Front matter (continued 6)

“It’s no use wearing ship,” said Mark.

“Not a bit; we lose more than ever. You’d better row again,” said Bevis reluctantly.

Mark pulled her round again, and they sailed to and fro three times more, but did but keep their position, for the wind was perceptibly less as the day went on, and it became near noon.

“I hate those rushes,” said Mark, as he pulled her head round once more.

Bevis did not reply, but this time he steered straight across to the Nile and up it till the bank sheltered them from the wind. There they took down the sails, quite beaten, for that day at least, and rowed back to harbour.

Next morning when they arrived at the New Sea they found that the wind came more down the water, having turned a little to the south, but it was the same in force. They started again, and sailed very well till they were opposite the hollow oak in which on the day of battle it was supposed Bevis had hidden. Here the wind was a head-wind, against which they could only work by tacking, and when they came to tack they found just the same difficulty as yesterday.

All the space they gained during the tack was lost in coming round before the boat could get way on her. They sailed to and fro from the hollow oak to some willow bushes on the other side, and could not advance farther. Sometimes they got above the oak, but then they fell back behind the willow bushes; sometimes they worked up twenty yards higher than the willow bushes, but dropped below the oak.

Bevis soon discovered why they made better tacks now and then; it was because the wind shifted a little, and did not so directly oppose them. The instant it returned to its usual course they could not progress up the sea. By the willow bushes they could partly see into Fir-Tree Gulf; yesterday they could not sail out of the gulf, and to-day, with all their efforts, they could not sail into it.

After about twenty trials they were compelled to own that they were beaten, and returned to harbour. Bevis was very much troubled with this failure, and as soon as they had got home he asked Mark to go up in the bench-room, or do anything he liked, and leave him by himself while he looked at the old encyclopaedia.

Mark did as he was asked, knowing that Bevis always learnt anything best by himself. Bevis went up into the bedroom, where the great book remained open on the chair, knelt down, and set to work to read everything there was in it on ships and navigation. There was the whole history of boats and ships, from the papyrus canoes of the Nile, made by plaiting the stalks, the earthenware boats, hide boats, rafts or skins, hollowed trees, bark canoes, catamarans, and proas. There was an account of the triremes of Rome, and on down to the caravels, bilanders, galliots, zebecs, and great three-deckers. The book did not quite reach to the days of glorious Nelson.

It laid down the course supposed to have been followed by Ulysses, and described the voyages of the Phoenicians to Britain. The parts of a three-decker were pictured, and the instruments of navigation were explained with illustrations. Everything was there except what Bevis wanted, for in all this exhaustive and really interesting treatise, there were no plain directions how to tack.

There were the terms and the very orders in nautical language, but no explanation as to how it was done. Bevis shut the book up, and rose with a sigh, for he had become so occupied with his search that he had unconsciously checked his breathing. He went down to the bookcase and stood before it thoughtfully. Presently he recollected that there was something about yachting in a modern book of sports. He found it and read it carefully, but though it began about Daedalus, and finished with the exact measurement of a successful prize-winning yacht, he could not make out what he wanted.

The account was complete even to the wages of the seamen and the method of signalling with flags. There was a glossary of terms, but nothing to tell him how to tack, that is, nothing that he could understand. He put the book away, and went out into the blue-painted summer-house to think it over again.

What you really want to know is never in a book, and no one can tell you. By-and-by, if you keep it steadily in memory and ever have your eyes open, you hit on it by accident. Some mere casual incident throws the solution right into your hands at an unexpected moment.

Bevis had fitted up his boat according to his recollections of those he had seen in the pictures.

There was no sailing-boat that he could go and see nearer than forty miles. As he sat thinking it over Mark rushed up. He, too, had been thinking, and he had found something.

“I know,” he said.

“What?”

“We have not got enough ballast,” said Mark. “That’s it—I’m sure that’s it. Don’t you remember how the boat kept drifting?”

“Very likely,” said Bevis. “Yes, that’s it; how stupid we were. Let’s get some more directly. I know; I’ll ask the governor for a bag of shot.”

The governor allowed them to take the bag, which weighed twenty-eight pounds, on condition that they put it inside a small sack, so as to look like sand, else some one might steal it. They also found two pieces of iron, scraps, which made up the fresh ballast to about forty pounds. The wind had now gone down as it did soon after midday, and they could do nothing.

But next morning it blew again from the south, and they were afloat directly after breakfast. The effect of the ballast was as Mark had anticipated; the boat did not drift so much, she made less leeway, and she was stiffer, that is, she stood up to the wind better. They did not lose so much quite, but still they did not gain, nor would she come round without using a scull; indeed, she was even worse in this respect, and more obstinate, she would not come up into the wind, the weight seemed to hold her back.

After two hours they were obliged to give it up for the third time. The following day there was no wind. “Let’s make the anchor,” said Mark, “and while we’re making the anchor perhaps we shall think of something about tacking.”

So they began to make the anchor, after the picture of one in the old folio. They found a square piece of deal, it was six inches by four, and sawed off about two feet. In the middle they cut a long hole right through, and after much trouble found a flat stone to fit it. This was wedged in tight, and further fastened with tar-cord. Near one end a small square hole was cut, and through this they put a square rod of iron, which the blacksmith sold them for a shilling—about three times its value.

The rod was eighteen inches long, and when it was through it was bent up, or curved, and the ends filed to a blunt point. It fitted tight, but they wedged it still firmer with nails, and it was put the opposite way to the stone, so that when the stone tried to sink flat on the bottom, one or other of the points of the bar would stick in the ground. Mark thought there ought to be a cross-piece of wood or iron as there is in proper anchors, but so far as they could make out, this was not attached to the ancient stone-weighted ones, and so they did not put it.

Lastly, a hole was bored at the other end of the shaft, and the rope or cable (a stout cord) inserted and fastened. Looking eagerly out of window in the morning to see if there was a wind they were delighted to see the clouds drifting from the north-north-west. This was a capital wind for them as they could not tack. It was about the same that had been blowing the first day when they sailed into Fir-Tree Gulf and could not get out, but it would have taken them to the very end of the New Sea had they not considered it proper to coast round. This time they meant to sail straight up the centre and straight back.

Volume Two—Chapter Eight.

Sailing Continued—Voyage to the Unknown Island.

After breakfast they got afloat, and when away from the trees the boat began to sail fast, and every now and then the bubbles rushed from under the bow. Mark sat on the ballast, or rather reclined, and Bevis steered. The anchor was upon the forecastle, as they called it, with twenty-five feet of cable. Sailing by the bluff covered with furze, by the oak where the council was held, past the muddy shore lined with weeds where the cattle came down to drink, past the hollow oak and the battlefield, they saw the quarry and Fir-Tree Gulf, but did not enter it. As they reached the broader water the wind came fresher over the wide surface, and the boat careening a little hastened on. They were now a long way from either shore in the centre of the widest part.

“This is the best sail we’ve had,” said Mark, putting his legs out as far as he could, leaning his back against the seat and his head against the mast. “It’s jolly.”

Bevis got off the stern-sheets and sat down on the bottom so that he too could recline, he had nothing to do but just keep the tiller steady and watch the mainsail, the wind set the course for them. They could feel the breeze pulling at the sails, and the boat drawn along.

“Is it rough?” said Mark.

“Shall we take in a reef?” said Bevis.

“No,” said Mark. “Let’s capsize.”

“Right,” said Bevis. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Not a bit. Isn’t she slipping along?”

“Gurgling and guggling.”

“Bubbling and smacking. That was spray.”

“There’s a puff. How many knots are we going?”

“Ten.”

“Pooh! twenty. No chance of a pirate catching us.”

“In these unknown seas,” said Mark, “you can’t tell what proas are waiting behind the islands, nor how many Malays with creeses.”

“They’re crooked the wrong way,” said Bevis. “The most curious knives I ever saw.”

“Or junks,” went on Mark. “Are these the Chinese Seas?”

“Jingalls,” said Bevis, “they shoot big bullets, almost cannon-balls, as big as walnuts. I wish we had one in the forecastle.”

“We ought to have a cannon.”

“Of course we did.”

“As if we couldn’t manage a cannon!”

“As if!”

“Or a double-barrel gun.”

“Or anything.”

“Anything.”

“People are stupid.”

“Idiotic.”

“We must have a gun.”

“We must.”

They listened again to the gurgling and “guggling,” the bubbles, and kiss, kiss of the wavelets.

“We’re a long way now,” said Mark presently. “Can we see land?”

“See land! We lost sight of land months ago. I should think not. Look up there.”

Bevis was watching the top of the mast, tracing its line along the sky, where white filmy clouds were floating slowly. Mark opened his drowsy eyes and looked up too.

“No land in sight,” said he. “Nothing but sky and clouds,” said Bevis. “How far are we from shore?”

“Six thousand miles.”

“It’s the first time anybody has ever sailed out of sight of land in our time,” said Mark. “It’s very wonderful, and we shall be made a great deal of when we get home.”

“Yes, and put in prison afterwards. That’s the proper way.”

“We shall bring home sandal-wood, and diamonds as big as—as apples—”

“And see unknown creatures in the sea, and butterflies as huge as umbrellas—”

“Catch fevers and get well again—”

“We must make notes of the language, and coax the people to give us some of their ancient books.”

