They did not get up till the sun was high, and when Mark lifted the
curtain a robin flew from the table just outside, where he had been
picking up the crumbs, across to the gate-post in the stockade. The
gate had not been shut--Pan was lying by it under the fence, which cast
a shadow in the morning and evening.
“Pan!” said Mark; the lazy spaniel wagged his tail, but did not come.
“I shall go and finish the sun-dial while you get the breakfast,” said
Bevis. It was Mark’s turn to-day, and as he went out at the gate he
stooped and patted Pan, who looked up with speaking affection in his
eyes, and stretched himself to his full length in utter lassitude.
Bevis drew the line from the gnomon to the mark he had made the night
before, this was the noon or meridian. Then he drew another from the
mark where the shadow had fallen at four o’clock in the afternoon. The
space between the two he divided into four equal divisions and drew
lines for one, two, and three o’clock. They were nearly two inches
apart, and having measured them exactly he added four more beyond, up to
eight o’clock, as he thought the sun set about eight; and then seven
more on the other side where the shadow would fall in the morning, as he
supposed the sun rose about five.
His hours, therefore, ranged from five till eight, and he added half
lines to show the half-hours. When it was done the shadow of the gnomon
touched the nine, so he shouted to Mark that it was nine o’clock. He
knew that his dial was not correct, because the hour lines ought to be
drawn so as to show the time every day of the year, and his would only
show it for a short while.
How often he had drawn a pencil-mark along the edge of the shadow on the
window-frame in the south window of the parlour! In the early spring,
while the bitter east wind raged, he used to sit in the old oak chair at
the south window, where every now and then the warm sunshine fell from a
break in the ranks of the marching clouds. Out of the wind the March
sun was warm and pleasant, and while it lasted he dreamed over his
books, his Odyssey, his Faust, his Quixote, his Shakespeare’s poems.
About eleven the sunshine generally came, and he drew a line on the
frame to mark the hour. But in two days the verge of the shadow had
gone on, and at eleven left the pencil-mark behind. He marked it again
and again, it went on as the sun, coming up higher and higher, described
a larger ring. So with his pencil-lines on the window-frame he measured
the spring and graduated the coming of summer, till the eggs in the
goldfinch’s nest in the apple-tree were hard set. From this he knew
that his sun-dial was not correct, for as the sun now each day described
a circle slightly less than before, the shadow too would change and the
error increase. Still the dial would divide the day for them, and they
could work and arrange their plans by it.
Had they had the best chronometer ever made it would have been of no
further use. All time is artificial, and their time was correct to
them.
Mark shouted that breakfast was ready, so he went down, and they sat at
the table under the awning.
“Pan’s been thieving,” said Mark. “There was half a damper on the table
last night, and it was gone this morning, and two potatoes which we
left, and I put the skin of the kangaroo on the fence, and that’s
gone--”
“He couldn’t eat the skin, could he?” said Bevis. “Pan, come here,
sir.”
“Look at him,” said Mark, “he’s stuffed so full he can hardly crawl--if
he was hungry he would come quick.”
“So he would. Pan, you old rascal! What have you done with the
kangaroo skin, sir?”
Pan wagged his tail and looked from one to the other; the sound of their
voices was stern, but he detected the goodwill in it, and that they were
not really angry.
“And the damper?”
“And the potatoes? And just as if you could eat leather and fur, sir!”
Pan put his fore-paws on Bevis’s knee, and looked up as if he had done
something very clever.
“Pooh! Get away,” said Bevis, “you’re a false old rascal. Mark, cut
him some of that piece of bacon presently.”
“So I will--and I’ll put the things higher up,” said Mark. “I’ll drive
some nails into the posts and make a shelf, then you’ll be done, sir.”
Pan, finding there was nothing more for him to eat, walked slowly back
to the fence and let himself fall down.
“Too lazy to lie down properly,” said Bevis.
After breakfast they put up the shelf, and placed the eatables on it out
of Pan’s reach, and then taking their towels started for their bath.
“It might have been a rat,” said Mark; “that looks gnawn.” He kicked
the jack’s head which had been cut off, being shattered with the shot,
and thrown down outside the gate. “But Pan’s very full, else he would
come,” for the spaniel did not follow as usual. So soon as they had
gone the robin returned to the table, took what he liked, ventured into
the hut for a minute, and then perched on the fence above Pan before
returning to the wood.
