They arrived on Wednesday; Wednesday night Pan stayed in the hut with
them, and nothing happened. Thursday night, Pan swam off to the
mainland, and while he was away Loo made her first visit to the island,
coming right to the hut door or curtain. Till she reached the permanent
plank table under the awning and saw the remnants of the supper
carelessly left on it, she had had no thought of taking anything.
The desire to share, if ever so secretly, in what they were doing alone
led her there. So intense was that desire that it overcame her fear of
offending them; she must at least see what they were doing. From the
sedges she had watched them go to the island in the Pinta so many times
that she was certain that was the place where they were. In wading off
to the island by moonlight she caught a glimpse of the sinking fire
inside the stockade, the glow thrown up on the cliff, and so easily
found her way to the hut. Had Pan been there he would have barked, but
he was away; so that she came under the awning and saw all their works--
the stockade, the hut, and everything, increasing her eagerness.
After she had examined the place and wondered how they could build it,
she saw the remnants of the supper on the table, and remembering Samson,
took them for him. The rabbit’s skin was hung on the fence, and she
took it also, knowing that it would fetch a trifle; in winter it would
have been worth more. She thought that these things were nothing to
them, that they did not care about them, and threw them aside like
refuse.
The second time she came was on Saturday morning, while they were
exploring Serendib. When they were on Serendib she could cross to New
Formosa in broad daylight unseen, because New Formosa lay between, and
the woods on it concealed any one approaching from the western side.
Her mother and elder sisters were reaping in the cornfields beyond the
Waste, and she was supposed to be minding the younger children, instead
of which she was in the sedges watching New Formosa, and directly she
saw Bevis and Mark pole the raft across to Serendib she waded over.
She visited the hut, took a few potatoes from the store in the cave, and
spent some time wondering at everything they had there. As she was
leaving they landed from the raft, and Pan sniffing her in the wood ran
barking after her. He knew her very well and made no attempt to bite,
still he barked as if it was his duty to tell them some one was on the
island. Thinking they would run to see what it was, she climbed up into
the ivy-grown oak, and they actually came underneath and looked up and
did not see her.
They soon went away fancying it must be a squirrel, but Pan stopped till
she descended, and then made friends and followed her to the reed-grass,
whence so soon as she thought it safe she waded across to the mainland.
Busy at the hut they had no idea that anything of the kind was going on,
for they could not see the water from the stockade. On Sunday morning
she came again, for the third time, crossing over while they were at
Bamboo Island, and after satiating her curiosity and indulging in the
pleasure of handling their weapons and the things in the hut, she took
the cold half-cooked bacon from the shelf, and the two slices that had
been thrown to Pan and which he had left uneaten.
When they returned Pan knew she had been; he barked and first ran to the
ivy-grown oak, but finding she was not there he went on and discovered
her in the reed-grass. He was satisfied with having discovered her, and
only licked her hand. So soon as everything was quiet she slipped
across to the mainland, but in the afternoon, being so much interested
and eager to see what they were doing, she tried to come over again,
when Mark saw her head in the sedges. Loo crouched and kept still so
long they concluded there was no one there.
It was the same afternoon that they looked at the oak for marks of
claws, but her naked feet had left no trace. She would very probably
have attempted it again on Monday night, but that evening they came with
the letter and list of provisions, and having seen them and spoken to
them, and having something to do for them, her restless eagerness was
temporarily allayed. That night was the first Pan was tied up, but
nothing disturbed him.
But Tuesday night, after they had been for the flag-basket, the
inclination to follow them became too strong, and towards the middle of
the night, when, as she supposed, Pan was on shore (for she had seen him
swim off other nights), she approached the hut. To her surprise Pan,
who was tied up, began to bark. Hastening away, in her hurry she
crossed the spot where Pan hid his treasures and picked up the duck’s
drumstick, but finding it was so polished as to be useless dropped it
among the reed-grass.