“O! I say,” said Mark, “when you were on the Unknown Island did you see the magician with long white robes, and the serpent a hundred feet long he keeps in a cave under the bushes?”

“No,” said Bevis, “I forgot him.” So he had. His imagination ran so rapidly, one thing took the place of the other as the particles of water take each other’s place in a running brook. “We shall find him, I dare say.”

“Let’s land and see.”

“So we will.”

“Are you sure you’re steering right?”

“O! yes; it’s nothing to do, you only have to keep the wind in the sails.”

“I wonder what bird that is?” said Mark, as a dove flew over. He knew a dove well enough on land.

“It’s a sort of parrot, no doubt.”

“I wonder how deep it is here.”

“About a million fathoms.”

“No use trying to anchor.”

“Not the least.”

“It’s very warm.”

“In these places ships get burnt by the sun sometimes.”

Another short silence. “Is it time to take a look-out, captain?”

“Yes, I think so,” said the captain. Mark crept up in the bow.

“You’re steering too much to the right—that way,” he cried, holding out his right arm.

“Is that better?”

“More over.”

“There.”

“Right.”

As the boat fell off a little from the wind obeying the tiller, Bevis, now the foresail was out of his line of sight could see the Unknown Island. They were closer than they had thought.

“Shall we land on Serendib?”

“O! no—on your island,” said Mark. “Steer as close to the cliff as you can.”

Bevis did so, and the boat approached the low sandy cliff against which the waves had once beat with such fury. The wavelets now washed sideways past it with a gentle splashing, they were not large enough to make the boat dance, and if they had liked they could have gone up and touched it.

“It looks very deep under it,” said Mark, as Bevis steered into the channel, keeping two or three yards from shore.

“Ready,” he said; “get ready to furl the mainsail.”

Mark partly unfastened the halyard, and held it in his hand. Almost directly they had passed the cliff they were in the lee of the island which kept off the wind. The boat moved, carried on by its impetus through the still water, but the sails did not draw. In a minute Bevis told Mark to let the mainsail down, and as it dropped Mark hauled the sail in or the folds would have fallen in the water. At the same moment Bevis altered the course, and ran her ashore some way below where he had leaped off the punt, and where it was low and shelving. Mark was out the instant she touched with the painter, and tugged her up on the strand. Bevis came forward and let down the foresail, then he got out.

“Captain,” said Mark, “may I go round the island?”

“Yes,” said the captain, and Mark stepped in among the bushes to explore. Bevis went a little way and sat down under a beech. The hull of the boat was hidden by the undergrowth, but he could see the slender mast and some of the rigging over the boughs. The sunshine touched the top of the smooth mast, which seemed to shine above the green leaves. There was the vessel; his comrade was exploring the unknown depths of the wood; they were far from the old world and the known countries. He sat and gloated over the voyage, till by-and-by he remembered the tacking.

They could not do it, even yet they were only half mariners, and were obliged to wait for a fair wind. If it changed while they were on the island they would have to row back. He was no longer satisfied; he went down to the boat, stepped on board, and hoisted the sails. The trees and the island itself so kept off the wind that it was perfectly calm, and the sails did not even flutter. He stepped on shore, and went a few yards where he could look back and get a good view of the vessel, trying to think what it could be they did not do, or what it could be that was wrong.

He looked at her all over, from the top of the mast to the tiller, and he could not discover anything. Bevis walked up and down, he worked himself quite into a fidget. He went into the wood a little way, half inclined to go after Mark as he felt so restless. All at once he took out his pocket-book and pencil and sat down on the ground just where he was, and drew a sailing-boat such as he had seen. Then he went back to the shore, and sketched their boat on the other leaf. His idea was to compare the sailing-boats he had seen with theirs.

When he had finished his outline drawing he saw directly that there were several differences. The mast in the boat sketched from memory was much higher than the mast in the other. Both sails, too, were larger than those he had had made. The bowsprit projected farther, but the foresail was not so much less in proportion as the mainsail. The foresail looked almost large enough, but the mainsail in the boat was not only smaller, it was not of the same shape.

In his sketch from memory the gaff or rod at the top of the sail rose up at a sharper angle, and the sail came right back to the tiller. In the actual boat before him the gaff was but little more than horizontal to the mast, and the sail only came back three-fourths of the distance it ought to have done.

“It must be made bigger,” Bevis thought. “The mainsail must be made ever so much larger, and it must reach to where I sit. That’s the mistake—you can see it in a minute. Mark! Mark!” He shouted and whistled.

Mark came presently running. “I’ve been all round,” he said panting, “and I’ve—”

“This is it,” said Bevis, holding up his pocket-book.

“I’ve seen a huge jack—a regular shark. I believe it was a shark—and three young wild ducks, and some more of those parrots up in the trees.”

“The mainsail—”

“And something under the water that made a wave, and went along—”

“Look, you see it ought to come—”

“What could it have been that made the wave and went along?”

“O! nothing—only a porpoise, or a seal, or a walrus—nothing! Look here—”

“But,” said Mark, “the wave moved along, and I could not tell what made it.”

“Magic,” said Bevis. “Very likely the magician. Did you see him?”

“No; but I believe there’s something very curious about this island—”

“It’s enchanted, of course,” said Bevis. “There’s lots of things you know are there, and you can’t find,” said Mark; “there’s a tiger, I believe, in the bushes and reeds at the other end. If I had had my spear I should have gone and looked, and there’s boa-constrictors and a hippopotamus was here last night, and heaps of jolly things, and I’ve found a place to make a cave. Come and see,” (pulling Bevis).

“I’ll come,” said Bevis, “in a minute. But just look, I’ve found out what was wrong—”

“And how to tack?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s do it, and tack and get shipwrecked, and live here. If we only had Jack’s rifle.”

“But we must sail properly first,” said Bevis. “I shan’t do anything till we can sail properly: now this is it. Look.”

He showed Mark the two sketches, and how their mainsail did not reach back far enough towards the stern.

“Frances must make it larger,” said Mark. “Of course that’s it—it’s as different as possible. And the mast ought to be higher—it would crack better, and go overboard—whop!”

“I don’t know,” said Bevis; “about the mast; yes, I think I will. We will make one a foot or eighteen inches higher—”

“Bigger sails will go faster, and smash the ship splendidly against the rocks,” said Mark. “There’ll be a crash and a grinding, and the decks will blow up, and there’ll be an awful yell as everybody is gulped up but you and me.”

“While we’re doing it, we’ll make another bowsprit, too—longer,” said Bevis.

“Why didn’t we think of it before,” said Mark. “How stupid! Now you look at it, you can see it in a minute. And we had to sail half round the world to find it.”

“That’s just it,” said Bevis. “You sail forty thousand miles to find a thing, and when you get there you can see you left it at home.”

“We have been stupes,” said Mark. “Let’s do it directly. I’ll shave the new mast, and you take the sails to Frances. And now come and see the place for the cave.”

Bevis went with him, and Mark took him to the bank or bluff inside the island which Bevis had passed when he explored it the evening of the battle. The sandy bank rose steeply for some ten or fifteen feet, and then it was covered with brambles and fern. There was a space at the foot clear of bushes and trees, and only overgrown with rough grasses. Beyond this there were great bramble thickets, and the trees began again about fifty yards away, encircling the open space. The spot was almost in the centre of the island, but rather nearer the side where there was a channel through the weeds than the other.

“The sand’s soft and hard,” said Mark. “I tried it with my knife; you can cut it, but it won’t crumble.”

“We should not have to prop the roof,” said Bevis.

“No, and it’s as dry as chips; it’s the most splendid place for a cave that ever was.”

“So it is,” said Bevis. “Nobody could see us.”

He looked round. The high bank shut them in behind, the trees in front and each side. “Besides, there’s nobody to look. It’s capital.”

“Will you do it,” said Mark.

“Of course I will—directly we can sail properly.”

“Hurrah!” shouted Mark, hitting up his heels, having caught that trick from Bevis. “Let’s go home and begin the sails. Come on.”

“But I know one thing,” said Bevis, as they returned to the boat; “if we’re going to have a cave, we must have a gun.”

“That’s just what I say. Can’t we borrow one? I know, you put up Frances to make Jack lend us his rifle. She’s fond of you—she hates me.”

“I’ll try,” said Bevis. “How ought you to get a girl to do anything?”

“Stare at her,” said Mark. “That’s what Jack does, like a donk at a thistle when he can’t eat any more.”

“Does Frances like the staring?”

“She pretends she doesn’t, but she does. You stare at her, and act stupid.”

“Is Jack stupid?”

“When he’s at our house,” said Mark. “He’s as stupid as an owl. Now she kisses you, and you just whisper and squeeze her hand, and say it’s very tiny. You don’t know how conceited she is about her hand—can’t you see—she’s always got it somewhere where you can see it; and she sticks her foot out so,” (Mark put one foot out); “and don’t you move an inch, but stick close to her, and get her into a corner or in the arbour. Mind, though, if you don’t keep on telling her how pretty she is, she’ll box your ears. That’s why she hates me—”

“Because you don’t tell her she’s pretty. But she is pretty.”