Bevis and Mark swam and waded to Serendib again. There was a light
ripple this morning from the south-east, and a gentle breeze which
cooled the day. They said they would hasten to construct the raft, so
as to be able to shoot the water-fowl, but Bevis wanted first to try the
matchlock with ball now he had fitted it with a sight. He fired three
times at the teak-tree, to which Mark pinned a small piece of paper as a
bull’s-eye, and at thirty yards he hit the tree very well, but not the
paper. The bullets were all below, the nearest about four inches from
the bull’s-eye. Still it was much better shooting.
He then loaded the gun with shot, and took it and a hatchet--the two
were a good load--intending to look in the wood for suitable timber, and
keep the gun by him for a possible shot at something. But just as he
had got ready, and Pan shaking himself together began to drag his idle
body after him, he thought Mark looked dull. It was Mark’s turn to
cook, and he had already got the fire alight under the teak.
“I won’t go,” he said; “I’ll stop and help you. Things are stupid by
yourself.”
“Fishing is very stupid, by yourself,” said Mark.
“Let’s make a rule,” said Bevis. “Everybody helps everybody instead of
going by themselves.”
“So we will,” said Mark, only too glad, and the new rule was agreed to,
but as they could not both shoot at once, it was understood that in this
the former contract was to stand, and each was to have the matchlock a
day to himself. The pot and the saucepan, with the kangaroo and the
jack were soon on, and they found that boiling had one great advantage
over roasting, they could pile on sticks and go away for some time,
instead of having to watch and turn the roast.
They found a good many small trees and poles such as they wanted not far
from home, and among the rest three dead larches which had been snapped
by a tornado. These dry trees were lighter and would float better than
green timber. For the larger beams, or foundation of the raft, they
chose aspen and poplar, and for the cross-joists firs, and by
dinner-time they had collected nearly enough.
It was half-past one by the sun-dial when Mark began to prepare the
table; Bevis had gone to haul the catamaran planks up to the place where
the raft was to be built. Under one of the planks, as he turned it
over, there was a little lizard; the creature at first remained still as
if dead, then not being touched ran off quickly, grasping the grass
sideways with its claws as a monkey grasps a branch. With the end of a
plank under each arm Bevis hauled these across to the other materials.
This time they had a nicer meal than any they had prepared: fish and
game; the kangaroo was white and juicy, almost as white as a chicken, as
a young summer rabbit is if cooked soon after it is shot. It is the
only time indeed when a rabbit does not taste like a rabbit. If you
tasted a young one fresh shot in summer, you would not care to eat them
in winter, and discover that the frost improvement theory is an
invention of poulterers who cannot keep their stock unless it is
bitterly cold. There was sufficient left for supper, and a bone or two
for Pan. The chopping they had done made them idle, and they agreed not
to work again till the evening; they lounged about like Pan till the
time appointed to look for Charlie’s signal.
When they went up on the cliff it was a quarter-past three by the dial,
so they sat down in the shade of the oak where the brambles behind would
prevent their being seen against the sky line. After awhile Mark crept
on all fours to the sun-dial, and said it was half-past three, and
suddenly exclaimed that the time was going backwards.
The shadow of the gnomon slipped the wrong way; he looked up and saw a
light cloud passing over the sun. Bevis had often seen the same thing
in March, sitting by the southern window, when the shadow ran back from
his pencil-line on the window-frame as the clouds began again to cover
up the blue roof. Charlie was rather late to-day, but he gave the
signal according to promise: they saw him look a long while and then
move away.
Presently, while Mark was preparing the tea, Bevis got the matchlock to
practise again. They were always ready for tea, and it is a curious
fact that those who live much out of doors and work hard, like
gold-diggers abroad, and our own reapers at home labouring among the
golden wheat, prefer it to anything while actually engaged and in the
midst of their toil; but not afterwards.
Bevis set up the rest in the gateway of the stockade, and took aim at
the piece of paper pinned on the teak-tree, which was between fifty and
sixty yards distant. Twice he fired and missed the teak: then he let
Mark try, and Mark also missed; and a third time he fired himself. None
of the four bullets struck either the tree or the branches; so, though
they could hit it at thirty yards, they could not rely on their gun at
sixty.
