But Adler was himself in trouble. After they had waited some time in
the camp, thinking that Bevis would be certain to return there sooner or
later, finding that he did not come, the whole party, with Mark at their
head, searched and re-searched the battlefield and most of the adjacent
meadows, not overlooking the copse. Mark next ran home, hoping that
Bevis for some reason or other might have gone there, and asked himself
whether he had offended him in any way, and was that why he had left the
fight? But he could not recollect that he had done anything.
Bevis, of course, was not at home, and Mark returned to the battlefield,
every minute now adding to his anxiety. It was so unlike Bevis that he
felt sure something must be wrong.
“Perhaps he’s drowned,” said Val.
“Drowned,” repeated Mark, with intense contempt; “why he can swim fifty
yards.”
Fifty yards is not far, but it would be far enough to save life on many
occasions. Val was silenced, still Mark, to be certain, went along the
shore, and even some way up the Nile. By now the others had left, one
at a time, and only Val, Cecil, and Charlie remained.
The four hunted again, then they walked slowly across the field, trying
to think. Mark picked up Bevis’s hat, which had fallen off in the
battle; but to find Bevis’s hat was nothing, for he had a knack of
leaving it behind him.
“Perhaps he’s gone to your place,” said Charlie, meaning Mark’s home.
Mark shook his head. “But I wish you would go and see,” he said; he
dared not face Frances.
“So I will,” said Charlie, always ready to do his best, and off he went.
Charlie’s idea gave rise to another, that Bevis might be gone to Jack’s
home in the Downs, and Val offered to go and inquire, though it was a
long, long walk.
He set out, Cecil went with him, and Mark, left to himself, walked
slowly home, hoping once more Bevis might have returned. As he came in
with Bevis’s hat in his hand, the servants pounced upon him. Bevis was
missed, there had been a great outcry, and all the people were inquiring
for him. Several had come to the kitchen to gossip about it. The
uproar would not have been so great so soon but it had got out that
there had been a battle.
“You said it was a picnic,” said Polly, shaking Mark.
“You told I so,” said the Bailiff, seizing his collar.
“Let me go,” shouted Mark, punching.
“Well, what have you done with him? Where is he?”
Mark could not tell, and between them, four or five to one, they hustled
him into the cellar.
“You must go to gaol,” said the Bailiff grimly. “Bide there a bit.”
“How can you find Bevis without me!” shouted Mark, who had just admitted
he did not know where Bevis was. But the Bailiff pushed him stumbling
down the three stone steps, and he heard the bolt grate in the staple.
Thus the general who had just won a great battle was thrust
ignominiously into a cellar.
Mark kicked and banged the door, but it was of solid oak, without so
much as a panel to weaken it, and though it resounded it did not even
shake. He yelled till he was hoarse, and hit the door till his fists
became numbed. Then suddenly he sat down quite quiet on the stone
steps, and the tears came into his eyes. He did not care for the
cellar, it was about Bevis--Bevis was lost somewhere and wanted him, and
he _must_ go to Bevis.
Dashing the tears away, up he jumped, and looked round to see if he
could find anything to burst the door open. There was but one window,
deep set in the thick wall, with an iron upright bar inside. The glass
was yellowish-green, in small panes, and covered with cobwebs, so that
the light was very dim. He could see the barrels, large and small, and
as his eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness some meat--a joint--
and vegetables on a shelf, placed there for coolness. Out came his
pocket-knife, and he attacked the joint savagely, slashing off slices
anyhow, for he (like Bevis) was hungry, and so angry he did not care
what he did.
As he ate he still looked round and round the cellar and peered into the
corners, but saw nothing, though something moved in the shadow on the
floor, no doubt a resident toad. Mark knew the cellar perfectly, and he
had often seen tools in it, as a hammer, used in tapping the barrels,
but though he tried hard he could not find it. It must have been taken
away for some purpose. He stamped on the stone floor, and heard a
rustle as a startled mouse rushed into its hole.
The light just then seemed to increase, and turning towards the window
he saw the full round moon. As it crossed the narrow window the shadow
of the iron bar fell on the opposite wall, then moved aside, and in a
very few minutes the moon began to disappear as she swept up into the
sky. He watched the bright shield still himself for awhile, then as he
looked down he thought of the iron bar, and out came his knife again.
The bar was not let into the stonework, the window recess inside was
encased with wood, and the bar, flattened at each end, was fastened with
three screws. Mark endeavoured to unscrew these, he quickly broke the
point of his knife, and soon had nothing but a stump left. The stump
answered better than the complete blade, and he presently got the screws
out. He then worked the bar to and fro with such violence that he
wrenched the top screws clean away from the wood there. But just as he
lifted the bar to smash all the panes and get out, he saw that the frame
was far too narrow for him to pass through.