“But I’m not going to be always telling her so—I don’t see that she’s anything very beautiful either—you and I should look nice if we were all the afternoon doing our hair, and if we walked like that and stuck our noses up in the air; and kept grinning, and smacked ourselves with powder, and scent, and all such beastly stuff. Now Jack’s rifle—”

“We could make it shoot,” said Bevis, “if we had it all to ourselves, and put bullets through apples stuck up on a stick, or smash an egg—”

“And knock over the parrots up in these trees.”

“I will have a gun,” said Bevis, kicking a stone with all his might. “Are you sure Frances could get Jack—”

“Frances get Jack to do it! Why, I’ve seen him kiss her foot.”

They got on board laughing and set the sails, but as the island kept the wind off, Mark had to row till they were beyond the cliff. Then the sails filled and away they went.

“Thessaly,” said Mark presently. “See! we’re getting to places where people live again. I say, shall we try the anchor?”

“Yes. Let down the mainsail first.”

Mark let it down, and then put the anchor over. It sank rapidly, drawing the cable after it. The flat stone in the shaft endeavoured as it sank to lie flat on the bottom, and this brought one of the flukes or points against the ground, and the motion of the boat dragging at it caused it to stick in a few inches. The cable tightened, and the boat brought up and swung with her stem to the wind. Mark found that they did not want all the cable; he hauled it in till there was only about ten feet out; so that, allowing for the angle, the water was not much more than five or six feet deep. They were off the muddy shore, lined with weeds. Rude as the anchor was, it answered perfectly. In a minute or two they hauled it up, set the mainsail, and sailed almost to the harbour, having to row the last few yards because the trees kept much of the breeze off. They unshipped the mast, and carried it and the sails home.

In the evening Mark set to work to shave another and somewhat longer pole for the new mast, and Bevis took the sails and some more canvas to Frances. He was not long gone, and when he returned said that Frances had promised to do the work immediately.

“Did you do the cat and mouse?” said Mark. “Did you stare?”

“I stared,” said Bevis, “but there were some visitors there—”

“Stupes?”

“Stupes, so I couldn’t get on very well. She asked me what I was looking at, and if she wasn’t all right—”

“She meant her flounces; she thinks of nothing but her flounces. Some of the things are called gores.”

“But I began about the rifle, and she said perhaps, but she really had no influence with Jack.”

“O!” said Mark with a snort. “Another buster.”

“And she couldn’t think why you didn’t come home. She had forgiven you a long time, and you were always unkind to her, and she was always forgiving you.”

“Busters,” said Mark. “She’s on telling stories from morning to night.”

“I don’t see why you should be afraid of her; she can’t hurt you.”

“Not hurt me! Why if you’ve done anything—it’s niggle-niggle, niggle-naggle, and she’ll play you every nasty trick, and set the Old Moke on to look cross; and then when Jack comes, it’s ‘Mark, dear Mark,’ and wouldn’t you think she was a sweet darling who loved her brother!”

Mark tore off a shaving.

“One thing though,” he added. “Won’t she serve Jack out when he’s got her and obliged to have her. As if I didn’t know why she wants me to come home. All she wants is to send some letters to him.”

“Postman. I see,” said Bevis.

“But I’ll go,” said Mark. “I’ll go and fetch the sails to-morrow. I should like to see the jolly Old Moke; and don’t you see? if I take the letters she’ll be pleased and get the rifle for us.”

It was exceedingly disrespectful of Mark to speak of his governor as the Old Moke; his actual behaviour was very different to his speech, for in truth he was most attached to his father. The following afternoon Mark walked over and got the sails, and as he had guessed Frances gave him a note for Jack, which he had to deliver that evening. They surprised the donkey; Mark mounted and rode off.

Bevis went on with the mast and the new gaff and bowsprit, and when Mark got back about sunset he had the new mast and rigging fitted up in the shed to see how it looked. The first time they made a mast it took them a long while, but now, having learned exactly how to do it, the second had soon been prepared. The top rose above the beam of the shed, and the mainsail stretched out under the eave.

“Hoist the peak up higher,” said the governor. Being so busy they had not heard him come. “Hoist it up well, Mark.”

Mark gave another pull at the halyard, and drew the peak, or point of the gaff, up till it stood at a sharp angle.

“The more peak you can get,” said the governor, “the more leverage the wind has, and the better she will answer the rudder.”

He was almost as interested in their sailing as they were themselves, and had watched them from the bank of the New Sea concealed behind the trees. But he considered it best that they should teach themselves, and find out little by little where they were wrong. Besides which he knew that the greatest pleasure is always obtained from inferior and incomplete instruments. Present a perfect yacht, a beautiful horse, a fine gun, or anything complete to a beginner, and the edge of his enjoyment is dulled with too speedy possession. The best way to learn to ride is on a rough pony, to sail in an open ill-built boat, because by encountering difficulties the learner comes to understand and appreciate the perfect instrument, and to wield or direct it with fifty times more power than if he had been born to the purple.

From the shore the governor had watched them vainly striving to tack, and could but just refrain from pointing out the reason. When he saw them fitting up the enlarged sails and the new mast, he exulted almost as much as they did themselves. “They will do it,” he said to himself, “they will do it this time.”

Then to Bevis, “Pull the mainsail back as far as you can, and don’t let it hollow out, not hollow and loose. Keep it taut. It ought be as flat as a board. There—” He turned away abruptly, fearing he had told them too much.

“As flat as a board,” repeated Bevis. “So I will. But we thought it was best hollow, didn’t we?” There was still enough light left to see to step the mast, so they carried the sails and rigging up to the boat, and fitted them the same evening.

Volume Two—Chapter Nine.

Sailing Continued—The Pinta—New Formosa.

In the morning the wind blew south, coming down the length of the New Sea. Though it was light and steady it brought larger waves than they had yet sailed in, because they had so far to roll. Still they were not half so high as the day of the battle, and came rolling slowly, with only a curl of foam now and then. The sails were set, and as they drifted rather than sailed out of the sheltered harbour, the boat began to rise and fall, to their intense delight.

“Now it’s proper sea,” said Mark.

“Keep ready,” said Bevis. “She’s going. We shall be across in two minutes.”

He hauled the mainsheet taut, and kept it as the governor had told him, as flat as a board. Smack! The bow hit a wave, and threw handfuls of water over Mark, who knelt on the ballast forward, ready to work the foresheets. He shouted with joy, “It’s sea, it’s real sea!”

Smack! smack! His jacket was streaked and splotched with spray; he pushed his wet hair off his eyes. Sish! sish! with a bubbling hiss the boat bent over, and cut into the waves like a knife. So much more canvas drove her into the breeze, and as she went athwart the waves every third one rose over the windward bow like a fountain, up the spray flew, straight up, and then horizontally on Mark’s cheek. There were wide dark patches on the sails where they were already wet.

Bevis felt the tiller press his hand like the reins with a strong fresh horse. It vibrated as the water parted from the rudder behind. The least movement of the tiller changed her course. Instead of having to hold the tiller in such a manner as to keep the boat’s head up to the wind, he had now rather to keep her off, she wanted to fly in the face of the breeze, and he had to moderate such ardour. The broad mainsail taut, and flat as a board, strove to drive the bow up to windward.

“Look behind,” said Mark. “Just see.”

There was a wake of opening bubbles and foam, and the waves for a moment were smoothed by their swift progress. Opposite the harbour the New Sea was wide, and it had always seemed a long way across, but they had hardly looked at the sails and the wake, and listened to the hissing and splashing, than it was time to tack.

“Ready,” said Bevis. “Let go.”

Mark let go, and the foresail bulged out and fluttered, offering no resistance to the wind. Bevis pushed the tiller over, and the mainsail having its own way at last drove the head of the boat into the wind, half round, three-quarters; now they faced it, and the boat pitched. The mainsail shivered; its edge faced the wind.

“Pull,” said Bevis the next moment.

Mark pulled the foresheet tight to the other side. It drew directly, and like a lever brought her head round, completing the turn. The mainsail flew across. Bevis hauled the sheet tight. She rolled, heaved, and sprang forward.

“Hurrah! We’ve done it! Hurrah!”

They shouted and kicked the boat. Wish! the spray flew, soaking Mark’s jacket the other side, filling his pocket with water, and even coming back as far as Bevis’s feet. Sish! sish! The wind puffed, and the rigging sang; the mast leaned; she showed her blue side; involuntarily they moved as near to windward as they could.

Wish! The lee gunwale slipped along, but just above the surface of the water, skimming like a swallow. Smack! Such a soaker. The foresail was wet; the bowsprit dipped twice. Swish! The mainsail was dotted with spray. Smack! Mark bent his head, and received it on his hat.

“Ready!” shouted the captain.

The foresheet slipped out of Mark’s hand, and flapped, and hit him like a whip till he caught the rope. The mainsail forced her up to the wind; the foresail tightened again levered her round. She rolled, heaved, and sprang forward.

Next time they did it better, and without a word being spoken. Mark had learned the exact moment to tighten the sheet, and she came round quicker than ever. In four tacks they were opposite the bluff, the seventh brought them to the council oak. As the wind blew directly down the New Sea each tack was just the same.