Directly after tea they began to work again at the preparations for the
raft, cutting some more poles and sawing up those they had already into
the proper lengths. Sawing is very hard work, causing a continual
strain upon the same muscles, with no change of position as possible
while chopping, and they were obliged to do it by shifts, one working so
long and then the other. The raft was to be twelve feet long and five
wide. The beams for the foundation gave them most trouble to procure,
being largest, and not every tree was exactly the size they wished.
They laboured on into the moonlight, which grew brighter every night as
the moon increased, and did not cease till all the materials were ready;
the long beams of aspen and poplar placed side by side (on rollers) and
near these short cross-pieces of fir with holes bored for the nails,
then a row of long fir poles, and the short lengths of plank to form the
deck. Everything was just ready for fitting together. It cost them
some self-denial to wait till all was thus prepared instead of at once
beginning to nail the frame together.
There is something in driving in a nail tempting to the wrist; when the
board is ready, the gimlet-hole made, and the hammer at hand, the
physical mind desires to complete the design. They resisted it, because
they knew that they should really complete the raft much quicker by
getting every portion of the frame ready before commencing to fix it.
They did not recognise how tired they were till they started for the
hut; their backs, so long bent over the sawing, had stiffened in that
position, and pained them as they straightened the sinews to stand
upright; their fingers were crooked from continually grasping the
handles; they staggered about as they walked, for their stiff limbs were
not certain of foothold, and jerked them where the ground was uneven.
Mark sat down to light the fire in the courtyard, for they wanted some
more tea; Bevis sat by him. They were dog-tired. Looking in the larder
to lay out the supper, Mark saw the mushrooms which had been forgotten;
he hunted out the gridiron, and put two handsful of them on. Now the
sight of these savoury mushrooms raised their fainting spirits more than
the most solid food, and they began to talk again. While these were
doing, Bevis cut Pan a slice of the cooked bacon on the shelf; it was
rather fat, and pampered Pan, after mumbling it over in his chops,
carried it just outside the fence, and came back trying to look as if he
had eaten it.
With the mushrooms they made a capital supper, but they were still very
tired. Bevis got out his journal, but he only wrote down “Friday,” and
then put it away, remarking that he must soon write a letter home. Even
cards could not amuse them, they were so tired; but the cry of a heron
roused Bevis a little, and he took the matchlock and loaded it with
shot, to see if he could shoot it and get the plumes.
“Heron’s plumes were thought a good deal of in our day where we lived,
you know. Didn’t the knights use to wear them?” he said. “Herons are
very hard to shoot.”
Mark came with him and the spaniel, and they walked softly down the
path, now well-worn, and peered over the moonlit water, but the heron
was not on the island, nor in sight. He was probably on some of the
lesser islets among the shallows, so they returned home and immediately
went to bed, quite knocked up. Pan curled round by the bedside for
about an hour, then he got up and slipped out under the curtain into the
moonlight.
In the morning when they went to bathe there was a mist over the water,
which curled along and gathered thicker in places, once quite hiding
Serendib, and then clearing away and drawing towards the unknown river.
The water was very warm.
They then began to nail the raft together. On the long thick beams they
placed short cross-pieces of fir close together and touching; over these
long poles of fir lengthways, also touching; lastly, short planks across
making the deck. There were thus four layers, for they knew that rafts
sink a good deal and float deep, especially when the wood is green, as
you may see a bough, or a tree-trunk in the brook quite half immersed as
it goes by on the current. It was built on rollers, because Bevis,
consulting his book, read how Ulysses rigged his vessel:--
And roll’d on levers, launch’d her in the deep.
And, reflecting, he foresaw that the raft being so heavy would be
otherwise difficult to move.
The spot where they had built her was a little below where Bevis leaped
on shore on the evening of the battle. The ground sloped to the water,
which was rather deep. By noon the raft was ready--for they had decided
to complete the rigging, bulwarks, and fittings when she was afloat--and
with levers they began to heave her down.
She moved slowly, rumbling and crushing the rollers into the sward. By
degrees with a “Yeo! Heave-ho!” at which Pan set up a barking, the raft
approached the water, and the forward part entered it. The weight of
the rest prevented the front from floating, forcing it straight under
the surface till the water rose a third of the way along the deck.