Wednesday night she ventured once more, but found the gate in the
stockade locked; she tried to look over, when Pan set up his bark. She
ran back a few yards to the bramble bushes and crouched there, trusting
in the thick mist to hide her, as in fact it did. In half a minute,
Mark having cut the cord, Pan rushed out in fury, as if he would fly at
her throat, but coming near and seeing who it was, he dropped his howl
of rage, and during the silence they supposed he was engaged in a deadly
struggle.
Whether she really feared that he would spring at her, he came with such
a bounce, or whether she thought Bevis and Mark would follow him and
find her, she hit at Pan with the thick stick she carried. Now Pan was
but just touched, for he swerved, but the big stick and the thump it
made on the ground frightened him, and he yelped as if with pain and ran
back. As he ran she threw a stone after him, the stone hit the fence
and shook it, and knocked off the piece of bark from the willow which
they afterwards supposed to have been torn by the claw of the tiger.
Hearing them talking and dreading every moment that they would come out,
she remained crouched in the brambles for a long time, and at last crept
away, but stayed in the reed-grass till the sun shone, and then crossed
to the mainland. Thursday she did not come, nor Thursday night,
thinking it best to wait awhile and let a day and night elapse. But on
Friday morning, having seen them sail to the south in the Calypso, while
they were exploring the swamp, she waded over, and once more looked at
the wonderful hut and the curious cage they had constructed about the
open shed.
She was so lost in admiring these things and trying to imagine what it
could be for, that they had returned very near the island before she
started to go. She got as far as the reed-grass and saw them come up
poling the raft.
On the raft while facing the island they could not have helped seeing
her, so she waited, intending to cross when they had entered the
stockade and were busy there. But Pan recognised that she had been to
the stockade; they ran at once to the reed-grass, as they now knew of
the trail there, and discovered her. The reason Pan would not enter the
reeds, even when hurled among them, was his fear of the thick stick.
“Stupes we were!” said Bevis.
“Most awful stupes!”
“Not half Indians!”
“Not a quarter!”
The whole thing was now so clear to them they could not understand why
they had not rightly read the indications or “sign” that at last
appeared so self-evident. But they were not the first who have wondered
afterwards that they had not been wise _before_ the event. It is so
easy to read when the type is set up and the sentences printed in proper
sequence; so difficult to decipher defaced inscriptions in an unknown
language. When the path is made any one can walk along it and express
disdainful surprise that there should ever have been any difficulty.
“But it’s not proper,” said Bevis. “I wish it had been a tiger.”
“It would have been so capital. But _we’ve_ got a slave.”
“Where’s she to sleep to-night?”
“Anywhere in the wood.”
“Slave, you’re to cook the hare for supper.”
“And mind you don’t make a noise when we’re out hunting and frighten the
kangaroos.”
Loo said she would be as quiet as a mouse.
“We shall want some tea presently. I say!” said Mark, “we’ve forgotten
Charlie!”
He ran up on the cliff, but it was too late; Charlie had been and waved
his cap three times, in token that all was not quite right at home.
Mark looked at the sun-dial; it was nearly five. They had not had
dinner till later than usual, and then Loo’s explanation and
cross-examination had filled up the time. Still as Loo told them she
was certain every one was quite well at home, they did not trouble about
having missed Charlie. Mark wished to go shooting again round Serendib,
and they started, leaving the slave in charge of the hut to cook their
supper.
Mark had the matchlock, and Bevis poled the raft gently round Serendib,
but the water-fowl seemed to have become more cautious, as they did not
see any. Bevis poled along till they came to a little inlet, where they
stopped, with blue gum branches concealing them on either hand. Mark
knelt where he could see both ways along the shore; Bevis sat back under
the willows with Pan beside him.
They were so quiet that presently a black-headed reed-bunting came and
looked down at them from a willow bough. Moths fluttered among the tops
of the branches, the wind was so light that they flew whither they
listed, instead of being borne out over the water. The brown tips of a
few tall reeds moved slightly as the air came softly; they did not bow
nor bend; they did but just sway, yielding assent.