Bevis began to see that much depended upon the moment he chose for coming about, and then it did not always answer to go right across. If he waited till they were within a few yards of the shore the wind sometimes fell, the boat immediately lost weigh, or impetus, and though she came round it was slowly, and before she began to sail again they had made a little leeway.

He found it best to tack when they were sailing full speed, because when he threw her head up to windward she actually ran some yards direct against the wind, and gained so much. Besides what they had gained coming aslant across the water at the end of the tack she shot up into the eye of the wind, and made additional headway like that. So that by watching the breeze, and seizing the favourable opportunity, he made much more than he would have done by merely travelling as far as possible.

The boat was badly built, with straight, stiff lines, a crank, awkward craft. She ought to have been a foot or so broader, and more swelling, when she would have swung round like a top.

Bevis might then have crossed to the very shore, though the wind lessened, without fear of leeway. But she came round badly even at the best. They thought she came round first-rate, but they were mistaken. Had she done so, she would have resumed the return course without a moment’s delay, instead of staggering, rolling, heaving, and gradually coming to her work again. Bevis had to watch the breeze and coax her.

His eye was constantly on the sail, he felt the tiller, handling it with a delicate touch like a painter’s brush. He had to calculate and decide quickly whether there was space and time enough for the puff to come again before they reached the shore, or whether he had better sacrifice that end of the tack and come round at once. Sometimes he was wrong, sometimes right. In so narrow a space, and with such a boat, everything depended upon coming round well.

His workmanship grew better as they advanced. He seemed to feel all through the boat from rudder to mast, from the sheet in his hand to the bowsprit. The touch, the feeling of his hand, seemed to penetrate beyond the contact of the tiller, to feel through wood and rope as if they were a part of himself like his arm. He responded to the wind as quickly as the sail. If it fell, he let her off easier, to keep the pace up; if it blew, he kept her closer, to gain every inch with the increased impetus. He watched the mainsail hauled taut like a board, lest it should shiver. He watched the foresail, lest he should keep too close, and it should cease to draw. He stroked, and soothed, and caressed, and coaxed her, to put her best foot foremost.

Our captains have to coax the huge ironclads. With all the machinery, and the science, and the elaboration, and the gauges, and the mathematically correct everything, the iron monsters would never come safe to an anchorage without the most exquisite coaxing. You must coax everything if you want to succeed; ironclads, fortune, Frances.

Bevis coaxed his boat, and suited her in all her little ways; now he yielded to her; now he waited for her; now he gave her her head and let her feel freedom; now, he hinted, was the best moment; suddenly his hand grew firm, and round she came.

Do you suppose he could have learnt wind and wave and to sail like that if he had had a perfect yacht as trim as the saucy Arethusa herself? Never. The crooked ways of the awkward craft brought out his ingenuity.

As they advanced the New Sea became narrower, till just before they came opposite the battlefield the channel was but a hundred yards or so wide. In these straits the waves came with greater force and quicker; they wore no higher, but followed more quickly, and the wind blew harder, as if also confined. It was tack, tack, tack. No sooner were the sheets hauled, and they had begun to forge ahead, than they had to come about. Flap, flutter, pitch, heave, on again. Smack! smack! The spray flew over. Mark buttoned his jacket to his throat, and jammed his hat down hard on his head.

The rope, or sheet, twisted once round Bevis’s hand, cut into his skin, and made a red weal. He could not give it a turn round the cleat because there was no time. The mainsail pulled with almost all its force against his hand. Just as they had got the speed up, and a shower of spray was flying over Mark, round she had to come. Pitch, pitch, roll, heave forward, smack! splash! bubble, smack!

On the battlefield side Bevis could not go close to the shore because it was lined with a band of weeds; and on the other there were willow bushes in the water, so that the actual channel was less than the distance from bank to bank. Each tack only gained a few yards, so that they crossed and recrossed nearly twenty times before they began to get through the strait. The sails were wet now, and drew the better; they worked in silence, but without a word, each had the same thought.

“It will do now,” said Mark.

“Once more,” said Bevis.

“Now,” said Mark, as they had come round.

“Yes!”

From the westward shore Bevis kept her close to the wind, and as the water opened out, he steered for Fir-Tree Gulf. He calculated that he should just clear the stony promontory. Against the rocky wall the waves dashed and rose up high above it, the spray was carried over the bank and into the quarry. The sandbank or islet in front was concealed, the water running over it, but its site was marked by boiling surge.

The waves broke over it, and then met other waves thrown back from the wall; charging each other, they sprang up in pointed tips, which parted and fell. Over the grassy bank above rolled brown froth, which was then lifted and blown away. This was one of those places where the wind always seems to blow with greater force. In a gale from the southwest it was difficult to walk along the bank, and even now with only a light breeze the waves ran at the stony point as if they were mad. Bevis steered between Scylla and Charybdis, keeping a little nearer the sunken islet this time, the waves roared and broke on each side of them, froth caught against the sails, the boat shook as the reflux swept back and met the oncoming current; the rocky wall seemed to fly by, and in an instant they were past and in the gulf.

Hauling into the wind, the boat shot out from the receding shore, and as they approached the firs they were already half across to the Nile. Returning, they had now a broad and splendid sea to sail in, and this tack took them up so far that next time they were outside the gulf. It was really sailing now, long tacks, or “legs,” edging aslant up into the wind, and leaving the quarry far behind.

“It’s splendid,” said Mark. “Let me steer now.”

Bevis agreed, and Mark crept aft on hands and knees, anxious not to disturb the trim of the boat; Bevis went forward and took his place in the same manner, buttoning his jacket and turning up his collar.

Mark steered quite as well. Bevis had learned how to work the boat, to coax her, from the boat and the sails themselves. Mark had learned from Bevis, and much quicker. It requires time, continued observation, and keenest perception to learn from nature. When one has thus acquired the art, others can learn from him in a short while and easily. Mark steered and handled the sheet, and brought her round as handily as if he had been at it all the time.

These lengthened zigzags soon carried them far up the broad water, and the farther they went the smaller the waves became, having so much the less distance to come, till presently they were but big ripples, and the boat ceased to dance. As the waves did not now oppose her progress so much, there was but little spray, and she slipped through faster. The motive power, the wind, was the same; the opposing force, the waves, less. The speed increased, and they soon approached Bevis’s island, having worked the whole distance up against the wind. They agreed to land, and Mark brought her to the very spot where they had got out before. Bevis doused the mainsail, leaped out, and tugged her well aground. After Mark had stepped ashore they careened the boat and baled out the water.

There was no tree or root sufficiently near to fasten the painter to, so they took out the anchor, carried it some way inland, and forced one of the flukes into the ground. The boat was quite safe and far enough aground not to drift off, but it was not proper to leave a ship without mooring her. Mark wanted to go and look at the place he thought so well adapted for a cave, so they walked through between the bushes, when he suddenly remembered that the vessel in which they had just accomplished so successful a voyage had not got a name.

“The ship ought to have a name,” he said. “Blue boat sounds stupid.”

“So she ought,” said Bevis. “Why didn’t we think of it before? There’s Arethusa, Agamemnon, Sandusky, Orient—”

“Swallow, Viking, Saint George—but that won’t do,” said Mark. “Those are ships that sail now and some have steam; what were old ships—”

“Argo,” said Bevis. “I wonder what was the name of Ulysses’ ship—”

“I know,” said Mark, “Pinta—that’s it. One of Columbus’s ships, you know. He was the first to go over there, and we’re the first on the New Sea.”

“So we are; it shall be Pinta, I’ll paint it, and the island ought to have a name too.”

“Of course. Let’s see: Tahiti?” said Mark. “Loo-choo?”

“Celebes?”

“Carribbees?”

“Cyclades? But those are a lot of islands, aren’t they?”

“Formosa is a good name,” said Bevis. “It sounds right. But I don’t know where it is—it’s somewhere.”

“Don’t matter—call it New Formosa.”

“Capital,” said Bevis. “The very thing; there’s New Zealand and New Guinea. Right. It’s New Formosa.”

“Or the Land of Magic.”

“New Formosa or the Magic Land,” said Bevis. “I’ll write it down on the map we made when we get home.”

“Here’s the place,” said Mark. “This is where the cave ought to be,” pointing at a spot where the sandy cliff rose nearly perpendicular; “and then we ought to have a hut over it.”

“Poles stuck in and leaning down and thatched.”

“Yes, and a palisade of thick stakes stuck in, in front of the door.”

“So that no one could take us by surprise at night.”

“And far enough off for us to have our fire inside.”

“Twist bushes in between the stakes.”

“Quite impassable to naked savages.”

“How high?”

“Seven feet.”

“Or very nearly.”

“We could make a bed, and sleep all night.”

“Wouldn’t it be splendid to stop here altogether?”

“First-rate; no stupid sillinesses.”

“No bother.”

“Have your dinner when you like.”

“Nobody to bother where you’ve been to.”

“Let’s live here.”

“All right. Only we must have a gun to shoot birds and things to eat,” said Bevis. “It’s no use unless we have a gun; it’s not proper, nor anything.”

“No more it is,” said Mark; “we must have a gun. Go and stare at Frances.”

“But it takes such a time, and then you know how slow Jack is. It would take him three months to make up his mind to lend us the rifle.”