Inside the recess was wide enough, but it was not half so broad where
the glass was. The bar was really unnecessary; no one could have got in
or out, and perhaps that was why it had been so insecurely fastened, as
the workmen could hardly have helped seeing it was needless.
Mark hurled the bar to the other end of the cellar, where it knocked
some plaster off the wall, then fell on an earthenware vessel used to
keep vegetables in, and cracked it. He stamped up and down the cellar,
and in his bitter and desperate anger, had half a mind to set all the
taps running for spite.
“Let me out,” he yelled, thumping the door with all his might. “Let me
out; you’ve no business to put me in here. If the governor was at home,
I know he wouldn’t, and you’re beasts--you’re _beasts_.”
He was right in so far that the governor would not have locked him in
the cellar; but the governor was out that evening, and Bevis’s mamma, so
soon as she found he was missing, had had the horse put in the dog-cart,
and went to fetch him. So Mark fell into the hands of the merciless.
No one even heard him howling and bawling and kicking the heart of oak,
and when he had exhausted himself he sat down again on a wooden frame
made to support a cask. Presently he went to the door once more, and
shouted through the keyhole, “Tell me if you have found Bevis!”
There was no answer. He waited, and then sat down on the frame, and
asked himself if he could get up through the roof. By standing on the
top of the largest cask he thought he could touch the rafters, but no
more, and he had no tool to cut his way through with. “I know,” he said
suddenly, “I’ll smash the lock.” He searched for the iron bar, and
found it in the earthenware vessel.
He hit the lock a tremendous bang, then stopped, and began to examine it
more carefully. His eyes were now used to the dim light, and he could
see almost as well as by day, and he found that the great bolt of the
lock, quite three inches thick, shot into an open staple driven into the
door-post, a staple much like those used to fasten chains to.
In a minute he had the end of the iron bar inside the staple. The
staple was strong, and driven deep into the oaken post, but he had a
great leverage on it. The bar bent, but the staple came slowly, then
easier, and presently fell on the stones. The door immediately swung
open towards him.
Mark dashed out with the bar in his hand, fully determined to knock any
one down who got in his way, but they were all in the road, and he
reached the meadow. He dropped the bar, and ran for the battlefield.
Going through the gate that opened on the New Sea, something pushed
through beside him against his ankles. It would have startled him, but
he saw directly it was Pan. The spaniel had followed him: it may be
with some intelligence that he was looking for his master.
“Pan! Pan!” said Mark, stooping to stroke him, and delighted to get
some sympathy at last. “Come on.”
Together they raced to the battlefield.
Then from the high ground Mark saw the beacon on the island, and
instantly knew it was Bevis. He never doubted it for a moment. He
looked at the beacon, and saw the flames shoot up, sink, and rise again;
then he ran back as fast as he could to the head of the water, where the
boats were moored in the sandy corner. Fetching the sculls from the
tumbling shed where they were kept, he pushed off in the blue boat which
they were fitting up for sailing, never dreaming that the first voyage
in it would be like this. Pan jumped in with him.
In his haste, not looking where he was going, he rowed into the weeds,
and was some time getting out, for the stalks clung to the blade of the
scull as if an invisible creature in the water were holding it. Soon
after he got free he reached the waves, and in five minutes, coming out
into the open channel, the boat began to dance up and down. With wind
and wave and oar he drove along at a rapid pace, past the oak where the
council had been held, past the jutting point, and into the broad
waters, where he could see the beacon, if he glanced over his shoulder.
The boat now pitched furiously, as it seemed to him rising almost
straight up, and dipping as if she would dive into the deep. But she
always rose again, and after her came the wave she had surmounted
rolling with a hiss and bubble eager to overtake him. The crest blew
off like a shower in his face, and just as the following roller seemed
about to break into the stern-sheets it sank. Still the wave always
came after him, row as hard as he would, like vengeance, black, dire,
and sleepless.
Lit up by the full moon, the raging waters rushed and foamed and gleamed
around him. Though he afterwards saw tempests on the ocean, the waves
never seemed so high and so threatening as they did that night, alone in
the little boat. The storms, indeed, on inland waters are full of
dangers, perhaps more so than the long heaving billows of the sea, for
the waves seem to have scarcely any interval between, racing quick,
short and steep, one after the other.
This great black wave--for it looked always the same--chased him
eagerly, overhanging the stern. Pan sat there on the bottom as it
looked under the wave. Mark rowed his hardest, trying to get away from
it. Hissing, foaming, with the rush and roar of the wind, the wave ran
after. When he ventured to look round he was close to the islands, so
quickly had he travelled.