Every now and then there was a rush overhead as five or six starlings
passed swiftly, straight as arrows, for the firs at the head of Fir-Tree
Gulf. These parties succeeding each other were perhaps separate
families gathering together into a tribe at the roosting-trees. Over
the distant firs a thin cloud like a black bar in the sky spread itself
out, and then descended funnel-shaped into the firs. The cloud was
formed of starlings, thousands of them, rising up from the trees and
settling again. One bird as a mere speck would have been invisible;
these legions darkened the air there like smoke.
But just beyond the raft the swallows glided, dipping their breasts and
sipping as they dipped; the touch and friction of the water perceptibly
checked their flight. They wheeled round and several times approached
the surface, till having at last the exact balance and the exact angle
they skimmed the water, leaving no more mark than a midge.
Bevis watched them, and as he watched his senses gradually became more
acute, till he could distinctly hear the faint far off sound of the
waterfall at Sweet River. It rose and fell, faint and afar; the flutter
of a moth’s wings against the greyish willow leaves overbore and
silenced it. As he listened and watched the swallows he thought, or
rather felt--for he did not think from step to step upwards to a
conclusion--he felt that all the power of a bird’s wing is in its tip.
It was with the slender-pointed and elastic tip, the flexible and finely
divided feather point that the bird flew. An artist has a cumbrous
easel, a heavy framework, a solid palette which has a distinct weight,
but he paints with a tiny point of camel’s hair. With a camel’s hair
tip the swallow sweeps the sky.
That part of the wing near the body, which is thick, rigid, and contains
the bones, is the easel and framework; it is the shaft through which the
driving force flows, and in floating it forms a part of the plane or
surface, but it does not influence the air. The touch of the wing is in
its tip. There where the feathers fine down to extreme tenuity, so that
if held up the light comes through the filaments, they seem to feel the
air and to curl over on it as the end of a flag on a mast curls over on
itself. So the tail of a fish--his one wing--curls over at the extreme
edge of its upper and lower corners, and as it unfolds presses back the
water. The swallow, pure artist of flight, feels the air with his
wing-tips as with fingers, and lightly fanning glides.
Over the distant firs a heron came drifting like a cloud at his
accustomed hour; from over the New Nile the call of a partridge,
“caer-wit--caer-wit,” sounded along the surface of the water. There was
a slight movement and Bevis saw the match descending, an inverted cone
of smoke darted up from the priming, and almost before the report Pan
leaped overboard. Mark had watched till two moorhens were near enough
together, one he shot outright and Pan caught the other.
At the report the heron staggered in the air as if a bullet had struck
him, it was his sudden effort to check his course, and then recovering
himself he wheeled and flew towards the woods on the mainland. Bevis
said he must have a heron’s plume. To please Mark he poled the raft to
Bamboo Island, and then across to the sedgy banks at the southern
extremity of New Formosa, but Mark did not get another shot. They then
landed and crept quietly to Kangaroo Hill, the rabbits had grown
suspicious, and they did not see one, but Pan suddenly raced across the
glade--to their great annoyance--and stopped on the verge of the wood.
There he picked up a rabbit in his mouth, and they recollected the wires
they had set. The rabbit had been in a wire since the morning. “It
will do for Samson,” said Bevis.
When they returned to the hut the full moon--full but low down--had
begun to fill the courts of the sky with her light, which permitted no
pause of dusk between it and the sunset. The slave’s cheeks were red
and scorched from the heat of the fire, which she had tended on her
knees, and her chin and tawny neck were streaked with black marks.
Handling the charred sticks with her fingers, the fingers had
transferred the charcoal to her chin. The hare was well cooked
considering the means, or rather the want of means at her command,
perhaps it was not the first she had helped to prepare. Searching in
the store-room she found a little butter with which she basted it after
a manner; they had thought the butter was all gone, they were too
hasty--impatient--to look thoroughly. There was no jelly, and it was
dry, but they enjoyed it very much sitting at the plank table under the
shed.