“So it would,” said Mark; “Jack’s awful slow, like his old mill-wheel up there.”

“Round and round,” said Bevis. “Boom and splash and rumble,”—swinging his arm—“round and round, and never get any farther.”

“Not an inch,” said Mark. “Stop; there’s Tom’s gun.” He meant the bird-keeper’s.

“Pooh!” said Bevis, “that’s rotten old rusty rubbish. Isn’t there anybody we could borrow one of?”

“Nobody,” said Mark; “they’re all so stupid and afraid.”

“Donks.”

“Awful donks! Let’s sell our watches, and buy one,” said Mark. “Only they would ask what we had done with our watches.”

“I know,” said Bevis, suddenly kicking up his heels, then standing on one foot and spinning round—“I know!”

“What is it! Quick! Tell me!”

“Make one,” said Bevis.

“Make one?”

“A matchlock,” said Bevis. “Make a matchlock. And a matchlock is quite proper, and just what they used to have—”

“But the barrel?”

“Buy an iron tube,” said Bevis. “They have lots at Latten, at the ironmonger’s; buy an iron pipe, and stop one end—”

“I see,” said Mark. “Hurrah!” and up went his heels, and there was a wild capering for half a minute.

“The bother is to make the breech,” said Bevis. “It ought to screw, but we can’t do that.”

“Ask the blacksmith,” said Mark; “we need not let him know what it’s for.”

“If he doesn’t know we’ll find out somehow,” said Bevis. “Come on, let’s do it directly. Why didn’t we think of it before.”

They returned towards the boat.

“Just won’t it be splendid,” said Mark. “First, we’ll get everything ready, and then get shipwrecked proper, and be as jolly as anything.”

“Matchlocks are capital guns,” said Bevis; “they’re slow to shoot with, you know, but they kill better than rifles. They have long barrels, and you put them on a rest to take steady aim, and we’ll have an iron ramrod too, so as not to have the bother of making a place to put the rod in the stock, and to ram down bullets to shoot the tigers or savages.”

“Jolly!”

“The stock must be curved,” said Bevis; “not like the guns, broad and flat, but just curved, and there must be a thing to hold the match; and just remind me to buy a spring to keep the hammer up, so that it shall not fall till we pull the trigger—it’s just opposite to other guns, don’t you see? The spring is to keep the match up, and you pull against the spring. And there’s a pan and a cover to it—a bit of tin would do capital—and you push it open with your thumb. I’ve seen lots of matchlocks in glass cases, all inlaid gold and silver.”

“We don’t want that.”

“No all we want is the shooting. The match is the bother—”

“Would tar-cord do?”

“We’ll try; first let’s make the breech. Take up the anchor.”

Mark picked up the anchor, and put it on board. They launched the Pinta, and set sail homewards, Mark steering. As they were running right before the wind, the ship went at a great pace.

“That’s the Mozambique,” said Bevis, as they passed through the strait where they had had to make so many tacks before.

“Land ho!” said Mark, as they approached the harbour. “We’ve had a capital sail.”

“First-rate,” said Bevis. “But let’s make the matchlock.”

Now that he had succeeded in tacking he was eager to go on to the next thing, especially the matchlock-gun. The hope of shooting made him three times as ready to carry out Mark’s plan of the cave on the island. After furling the sails, and leaving everything ship-shape, they ran home and changed their jackets, which were soaked.

Volume Two—Chapter Ten.

Making a Gun—The Cave.

Talking upstairs about the barrel of the gun, they began to think it would be an awkward thing to bring home, people would look at them walking through the town with an iron pipe, and when they had got it home, other people might ask what it was for. Presently Mark remembered that John Young went to Latten that day with the horse and cart to fetch things; now if they bought the tube, Young could call for it, and bring it in the cart and leave it at his cottage. Downstairs they ran, and up to the stables, and as they came near, heard the stamp of a cart-horse, as it came over. Mark began to whistle the tune,—

“Macaroni!” said he, as they looked in at the stable-door. “Macaroni” did not answer; the leather of the harness creaked as he moved it.

“Macaroni!” shouted Mark. He did not choose to reply to such a nickname.

“John!” said Bevis.

“Eez—eez,” replied the man, looking under the horse’s neck, and meaning “Yes, yes.”

“Fetch something for us,” said Mark.

“Pint?” said John laconically.

“Two,” said Bevis.

“Ar-right,” [“all right”] said John, his little brown eyes twinkling. “Ar-right, you.” For a quart of ale there were few things he would not have done: for a gallon his soul would not have had a moment’s consideration, if it had stood in the way.

They explained to him what they wanted him to do.

“Have you got a grate in your house?” said Bevis.

“A yarth,” said John, meaning an open hearth. “Burns wood.”

“Can you make a hot fire—very hot on it?”

“Rayther. Bellers.” By using the bellows.

“What could we have for an anvil?”

“Be you going a blacksmithing?”

“Yes—what will do for an anvil?”

“Iron quarter,” said John. “There’s an ould iron in the shed. Shall I take he whoam?” An iron quarter is a square iron weight weighing 28 pounds: it would make a useful anvil. It was agreed that he should do so, and they saw him put the old iron weight, rusty and long disused, up in the cart.

“If you wants anybody to blow the bellers,” said he, “there’s our Loo—she’ll blow for yer. Be you going to ride?”

“No,” said Bevis; “we’ll go across the fields.”

Away they went by the meadow foot-path, a shorter route to the little town, and reached it before John and his cart. At the ironmonger’s they examined a number of pipes, iron and brass tubes. The brass looked best, and tempted them, but on turning it round they fancied the join showed, and was not perfect, and of course that would not do. Nor did it look so strong as the iron, so they chose the iron, and bought five feet of a stout tube—the best in the shop—with a bore of 5-eighths; and afterwards a brass rod, which was to form the ramrod. Brass would not cause a spark in the barrel.

John called for these in due course, and left them at his cottage. The old rogue had his quart, and the promise of a shilling, if the hearth answered for the blacksmithing. In the evening, Mark, well primed as to what he was to ask, casually looked in at the blacksmith’s down the hamlet. The blacksmith was not in the least surprised; they were both old frequenters; he was only surprised one or both had not been before.

Mark pulled some of the tools about, lifted the sledge which stood upright, and had left it’s mark on the iron “scale” which lay on the ground an inch deep. Scale consists of minute particles which fly off red-hot iron when it is hammered—the sparks, in fact, which, when they go out, fall, and are found to be metal; like the meteors in the sky, the scale shooting from Vulcan’s anvil, which go out and drop on the earth. Mark lifted the sledge, put it down, twisted up the vice, and untwisted it, while Jonas, the smith, stood blowing the bellows with his left hand, and patting the fire on the forge with his little spud of a shovel.

“Find anything you want,” he said presently.

“I’ll take this,” said Mark. “There’s sixpence.”

He had chosen a bit of iron rod, short, and thicker than their ramrod. Bevis had told him what to look for.

“All right, sir—anything else?”

“Well,” said Mark, moving towards the door, “I don’t know,”—then stopping with an admirable assumption of indifference. “Suppose you had to stop up one end of a pipe, how should you do it?”

“Make it white-hot,” said the smith. “Bring it to me.”

“Will white-hot shut tight?”

“Quite tight—it runs together when hit. Bring it to me. I say, where’s the punt?” grinning. His white teeth gleamed between his open lips—a row of ivory set in a grimy face.

“The punt’s at the bottom,” said Mark, with a louring countenance.

“Nice boys,” said the smith. “You’re very nice boys. If you was mine—” He took up a slender ash plant that was lying on the bench, and made it ply and whistle in the air.

Mark tossed his chin, kicked the door open, and walked off.

“I say!—I say!” shouted the smith. “Bring it to me.”

“Keep yourself to yourself,” said Mark loftily.

Boys indeed! The smith swore, and it sounded in his broad deep chest like the noise of the draught up the furnace. He was angry with himself—he thought he had lost half-a-crown, at least, by just swishing the stick up and down. If you want half-a-crown, you must control your feelings.

Mark told Bevis what the smith had said, and they went to work, and the same evening filed off the end of the rod Mark had bought. Bevis’s plan was to file this till it almost fitted the tube, but not quite. Then he meant to make the tube red-hot—almost white—and insert the little block. He knew that heat would cause the tube to slightly enlarge, so that the block being cold could be driven in; then as the tube cooled it would shrink in and hold it tight, so that none of the gas of the powder could escape.

The block was to be driven in nearly half an inch below the rim; the rim was to be next made quite white-hot, and in that state hammered over till it met in the centre, and overlapped a little. Again made white-hot, the overlapping (like the paper of a paper tube doubled in) was to be hammered and solidly welded together. The breech would then be firmly closed, and there would not be the slightest chance of its blowing out. This was his own idea, and he explained it to Mark.

They had now to decide how long the barrel should be: they had bought rather more tube than they wanted. Five, or even four feet would be so long, the gun would be inconvenient to handle, though with a rest, and very heavy. In a barrel properly built up, the thickness gradually decreases from the breech to the muzzle, so that as the greatest weight is nearest the shoulder the gun balances. But this iron tube was the same thickness from one end to the other, and in consequence, when held up horizontally, it seemed very heavy at the farther extremity.

