Part 12 (1/2)

”Are you sure we have been going straight?”

”How do I know?”

”Did you follow the sun?” asked Mark. ”No, indeed, I did not; if you walk towards the sun you will go round and round, because the sun moves.”

”I forgot. O! I know, where's the compa.s.s?”

”How stupid!” said Bevis. ”Of course it was in my pocket all the time.”

He took it out, and as he lifted the brazen lid the white card swung to and fro with the vibration of his hand.

”Rest your hand against a pole,” said Mark. This support steadied Bevis's hand, and the card gently came to a standstill. The north, with the three feathers, pointed straight at him.

”Now, which way was the sea?” said Mark, trying to think of the direction in which they had last seen it. ”It was that side,” he said, holding out his right hand; he faced Bevis.

”Yes, it was,” said Bevis. ”It was on the right hand, now that would be east,” (to Mark), ”so if we go east we must be right.”

He started with the compa.s.s in his hand, keeping his eye on it, but then he could not see the stoles or bushes, and walked against them, and the card swung so he could not make a course.

”What a bother it is,” he said, stopping, ”the card won't keep still.

Let me see!” He thought a minute, and as he paused the three feathers settled again. ”There's an oak,” he said. ”The oak is just east. Come on.” He went to the oak, and then stopped again.

”I see,” said Mark, watching the card till it stopped. ”The elder bush is east now.”

They went to the elder bush and waited: there was a great thistle east next, and afterwards a bough which had fallen. Thus they worked a bee-line, very slow but almost quite true. The ash-poles rattled now as the breeze freshened and knocked them together.

”What a lot of leaves,” said Bevis presently; ”I never saw such a lot.”

”And they are so deep,” said Mark. They had walked on dead leaves for some little while before they noticed them, being so eagerly engaged with the compa.s.s. Now they looked the ground was covered with brown beech leaves, so deep, that although their feet sunk into them, they could not feel the firm ground, but walked on a yielding substance. A thousand woodc.o.c.ks might have thrown them over their heads and hidden easily had it been their time of year. The compa.s.s led them straight over the leaves, till in a minute or two they saw that they were in a narrow deep coombe. It became narrower and with steeper sides till they approached the end, when the chalk showed not white but dull as it crumbled, the flakes hanging at the roots of minute plants.

”I don't like these leaves,” said Mark. ”There may be a cobra, and you can't see him; you may step on him without knowing.”

Hastily he and Bevis scrambled a few feet up the chalky side; the danger was so obvious they rushed to escape it before discussing. When they had got over this alarm, they found the compa.s.s still told them to go on, which they could not do without scaling the coombe. They got up a good way without much trouble, holding to hazel boughs, for the hazel grows on the steepest chalk cliffs, but then the chalk was bare of all but brambles, whose creepers came down towards them; why do bramble creepers, like water, always come down hill? Under these the chalk was all crumbled, and gave way under the foot, so that if they put one foot up higher it slipped with their weight, and returned them to the same level.

Two rabbits rushed away, and were lost beneath the brambles. Without conscious thinking they walked aslant, and so gained a few feet every ten yards, and then came to a spot where the crust of the top hung over, and from it the roots of beech-trees came curving down into the hollow s.p.a.ce in search of earth. To one of these they clung by turns, some of the loose chalky clods fell on them, but they hauled themselves up over the projecting edge. Bevis went first, and took all the weapons from Mark; Pan went a long way round.

At the summit there was a beautiful beech-tree, with an immense round trunk rising straight up, and they sat down on the moss, which always grows at the foot of the beech, to rest after the struggle up. As they sat down they turned round facing the cliff, and both shouted at once,--”The New Sea!”

Volume One, Chapter VIII.

THE WITCH.

The blue water had lost its glitter, for they were now between it and the sun, and the freshening breeze, as it swept over, darkened the surface. They were too far to see the waves, but that they were rising was evident since the water no longer reflected the sky like a mirror.

The sky was cloudless, but the water seemed in shadow, rough and hard.

It was full half a mile or more down to where the wood touched the sh.o.r.e of the New Sea and shut out their view, so that they could not tell how far it extended. Serendib and the Unknown Island were opposite, and they could see the sea all round them from the height where they sat.

”We left the sea behind us,” said Mark. ”The compa.s.s took us right away from it.”

”We began wrong somehow,” said Bevis. In fact they had walked in a long curve, so that when they thought the New Sea was on Mark's right, it was really on his left hand. ”I must put down on the map that people must go west, not east, or they will never get round.”