Part 80 (1/2)

”I can't think; something magic. It doesn't matter.”

They had dinner, and then, as usual, went up on the cliff to wait for Charlie's signal.

”I shall try and catch some perch to-morrow,” said Mark, ”if there's any wind. We're always eating the same thing.”

”Every day,” said Bevis, ”and the cooking is the greatest hatefulness ever known.”

”Takes up so much time.”

”Makes you hot and horrid.”

”Vile.”

”It wants Frances, as I said.”

”No, thank you; I wish Jack would have her.”

Mark looked through the telescope for Charlie, and then swept the sh.o.r.es of the New Sea.

”How could anything get to our island?” he said. ”Nothing could get to it.”

From the elevation of the cliff they saw and felt the isolation of their New Formosa.

”It was out of your magic wave,” said Bevis; ”something magic.”

”But you put the wizard's foot on the gate?”

”So I did, but perhaps I did not draw it quite right; I'll do it again.

But rats are made to gnaw the lines off sometimes, and let magic things in.”

”Draw another in ink.”

”So I will. There's a sea-swallow.”

”There's two.”

”There's four or five.”

The white sea-swallows pa.s.sed them, going down the water, coming from the south. They flew a few yards above the surface, in an irregular line--an easy flight, so easy they scarcely seemed to know where each flap of the wing would carry them.

”There will be a storm.”

”A tornado.”

”Not yet--the sky's clear.”

”But we must keep a watch, and be careful how we sail on the raft.”

The appearance of the sea-swallow or tern in inland waters is believed, like that of the gull, to indicate tempest, though the sea-swallows usually come in the finest of weather.