They had removed the poles on one side of the shed as there was nothing
now to dread, but on the other two sides the bars remained, and the
flames of the expiring fire every now and then cast black bars of shadow
across the table. The slave would have been only too glad to have
stayed on the island all night--if they had lent her a great-coat or rug
to roll up in she would have slept anywhere in the courtyard--but she
said Samson would be so wretched without her, he would be frightened and
miserable. She must go; she would come back in the morning about ten.
They filled the flag-basket for her with the moorhens, the rabbit, the
dab-chick and thrush, and a tin of preserved tongue. There were still
some fragments of biscuit; she said Samson would like these best of all.
Thus laden, she would have waded to the mainland, but they would not
let her--they took the raft and ferried her over, and promised to fetch
her in the morning if she would whistle, she could whistle like a boy.
To Loo that voyage on the raft, short as it was, was something beyond
compare. Loo had to pass the prickly stubble fields with her bare
feet--stubble to the naked foot is as if the broad earth were a
porcupine’s back. But long practice had taught her how to wind round at
the edge where there was a narrow and thistly band of grass, for
thistles she did not care.
“Good-night, slave.”
They poled back to the island, and having fastened Pan up, were going to
bed, when Bevis said he wanted the matchlock loaded with ball as he
meant to rise early to try for a heron. Mark fired it off, and in the
stillness they heard the descending shot rattle among the trees. The
matchlock was loaded with ball, and Bevis set the clock of his mind to
wake at three. It was still early in the evening, but they had had
little or no rest lately, and fell asleep in an instant; they were
asleep long before the slave had crept in at her window and quieted
Samson with broken biscuits.
The alarum of his mind awoke Bevis about the time he wished. He did not
wake Mark, and wishing to go even more quietly than usual left Pan
fastened up; the spaniel gave a half-whine, but crouched as Bevis spoke
and he recognised the potential anger in the tones of his voice. From
the stockade Bevis went along that side of the island where the weeds
were, and passed the Calypso which they had left on that side the
previous evening. He went by the “blazed” trees leading to Kangaroo
Hill, then past the reed-grass where they had captured the slave, but
saw nothing. Thence he moved noiselessly up through the wood to the
more elevated spot under the spruce firs where he thought he could see
over that end of the island without being seen or heard.
There was nothing, the overthrown willow trunk lay still in the water
flush with the surface, and close to it there was a little ripple coming
out from under a bush, which he supposed was caused by a water-rat
moving there. Till now he had been absorbed in what he was doing, but
just then, remembering the cones which hung at the tops of the tall
firs, he looked up and became conscious of the beauty of the morning,
for it was more open there, and he could see a breadth of the sky.
The sun had not yet stood out from the orient, but his precedent light
shone through the translucent blue. Yet it was not blue, nor is there
any word, nor is a word possible to convey the feeling unless one could
be built up of signs and symbols like those in the book of the magician,
which glowed and burned to and fro the page. For the blue of the
precious sapphire is thick to it, the turquoise dull, these hard
surfaces are no more to be compared to it than sand and gravel. They
are but stones, hard, cold, pitiful, that which gives them their lustre
is the light. Through delicate porcelain sometimes the light comes, and
it is not the porcelain, it is the light that is lovely. But porcelain
is clay, and the light is shorn, checked, and shrunken. Down through
the beauteous azure came the Light itself, pure, unreflected Light,
untouched, untarnished even by the dew-sweetened petal of a flower,
descending, flowing like a wind, a wind of glory sweeping through the
blue. A luminous purple glowing as Love glows in the cheek, so glowed
the passion of the heavens.
Two things only reach the soul. By touch there is indeed emotion. But
the light in the eye, the sound of the voice! the soul trembles and like
a flame leaps to meet them. So to the luminous purple azure his heart
ascended.