Yet they wanted a long barrel, else it would not be like a proper matchlock. Finally, they fixed on forty inches, which would be long, but not too long; with a barrel of three feet four inches they ought, they considered, to be able to kill at a great distance. Adding the stock, say fifteen inches, the total length would be four feet seven.

Next morning, taking their tools and a portable vice in a flag-basket, as they often did to the boat, they made a détour and went to John Young’s cottage. On the door-step there sat a little girl without shoes or stockings; her ragged frock was open at her neck. At first, she looked about twelve years old, as the original impression of age is derived from height and size. In a minute or two she grew older, and was not less than fourteen. The rest of the family were in the fields at work, Loo had been left to wait upon them. Already she had a huge fire burning on the hearth, which was of brick; the floor too was brick. With the door wide open they could hardly stand the heat till the flames had fallen. Bevis did not want so much flame; embers are best to make iron hot. Taking off their jackets they set to work, put the tube in the fire, arranged the anvil, screwed the vice to the deal table, which, though quite clean, was varnished with grease that had sunk into the wood, selected the hammer which they thought would suit, and told Loo to fetch them her father’s hedging-gloves.

These are made of thick leather, and Mark thought he could hold the tube better with them, as it would be warm from one end to the other. The little block of iron, to form the breech, was filed smooth, so as to just not fit the tube. When the tube was nearly white-hot, Mark put on the leather gloves, seized and placed the colder end on the anvil, standing the tube with the glowing end upwards.

Bevis took the iron block, or breech-piece, with his pincers, inserted it in the white-hot tube, and drove it down with a smart tap. Some scale fell off and dropped on Mark’s shirt-sleeve, burning little holes through to his skin. He drew his breath between his teeth, so sudden and keen was the pain of the sparks, but did not flinch. Bevis hastily threw his jacket over Mark’s arms, and then gave the block three more taps, till it was flush with the top of the tube.

By now the tube was cooling, the whiteness superseded by a red, which gradually became dull. Mark put the tube again in the fire, and Loo was sent to find a piece of sacking to protect his arm from the sparks. His face was not safe, but he had sloped his hat over it, and hold his head down. There were specks on his hat where the scale or sparks had burnt it. Loo returned with a sack, when Bevis, who had been thinking, discovered a way by which Mark might escape the sparks.

He pulled the table along till the vice fixed to it projected over the anvil. Next time Mark was to stand the tube upright just the same, but to put it in the vice, and tighten the vice quickly, so that he need not hold it. Bevis had a short punch to drive the block or breech-piece deeper into the tube. Loo, blowing at the embers, with her scorched face close to the fire, declared that the tube was ready. Mark drew it out, and in two seconds it was fixed in the vice, but with the colder end in contact with the anvil underneath. Bevis put his punch on the block and tapped it sharply till he had forced it half an inch beneath the rim.

He now adjusted it for the next heating himself, for he did not wish all the end of the tube to be so hot; he wanted the end itself almost white-hot, but not the rest. While it was heating they went out of doors to cool themselves, leaving Loo to blow steadily at the embers. She watched their every motion as intent as a cat a mouse; she ran with her naked brown feet to fetch and carry; she smiled when Mark put on the leather gloves, for she would have held it with her hands, though it had been much hotter.

She would have put her arm on the anvil to receive a blow from the hammer; she would have gone down the well in the bucket if they had asked her. Her mind was full of this wonderful work—what could they be making? But her heart and soul was filled with these great big boys with their beautiful sparkling eyes and white arms, white as milk, and their wilful, imperious ways. How many times she had watched them from afar! To have them so near was almost too great a joy; she was like a slave under their feet; they regarded her less than the bellows in her hands.

Directly the tube was white-hot at the extremity, she called them. Mark set the tube up; Bevis carefully hammered the rim over, folding it down on the breech block. Another heating, and he hammered the yielding metal still closer together, welding the folds. A third heating, and he finished it, deftly levelling the projections. The breech was complete, and it was much better done than they had hoped. As it cooled the tube shrank on the block; the closed end of the tube shrank too, and the breech-piece was incorporated into the tube itself. Their barrel was indeed far safer at the breech than scores of the brittle guns turned out cheap in these days.

Loo, seeing them begin to put their tools in the flag-basket, asked, with tears in her eyes, if they were not going to do any more? They had been there nearly three hours, for each heating took some time, but it had not seemed ten minutes to her. Bevis handed the barrel to her, and told her to take great care of it; they would come for it at night. It was necessary to smuggle it up into the armoury at home, and that could not be done by day. She took it. Had he given it in charge of a file of soldiers it could not have been safer; she would watch it as a bird does her nest.

Just then John came in, partly for his luncheon, partly out of curiosity to see how they were getting on. “Picters you be!” said John.

Pictures they were—black and grimy, not so much from the iron as the sticks and logs, half burnt, which they had handled; they were, in fact, streaked and smudged with charcoal. Loo instantly ran for a bowl of water for them to wash, and held the towel ready. She watched them down the hill, and wished they had kicked her or pulled her hair. Other boys did; why did not they touch her? They might have done so. Next time she thought she would put her naked foot so that they would step on it; then if she cried out perhaps they would stroke her.

In the afternoon they took two spades up to the boat. The wind had fallen as usual, but they rowed to New Formosa. The Pinta being deep in the water and heavy with ballast, moved slowly, and it was a long row. Mark cut two sticks, and these were driven into the face of the sand cliff, to show the outline of the proposed cave. It was to be five feet square, and as deep as they could dig it.

They cleared away the loose sand and earth at the foot in a few minutes, and began the excavation. The sand at the outside was soft and crumbled, but an inch deep it became harder, and the work was not anything like so easy as they had supposed. After pecking with the spades for a whole hour, each had only cut out a shallow hole.

“This is no good,” said Mark; “we shall never do it like this.”

“Pickaxes,” said Bevis.

“Yes; and hatchets,” said Mark. “We could chop this sand best.”

“So we could,” said Bevis. “There are some old hatchets in the shed; we’ll sharpen them; they’ll do.”

They worked on another half-hour, and then desisted, and cutting some more sticks stuck them in the ground in a semicircle before the cliff, to mark where the palisade was to be fixed. The New Sea was still calm, and they had to row through the Mozambique all the way to the harbour.

In the evening they ground two old hatchets, which, being much worn and chipped, had been thrown aside, and then searched among the quantities of stored and seasoned wood and poles for a piece to make the stock of the matchlock. There was beech, oak, elm, ash, fir—all sorts of wood lying about in the shed and workshop. Finally, they selected a curved piece of ash, hard and well seasoned. The curve was nearly what was wanted, and being natural it would be much stronger. This was carried up into the armoury to be shaved and planed into shape.

At night they went for the barrel. Loo brought it, and Bevis, as he thought, accidentally stepped on her naked foot, crushing it between his heel and the stones at the door. Loo cried out.

“O dear!” said he, “I am so sorry. Here—here’s sixpence, and I’ll send you some pears.”

She put the sixpence in her mouth and bit it, and said nothing. She indented the silver with her teeth, disappointed because he had not stroked her, while she stood and watched them away.

They smuggled the barrel up into the armoury, which was now kept more carefully locked than ever, and they even put it where no one could see it through the keyhole. In the morning, as there was a breeze from the westward, they put the hatchets on board the Pinta, and sailed away for New Formosa. The wind was partly favourable, and they reached the island in three tacks. The hatchets answered much better, cutting out the sand well, so that there soon began to be two holes in the cliff.

They worked a little way apart, each drilling a hole straight in, and intending to cut away the intervening wall afterwards, else they could not both work at once. By dinner-time there was a heap of excavated sand and two large holes. The afternoon and evening they spent at work on the gun. Mark shaved at the stock; Bevis filed a touch-hole to the barrel; he would have liked to have drilled the touch-hole, but that he could not do without borrowing the blacksmith’s tools, and they did not want him to know what they were about.

For four days they worked with their digging at the cave in the morning, and making the matchlock all the rest of the day. The stock was now ready—it was simply curved and smoothed with sand-paper, they intended afterwards to rub it with oil, till it took a little polish like the handles of axes. The stock was almost as long as the barrel, which fitted into a groove in it, and was to be fastened in with copper wire when all was ready.

Bevis at first thought to cut a mortise in the handle of the stock to insert the lock, but on consideration he feared it would weaken the stock, so he chiselled a place on the right side where the lock could be counter-sunk. The right side of the stock had been purposely left somewhat thicker for the pan. The pan was a shallow piece of tin screwed on the stock and sunk in the wood, one end closed, the other to be in contact with the barrel under the touch-hole. In this pan the priming was to be placed. Another piece of tin working on a pivot formed of a wire nail (these nails are round) was to cover the pan like a slide or lid, and keep the priming from dropping out or being blown off by the wind.

Before firing, the lid would have to be pushed aside by the thumb, and the outer corner of it was curled over like a knob for the thumb-nail to press against. The lock was most trouble, and they had to make many trials before they succeeded. In the end it was formed of a piece of thick iron wire. This was twisted round itself in the centre, so that it would work on an axle or pivot.

