Bevis Part 100

Then they made her tell them how many times she had been to the island, and all about it, and as she proceeded recognised one by one, little trifles that had previously had no meaning till now they were connected and formed a continuous strand. In her rude language it occupied a long time, and was got at by cross-questioning from one and the other. Put into order it was like this.

Volume Three, Chapter XIV.

NEW FORMOSA--THE CAPTIVE.

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 Sat.u.r.day 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-gra.s.s, 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-gra.s.s. 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 sh.o.r.e (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-gra.s.s.

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-gra.s.s 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-gra.s.s 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-gra.s.s, 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 sh.o.r.e; 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 a.s.sent.

Every now and then there was a rush overhead as five or six starlings pa.s.sed 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 c.u.mbrous 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 b.u.t.ter with which she basted it after a manner; they had thought the b.u.t.ter 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 pa.s.s the p.r.i.c.kly 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 gra.s.s, 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed 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-gra.s.s 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.