Bevis, the lover of the sky, gazed and forgot; forgot as we forget that
our pulses beat, having no labour to make them. Nor did he hear the
south wind singing in the fir tops.
I do not know how any can slumber with this over them; how any can look
down at the clods. The greatest wonder on earth is that there are any
not able to see the earth’s surpassing beauty. Such moments are beyond
the chronograph and any measure of wheels, the passing of one cog may be
equal to a century, for the mind has no time. What an incredible marvel
it is that there are human creatures that slumber threescore and ten
years, and look down at the clods and then say, “We are old, we have
lived seventy years.” Seventy years! The passing of one cog is longer;
seven hundred times seventy years would not equal the click of the
tiniest cog while the mind was living its own life. Sleep and clods,
with the glory of the earth, and the sun, and the sea, and the endless
ether around us! Incredible marvel this sleep and clods and talk of
years. But I suppose it was only a second or two, for some slight
movement attracted him, and he looked, and instantly the vision above
was forgotten.
Upon the willow trunk prone in the water, he saw a brown creature larger
than any animal commonly seen, but chiefly in length, with
sharp-pointed, triangular ears set close to its head. In his excitement
he did not recognise it as he aimed. Behind the fir trunks he was
hidden, and he was on high ground--animals seldom look up--the
creature’s head too was farthest from him. He steadied the long, heavy
barrel against a fir trunk, heedless of a streak of viscous turpentine
sap which his hand pressed.
The trigger was partly drawn--his arm shook, he sighed--he checked
himself, held his breath tight, and fired. The ball plunged and the
creature was jerked up rebounding and fell in the water. He dashed
down, leaped in--as it happened the water was very shallow--and seized
it as it splashed a little from mere muscular contraction. Aimed at the
head, the ball had passed clean through between the shoulders and buried
itself in the willow trunk. The animal was dead before he touched it.
He tore home and threw it on the bed: “Mark!”
“O!” said Mark. “An otter!”
Their surprise was great, for they had never suspected an otter. No one
had ever seen one there that they had heard of, no one had even supposed
it possible. These waters were far from a river, they were fed by
rivulets supporting nothing beyond a kingfisher. To get there the otter
must have ascended the brook from the river, a bold and adventurous
journey, passing hatches and farmhouses set like forts by the water’s
edge, passing mills astride the stream.
The hare had been admired, but it was nothing to the otter, which was as
rare there as a black fox. They looked at its broad flat head--hold a
cat’s head up under the chin, that is a little like it--the sharp,
triangular ears set close to the head, the webbed feet, the fur, the
long tail decreasing to a blunt point. It must be preserved; they could
skin it, but could not stuff it; still it must be done. The governor
must see it, mamma, the Jolly Old Moke, Frances, Val, Cecil, Charlie,
Ted, Big Jack--all. Must!
This was the cause then of the curious wave they had seen which moved
without wind--no, Mark remembered that once being near the wave he had
seen something white under the surface. The wave was not caused by the
otter, but most likely it was the otter Pan had scented on Bamboo Island
when he seemed so excited, and they could see no reason. The otter must
be preserved--must!
While they breakfasted, while they bathed, this was the talk. Presently
they heard the slave’s whistle and fetched her on the raft. Now, Loo,
cunning hussy, waited till she was safely landed on the island, and then
told them that dear mamma and Frances were going that day up to Jack’s
to see them. Loo had been sent for to go to the town on an errand, and
she had heard it mentioned. Instead of going on the errand she ran to
play slave.
Charlie had had some knowledge of this yesterday, and waved his cap
instead of the white handkerchief as a warning, but they did not see it.
If mamma and Frances drove up to Jack’s to see them, of course it would
be at once discovered that they were not at Jack’s, and then what a
noise there would be.
“Hateful,” said Mark. “It seems to me we’re getting near the hateful
‘Other Side.’”
Volume Three, Chapter XV.