It was then, heated red-hot, and beaten flat or nearly, this blacksmith’s work they could do at home, for no one could have guessed what it was for. One end was bent, so that though fixed at the side of the stock, it would come underneath for the trigger, for in a matchlock trigger and hammer are in a single piece. The other end curved over to hold the match, and this caused Bevis some more thought, for he could not split it like the match-holders of the Indian matchlocks he had seen in cases.

Bevis drew several sketches to try and got at it, and at last twisted the end into a spiral of two turns. The match, which is a piece of cord prepared to burn slowly, was to be inserted in the spiral, the burning end slightly projecting, and as at the spiral the iron had been beaten thin, if necessary it could be squeezed with thumb and finger to hold the cord tighter, but Bevis did not think it would be necessary to do that.

Next the spring was fixed behind, and just above the trigger end in such a way as to hold the hammer end up. Pulling the trigger you pulled against the spring, and the moment the finger was removed the hammer sprang up—this was to keep the lighted match away from the priming till the moment of firing. The completed lock was covered with a plate of brass screwed on, and polished till it shone brightly. Bevis was delighted after so much difficulty to find that it worked perfectly. The brass ramrod had been heated at one end, and enlarged there by striking it while red-hot, which caused the metal to bulge, and they now proceeded to prove the barrel before fastening it in the stock.

Volume Two—Chapter Eleven.

Building the Hut.

Powder was easily got from Latten; they bought a pound of loose powder at three halfpence the ounce. This is like black dust, and far from pure, for if a little be flashed off on paper or white wood it leaves a broad smudge, but it answered their purpose very well. While Bevis was fretting and fuming over the lock, for he got white-hot with impatience, though he would and did do it, Mark had made a powder-horn by sawing off the pointed end of a cow’s horn, and fitting a plug of wood into the mouth. For their shot they used a bag, and bought a mould for bullets.

The charger to measure the powder was a brass drawn cartridge-case, two of which Mark had chanced to put in his pocket while they were at Jack’s. It held more than a charge, so they scratched a line inside to show how far it was to be filled. At night the barrel was got out of the house, and taken up the meadows, three fields away, to a mound they had chosen as the best place. Mark brought a lantern, which they did not light till they arrived, and then put it behind the bushes, so that the light should not show at a distance.

The barrel was now charged with three measures of powder and two of shot rammed down firm, and then placed on the ground in front of a tree. From the touch-hole a train of powder was laid along the dry ground round the tree, so that the gun could be fired while the gunner was completely protected in case the breech blew out.

A piece of tar-cord was inserted in a long stick split at the end. Mark wished to fire the train, and having lit the tar-cord, which burned well, he stood back as far as he could and dropped the match on the powder. Puff—bang! They ran forward, and found the barrel was all right. The shot had scored a groove along the mound and lost itself in the earth; the barrel had kicked back to the tree, but it had not burst or bulged, so that they felt it would be safe to shoot with. Such a thickness of metal, indeed, would have withstood a much greater strain, and their barrel, rude as it was, was far safer than many flimsy guns.

The last thing to be made was the rest. For the staff they found a straight oak rod up in the lumber-room, which had once been used as a curtain-rod to an old-fashioned four-poster. Black with age it was hard and rigid, and still strong; the very thing for their rest. The fork for the barrel to lie in was a difficulty, till Bevis hit on the plan of forming it of two pieces of thick iron wire. These were beaten flat at one end, a hole was bored in the top of the staff, and the two pieces of wire driven in side by side, when their flatness prevented them from moving. The wires were then drawn apart and hammered and bent into a half-circle on which the stock would rest.

The staff was high enough for them to shoot standing, but afterwards it was shortened, as they found it best to aim kneeling on one knee. When the barrel was fastened in the stock by twisting copper wire round, it really looked like a gun, and they jumped and danced about the bench-room till the floor shook. After handling it for some time they took it to pieces, and hid it till the cave should be ready, for so long a weapon could not be got out of the house very easily, except in sections. Not such a great while previously they had felt that they must not on any account touch gunpowder, yet now they handled it and prepared to shoot without the least hesitation. The idea had grown up gradually. Had it come all at once it would have been rejected, but it had grown so imperceptibly that they had become accustomed to it, and never questioned themselves as to what they were doing.

Absorbed in the details and the labour of constructing the matchlock, the thinking and the patience, the many trials, the constant effort had worn away every other consideration but that of success. The labour made the object legitimate. They gloried in their gun, and in fact, though so heavy, it was a real weapon capable of shooting, and many a battle in the olden times was won with no better. Bevis was still making experiments, soaking cord in various compositions of saltpetre, to discover the best slow match.

By now the cave began to look like a cave, for every morning, sailing or rowing to New Formosa, they chopped for two or three hours at the hard sand. This cave was Mark’s idea, but once started at work Bevis became as eager as he, and they toiled like miners. After the two headings had been driven in about five feet, they cut away the intervening wall, and there was a cavern five feet square, large enough for both to sit down in.

They had intended to dig in much deeper, but the work was hard, and, worse than that, slow, and now the matchlock was ready they were anxious to get on the island. So they decided that the cave was now large enough to be their store-room, while they lived in the hut, to be put up over the entrance. Bevis drew a sketch of the hut several times, trying to find out the easiest way of constructing it. The plan they selected was to insert long poles in the sand about three feet higher up than the top of the cave. These were to be placed a foot apart; and there were to be nine of them, all stuck in holes made for the purpose in a row, thus covering a space eight feet wide and eight high. From the cliff the rafters were to slope downwards till the lower and outward ends were six feet above the ground. That would give the roof a fall of two feet in case of rain.

Two stout posts were to be put up with a long beam across, on which the outer ends of the rafters were to rest. Two lesser posts in the middle were to mark the doorway. The roof was to be covered with brushwood to some thickness, and then thatched over that with sedges and reed-grass.

The walls they meant to make of hurdles stood on end, and fastened with tar-cord to upright stakes. Outside the hurdles they intended to pile up furze, brushwood, faggots, bundles of sedges—anything, in short. A piece of old carpeting was to close the door as a curtain. The store-room was five feet square, the hut would be eight, so that with the two they thought they should have plenty of space.

The semi-circular fence or palisade starting from the cliff on one side, and coming to it on the other, of the hut was to have a radius of ten yards, and so enclose a good piece of ground, where they could have their fire and cook their food secure from wild beasts or savages. A gateway in the fence was to be just wide enough to squeeze through, and to be closed by two boards nailed to a frame.

It took some time to settle all these details, for Bevis would not begin till he had got everything complete in his mind, but the actual work did not occupy nearly so long as the digging of the cave. There were plenty of poles growing on the island, which Mark cut down with Bevis’s own hatchet, not the blunt ones they had used for excavating, but the one with which he had chopped at the trees in the Peninsula.

As Mark cut them down, some ash, some willow, and a few alder, Bevis stripped off the twigs with a billhook, and shortened them to the proper length. All the poles were ready in one morning, and in the afternoon coming again they set up the two stout corner posts. Next day the rafters were fitted, they had to bring a short ladder to get at the cliff over the mouth of the cave. Then the hurdles were brought and set up, and the brushwood cut and thrown on the top.

Sedges grew in quantities at the other end of the island, where the ground sloped till it became level with the water. In cutting them they took care to leave an outer fringe standing, so that if any one passed, or by any chance looked that way from the shore, he should not see that the sedges had been reaped. They covered the roof two feet thick with brushwood, sedges, and reed-grass, which they considered enough to keep out any ordinary shower.

Of course if the tornadoes common to these tropical countries should come they must creep into the inner cave. Against such fearful storms no thatch they could put up would protect them. The walls took a whole day to finish, as it required such a quantity of brushwood, and it had to be fastened in its place with rods, thrust into the ground, and tied at the top to the outside rafters.

At last the hut was finished, and they could stand up, or walk about in it; but when the carpet-curtain was dropped, it was dark, for they had forgotten to make a window. But in the daytime they would not want one, as the curtain could be thrown aside, and the doorway would let in plenty of light, as it faced the south. At night they would have a lantern hung from the roof.

“It’s splendid,” said Mark; “we could live here for years.”

“Till we forgot what day it was, and whether it was Monday or Saturday,” said Bevis.

“And our beards grow down to our waists.” Their chins were as smooth as possible.

“Ships would be sent out to search for us.”

“And when we come home everybody would come to see us,” said Mark. “Just think of all the wonders we shall have to tell them!”

“I wish Ted could see it,” said Bevis, “and Charlie, and Val.”

“Wouldn’t they be jealous if they knew,” said Mark. “They’d kill us if we did not let them come too.”

“It’s a great secret,” said Bevis; “we must be very careful. There may be mines of gold in this island, don’t you see.”

“Diamonds.”

“There’s a pearl fishery, I’m sure.”

“Birds of Paradise.”

“Spices and magic things.”

“It’s the most wonderful island ever found out.”

“Hurrah!”

“Let’s have a sail.”

“So we will.”

“Not work any more this afternoon.”

“No; let’s sail up farther—”

“Beyond the island?”

“Yes; unknown seas, don’t you know. Come on.”

