with it too, and then jumped up and shouted that he could swim.

Mark had to have his lesson some yards away, for Bevis had so splashed the water in his excitement that it was thick with the sand he had disturbed. Bevis continued his trials, raising his left arm a little more every time till he could very nearly use both together. They were then both set to work to hold on to the rail, let their limbs float, and strike out with one arm, alternately left and right, kicking at the same moment. This was to get into the trick of kicking and striking out with the hands together. Enough had now been done for that morning.

They came up again the next day, and the governor left them this time almost to themselves to practise what they had learnt. They went on their hands on the sand, let their limbs float, and by degrees began to strike out with both hands, first lifting the left hand a few inches, then more, till presently, as they became at home in the water, they could nearly use both.

The next time they bathed the governor set Bevis a fresh task. He was made to stand facing the shore in water as deep as his chest, then to lean forward gently on it—without splash—and to strike out with both his arms and legs together. He did it immediately, at the first trial, but of course stood up directly. Next he was told to try and make two strokes—one is easily made, but the difficulty is when drawing up the knees and bringing the hands back for the second stroke. The chin is almost certain to go under, and some spluttering to follow. Bevis did his best, and held his breath, and let his head go down well till he drew some water up his nostrils, and was compelled to sit on the rail and wait till he could breathe properly again.

Mark tried with exactly the same result. The first stroke when the feet pushed from the ground was easy; but when he endeavoured to draw up his knees for the second, down went his head.

The only orders they received were to keep on trying.

Two days afterwards they bathed again, but though they asked the governor to tell them something else he would not do so, he ordered them to try nothing but the same thing over and over again, to face the shore and strike out. If they liked they could push forward very hard with their feet, if it was done without splash, and the impetus would last through two strokes, and help to keep the body up while they drew up their knees for the second stroke. Then he went for a swim across to the Nile and left them.

They tried their very hardest, and then went on their hands on the sand to catch the idea of floating again. After that they succeeded, but so nearly together that neither could claim to be first. They pushed off from the ground hard, struck out, drew up their knees and recovered their hands, and made the second stroke. They had to hold their breath while they did it, for their mouths would go under, but still it was done. Shouting to the governor to come back they threw themselves at the water, bold as spaniels dashing in, wild with delight.