Bevis was standing on the summit of the cliff with a long stick burning
at the end in his hand. He held it out straight like the arm of a
signal, then waved it a little, but kept it pointing in the same
direction. He was shouting his loudest, to direct Mark, who could not
hear a sound, but easily guessed that he meant him to bear the way he
pointed. Mark pulled a few strokes and looked again, and saw the white
spray rushing up the cliff, though he could not hear the noise of the
surge.
Bevis was frantically waving the burning brand; Mark understood now, and
pulled his left scull, hardest. The next minute the current setting
between the islands seized the boat, and he was carried by as if on a
mountain torrent. Everything seemed to whirl past, and he saw the black
wave that had followed him dashed to sparkling fragments against the
cliff.
He was taken beyond the island before he could stay the boat, then he
edged away out of the rush behind the land, where the water was much
smoother, and was able presently to row back to it in the shelter.
Bevis came out from the trees to meet him, and taking hold of the stem
of the boat drew it ashore. Mark stepped out, and Pan, jumping on
Bevis, barked round him.
Bevis told him how it had all happened, and danced with delight when he
heard how Mark had won the battle, for he insisted that Mark had done
it. They went to the beacon fire, and then Mark, now his first joy was
over, began to grumble because Bevis had been really shipwrecked and he
had not. He wished he had smashed his boat against the cliff now.
Bevis said they could have another great shipwreck soon. Mark wanted to
stop all night on the island, but Bevis was hungry.
“And besides,” said he, “there’s the governor; he will be awfully
frightened about us, and he ought to know.”
“So he did,” said Mark. “Very well; but, mind, there is to be a jolly
shipwreck.”
Scamps as they were, they both disliked to give pain to those who loved
them. It was the knowledge that the governor would never have put him
in the cellar that stopped Mark from the spiteful trick of turning on
the taps. Bevis was exceedingly angry about Mark having been locked up.
He stamped his foot, and said the Bailiff should know.
They got into the boat, and each took a scull, but when they were afloat
they paused, for it occurred to both at once that they could not row
back in the teeth of the storm.
“We shall have to stop on the island now,” said Mark, not at all sorry.
Bevis, however, remembered the floating breakwater of weeds, and the
winding channel on that side, and told Mark about it. So they rowed
between the weeds, and so much were the waves weakened that the boat
barely rocked. Now the boat was steady, Pan sat in front, and peered
over the stem like a figure-head. Presently they came to the sand or
mudbanks where the water was quite smooth, and here the heron rose up.
“We ought to have a gun,” said Bevis; “it’s a shame we haven’t got a
gun.”
“Just as if we didn’t know how to shoot,” said Mark indignantly.
“Just as if,” echoed Bevis; “but we will have one, somehow.”
The boat as he spoke grounded on a shallow; they got her off, but she
soon grounded again, and it took them quite three-quarters of an hour to
find the channel, so much did it turn and wind. At last they were
stopped by thick masses of weeds, and a great bunch of the reed-mace,
often called bulrushes, and decided to land on the sandbank. They
hauled the boat so far up on the shore that she could not possibly get
loose, and then walked to the mainland.
There the bushes and bramble thickets again gave them much trouble, but
they contrived to get through into the wildest-looking field they had
over seen. It was covered with hawthorn-trees, bunches of thistles,
bramble bushes, rushes, and numbers of green ant-hills, almost as high
as their knees. Skirting this, as they wound in and out the ant-hills,
they startled some peewits, which rose with their curious whistle, and
two or three white tails, which they knew to be rabbits, disappeared
round the thistles.
It took them some time to cross this field; the next was barley, very
short; the next wheat, and then clover; and at last they reached the
head of the water, and got into the meadows. Thence it was only a short
way home, and they could see the house illuminated by the moonlight.
The authorities were wroth, though secretly glad to see them. Nothing
was said; the wrath was too deep for reproaches. They were ordered to
bed that instant. They did not dare disobey, but Mark darted a savage
look, and Bevis shouted back from the top of the staircase that he was
hungry. “Be off, sir,” was the only reply. Sullenly they went into
their room and sat down. Five minutes afterwards some one opened the
door a little way, put in a plate and a jug, and went away. On the
plate were three huge slices of bread, and in the jug cold water.
“I won’t touch it,” said Bevis; “it’s hateful.”
“It’s hateful,” said Mark.
“After we came home to tell them, too,” said Bevis. “Horrid!”
But by-and-by his hunger overcame him; he ate two of the huge slices,
and Mark the other. Then after a draught of the cold water, they
undressed, and fell asleep, quick and calm, just as Aurora was beginning
to show her white foot in the East.
Volume Two, Chapter V.