Away they ran to the Pinta. The wind lately had blown lightly from the east, and continued all day. These light easterly summer breezes are a delight to those who watch the corn, for they mean fine weather and full wheat-ears. Mark took the tiller, and they sailed southwards through the channel, between New Formosa and Serendib. Not far beyond, Bevis, looking over the side, saw the sunken punt. She was lying in six or seven feet of water, but the white streak on her gunwale could be clearly seen. He told Mark.

“I hope the governor won’t get her up yet,” said Mark. “Lucky he’s so busy—”

“Why?”

“Don’t you see,” said shrewd Mark, “while the punt’s at the bottom nobody can come to our island to see what we’re at.”

“Ah!” said Bevis. “What a jolly good thing I was shipwrecked.”

As they went southwards they passed several small islands or sandbanks, and every now and then a summer snipe flew up and circled round them, just above the water, returning to the same spot.

“Those are the Coral Isles,” said Bevis. “They’re only just above the surface.”

“Tornadoes would sweep right over them,” said Mark. “That’s why there are no cocoa-nut trees.”

Another sandbank some way on the left they named Grey Crow Island, because a grey or hooded crow rose from it.

“Do you see any weeds?” said Mark presently. “You know that’s a sign of land.”

“Some,” said Bevis, looking over the side into the ripples. “They are brown and under water; I suppose it’s too deep for them to come to the top.”

The light breeze carried them along pleasantly, though slowly.

“Swallows,” said Bevis; “I can see some swallows, high up, there. That’s another sign of land.”

“Heave the lead,” said Mark.

“We’ve forgotten it; how stupid! Mind you remember it next time.”

New Formosa was a long way in the rear now.

“That’s Pearl Island,” said Mark, pointing to a larger sandbank. “Can’t you see the shells glistening; it’s mother-of-pearl.”

“So it is.”

The crows had carried the mussels up on the islet, and left the shells strewn about. The inner part reflected the sunlight. If examined closely there are prismatic colours.

“There’s that curious wave,” said Mark, standing up and pointing to an undulation of the water on the other side of a small patch of green weeds. The undulation went away from them till they lost sight of it. “What is it?”

“There are all sorts of curious things in the tropic seas,” said Bevis. “Some of them are not found out even yet. Nobody can tell what it is.”

“Perhaps it’s magic,” said Mark.

“Lots of magic goes on in the south,” said Bevis. “I believe we’re very nearly on the equator; just feel how hot the gunwale is,”—the wood was warm from the sunshine—“and the sun goes overhead every day, and it’s so, light at night. We will bring the astrolabe and take an observation—I say!”

The Pinta brought up with a sudden jerk. They had run on a shoal.

“Wrecked!” shouted Mark joyfully. “But there are no waves. It’s no good with these ripples.”

Bevis pushed the Pinta off with a scull, and so feeling the bottom, told Mark to ease the tiller and sail more to the right. Two minutes afterwards they grounded again, and again pushed off. On the left, or eastern side, they saw a broad channel leading up through the weeds. Bevis told Mark to tack up there. Mark did so, and they slowly advanced with the weeds each side. The tacks were short, and as the wind was so light they made little progress. Presently the channel turned south; then they ran faster; next it turned sharp to the east, and came back. In trying to tack here Mark ran into the weeds.

“Stupe!” said Bevis.

“That I’m not,” said Mark. “You can’t do it.”

“Can’t I?” said Bevis contemptuously.

“Try then,” said Mark, and he left the tiller. Bevis took it and managed two tacks very well. At the third he too ran into the weeds, for in fact the channel was so narrow there was no time to get weigh on the ship.

“Stupe yourself,” said Mark.

He tried to row out, but every time he got a pull the wind blew them back, and they had to let the mainsail down.

“It wants a canoe,” said Bevis.

“Of course it does. It’s no use going on unless you’re going to row.”

“No; but look!” Bevis pointed to a small branch which was floating very slowly past them.

“There’s a current,” said Mark.

“River,” said Bevis. “In the sedges somewhere.”

“What is it? I know; it’s the Orinoco.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Amazon?”

“No.”

“Hoang-Ho?”

“How can we tell, till we get the astrolabe and take an observation? Most likely it’s a new river, the biggest ever found.”

“It must be a new river,” said Mark. “This is the New Sea. We’re drifting back a little.”

“We’ll come again in a canoe, or something,” said Bevis.

They rowed out of the channel, set the mainsail, and sailed back, past Pearl Island, Grey Crow Island, the Coral Isles, and approached New Formosa. Mark looked over the side, and watched to see the sunken punt.

“It’s a wreck,” said he presently, as they passed above the punt. “She foundered.”

“It’s a Spanish galley,” said Bevis. “She’s full of bullion, gold and silver—”

“Millions of broad gold pieces.”

“Doubloons.”

“Pistoles.”

“Ingots.”

“You can see the skeletons chained at the oar-benches.”

“Yes—just as they went down.”

“There are strange sounds here at night.”

“Bubbles come up, and shouts, and awful shrieks.”

“Hope we shan’t hear them when we’re in our hut.”

“No; it’s too far.”

They sailed between New Formosa and Serendib, and homewards through Mozambique to the harbour. The east wind, like the west, was a there-and-back wind, and they could reach their island, or return from it, in two or three tacks, sometimes in one stretch.

Volume Two—Chapter Twelve.

Provisioning the Cave.

Next day they took an iron bar with them, and pitched the stakes for the fence or stockade. Between the stakes they wove in willow rods and brushwood, so that thus bound together, it was much stronger than it looked, and no one could have got in without at least making a great noise. The two boards, nailed together for the gate, were fastened on one side to a stouter stake with small chains like rude hinges. On the other there was a staple and small padlock.

“It’s finished,” said Mark, as he turned the key and locked them in.

“No,” said Bevis, “there’s the bedstead. The ground’s dry,” (it was sand), “but it’s not proper to sleep on the ground.”

They put off preparing the bedstead till next day, when they approached on a spanking south east wind—half a breeze—against which they had to tack indeed, but spun along at a good speed. The waves were not large enough to make the Pinta roll, but some spray came over now and then.

“It’s almost shipwreck weather,” said Mark. “Just see—” He pointed at the cliff where there was a little splashing, as the waves swept sideways along the base of the cliff. “If you run her against the cliff the bowsprit will be knocked in. Would the mast go by the board?”

“Not enough wind,” said Bevis, as he steered past, and they landed at the usual place. The bedstead was made by placing five or six thick poles sawn off at four feet on the floor on the left side of the hut, like the sleepers of a railway. Across these lengthways they laid lesser rods, then still more slender rods crossways, and on these again boughs of spruce fir, one on the other to a foot or more in depth. The framework of logs and rods beneath kept the bed above the ground, and the boughs of the spruce fir, being full of resinous sap, gave out a slight fragrance. On this mattress a rug and some old great-coats were to be thrown, and they meant to cover themselves with more rugs and coats. The bedstead took up much of the room, but then it would answer in the daytime instead of chairs to sit on.

“It’s finished now, then,” said Mark.

“Quite finished,” said Bevis. “All we have now to do is to bring our things.”

“And get wrecked,” said Mark. “These chips and boughs,” pointing to the heap they had cut from the poles and stakes, “will do for our fire. Come on. Let’s go up and look at the cliff where we are to be dashed to pieces.”

They climbed up the cliff to the young oak on the summit, and went to the edge. The firm sand bore them safely at the verge.

“It looks very deep,” said Bevis. “The sand goes down straight.”

“Fathomless,” said Mark. “Just think how awful. It ought to happen at night—pitch black! I know! Some savages ought to light a fire up here and guide us to destruction.”

“We could not scramble up this cliff out of the water—I mean if we have to swim.”

“Of course we shall have to swim, clinging to oars.”

“Then we must get round that corner, somehow.”

“The other side is all weeds; that wouldn’t do.”

“Very likely the waves would bang us against the cliff. Don’t you remember how Ulysses clung to the rock?”

“His hands were torn.”

“Nearly drowned.”

“Tired out.”

“Thumped and breathless.”

“Jolly!”

“But I say! There’s one thing we’ve forgotten,” said Bevis. “If we smash our ship against a cliff like this she’ll go to the bottom—”

“Well, that’s just what we want.”

“Ah, but it’s not like rocks or shoals; she’ll go straight down, right under where we can’t get at her—”

“All the better.”

“But then our things will go down too—gun, and powder, and provisions, and everything.”

“Put them on the island first and wreck ourselves afterwards.”

“So we could. Yes, we could do that, but then,” said Bevis, imagining what would happen, “when the Pinta was missed from the harbour and did not come back, there would be a search, and they would think something had happened to us.”

“I see,” said Mark, “that’s very awkward. What a trouble it is to get wrecked! Why can’t people let us be jolly?”

“They must not come looking after us,” said Bevis, “else it will spoil everything.”

“Perhaps we had better put the wreck off,” said Mark, in a dejected tone. “Do the island first, and have the wreck afterwards.”

“It seems as if we must,” said Bevis, “and then it’s almost as awkward—”

“Why?”

“We shall have to come here in the Pinta, and yet we must not keep her here, else she will be missed.”

“The ship must be here and at home too.”

“Yes,” said Bevis; “she must be at New Formosa on the equator and at home in the harbour. It’s a very difficult thing.”

“Awfully difficult,” said Mark. “But you can do it. Try! Think! Shall I tickle you?”