“Yeo! Heave-ho!”
Yow-wow-wow! Pan, who had been idle all the morning lying on the
ground, jumped round and joined the chorus.
“Now! Heave-ho! She’s going! Now!”
“Stop!”
“Why?”
“She’ll slip away--right out!”
“So she will.”
“Run for a rope.”
“All right.”
Mark ran for a piece of cord from the hut. The raft as it were hung on
the edge more than half in and heaving up as the water began to float
her, and they saw that if they gave another push she would go out and
the impetus of her weight would carry her away from the shore out of
reach. Mark soon returned with the cord, which was fastened to two
stout nails.
“Ready?”
“Go!”
One strong heave with the levers and the raft slid off the last roller,
rose to the surface, the water slipping off the deck each side, and
floated. Seizing the cord as it ran out, they brought her to, and Mark
instantly jumped on board. He danced and kicked up his heels--Pan
followed him and ran round the edge of the raft, sniffing over at the
water. The raft floated first-rate, and the deck, owing to the three
layers under it, was high above the surface. These layers, too, gave
the advantage that they could walk to the very verge without depressing
it to the water. Mark got off and held the cord while Bevis got on,
then they both shouted, “Serendib!”
They pushed off with long poles, like punting, Pan swam out so soon as
they had started, and was hauled on board. A short way from shore the
channel was so deep the poles would not reach the bottom, but the raft
had way on her and continued to move, and paddling with the poles they
kept up the slow movement till they reached the shallows. Thence to
Serendib they poled along, one each side. The end of the raft crashed
in among the willow boughs, and the jerk as it grounded almost threw
them down. Pan leaped off directly, and they followed, fastening the
raft by the cord or painter to the willows.
“Nothing but blue gums,” said Mark, who led the way. “What are these?”
pointing to the wild parsnips or “gix” which rose as high as their
heads, with hollow-jointed stalks and broad heads of minute white
flowers.
“It’s a new kind of bamboo,” said Bevis. “Listen! Pan’s hunting out
the moorhens again. This is some kind of spice--you sniff--the air is
heavy with the scent, just as it always is in the tropics.”
As they pushed along they shook the meadowsweet flowers which grew very
thickly, and the heavy perfume rose up. In a willow stole or blue gum
Mark found the nest of a sedge bird, but empty, the young birds hatched
long since.
“Mind you don’t step on a crocodile,” said Mark, “you can’t see a bit.”
The ground was so matted with vegetation that their feet never touched
the earth at all, they trampled on grasses, rushes, meadowsweet, and
triangular fluted carex sedges. Sometimes they approached the shore and
saw several empty nests of moorhens and coots, but just above the level
of the water. Sometimes their uncertain course led them in the interior
to avoid thickets of elder. If they paused a moment they could hear the
rustling as water-fowl rushed away. Pan had gone beyond hearing now.
Presently they came on a small pool surrounded with sedges--a
black-headed bunting watched them from a branch opposite.
“No fish,” said Bevis: they could see the bottom of the shallow water.
“Herons and kingfishers have had them of course.”
Crashing through the new bamboos they at last reached the southern
extremity of the island, where the shallow sea was covered with the
floating leaves of weeds, over which blue dragon-flies flew to and fro.
“Everything’s gone to the river again,” said Mark; “and where’s Pan?
He’s gone too, I dare say.”
A short bark in that direction in a few minutes made them look at an
islet round which reed-mace rose in a tall fringe, and there was Pan
creeping up out of the weeds, dragging his body after him on to the firm
ground. He set up a great yelping on the islet.
“Something’s been there,” said Bevis. “Perhaps it’s the thing that
makes the curious wave. Pan! Pan!”--whistling. Pan would not come: he
was too excited. “We must come here in the evening,” said Bevis, “and
make an ambush. There’s heaps of moorhens.”
As there was nothing else to see on Serendib they worked a way between
the blue gums back to the raft, and re-embarked for New Formosa. Just
before they landed Pan dashed into the water from Serendib and swam to
them. He did not seem quite himself, he looked as if he had done
something out of the common and could not tell them.
“Was it a crocodile?” said Mark, stroking him. Pan whined, as much as
to say, “I wish I could tell you,” and then to give vent to his
excitement he rushed into the wood.
Volume Three, Chapter III.