Part 81 (1/2)

”No, not proper chopping. Make Pan keep close. Perhaps we shall find some footmarks of the Something--spoor, you know.”

”Come on. Down, sir.” Pan accordingly walked behind.

First they went and looked at the raft, which was moored to an alder, taking care not to expose themselves on the sh.o.r.e, but looking at it from behind the boughs. They said they would finish fitting it up to-morrow morning, and then tried to think of a name for it. Bevis said there was no name in the Odyssey for Ulysses' raft, but as Calypso gave him the tools to make it, and wove the sail for him with her loom, they agreed to call the raft the Calypso. Then they tried to find a shorter way in to the knoll, which they called Kangaroo Hill, but were stopped by the impenetrable blackthorns.

As these were ”wait-a-bit” thorns, Mark thought the island could not be far from Africa. Skirting the ”wait-a-bits,” they found some more hazel bushes, and discovered that the nuts were ripe, and stopped and filled their pockets. After all their trouble they had to go round the old way to get to Kangaroo Hill, and as they went between the trees Bevis cut off a slice of bark from every other trunk, so that in future they could walk quickly guided by the blaze, which would show too in the dusk.

From the knoll they walked across to the ivy-grown oak, and Bevis gave Mark a ”bunt” up into it. Mark found a wood-pigeon's nest (empty, of course), but nothing else. The oak was large and old, not very tall, and seemed decaying; indeed, there was a hollow into which he thrust his spear, but did not rouse any creature from its lair. There was nothing in the oak. Bevis looked at the bark of the trunk, to see if any wild beast had left the marks of its claws in climbing up, just as cats do, but there was no trace.

They then went farther into the wood in the direction Pan had run away from Bevis, and found it sometimes open and sometimes much enc.u.mbered with undergrowth. Nothing appeared to them to be trampled, nor did they find any spoor. Pan showed no excitement, simply following, from which they supposed that whatever it had been it had gone.

After awhile they found the trees thinner and the ground declined, and here in a hollow ash, short and very much decayed within, there was a hive, or rather a nest of bees. There was a shrill hum round it as the bees continually went in and out, returning in straight lines, radiating to all parts of the compa.s.s, so that they did not care to venture too near. They appeared to be the hive-bees, not wild bees, but a swarm that had wandered from the mainland.

How to take the honey was not so easily settled, till they thought of making a powder-monkey, and so smoking them out, or rather stupefying them in the same way as the hives were taken at home with the brimstone match. By damping gunpowder and forming it into a cake it would burn slowly and send up dense fumes, which would answer the same as sulphur.

Then they could chop a way into the honeycomb. Seeing a tomt.i.t on a bough watching for a chance to take a bee if one alighted before he went in, they considered it a sign they were off the mainland of Africa, as this was the honey-bird.

Several tall spruce firs grew lower down, and under these they could see over the New Sea to the south-east towards the unknown river. Here they sat down in the shade and cracked their nuts. One or two bees came to a burdock which flowered not far from their feet, but besides the hum as they pa.s.sed there was no sound, for the light south-east air, playing in the tops of the firs, was too idle to sing. Yet the motion of the air, coming off the water, was just sufficient to cool them in the shade.

Far away between the trunks they could see the jungle on the mainland.

Just below, on the sh.o.r.e of the island, a large willow-tree had been overthrown by the tempest on the day of the battle, and lay p.r.o.ne in the water, but still attached to the land by its roots. The nuts were juicy and sweet, but the day was so pleasant that Bevis presently put the nuts down and extended himself on his back. High above hung the long brown cones of the fir, and the dark green of its branches seemed to deepen the blue of the sky. With half-closed eyes he gazed up into the azure, till Mark feared he would go to sleep.

”Tell me a story,” he said. ”I'll tickle you, and you tell me a story.

Here's a parrot's feather.”

It was a wood-pigeon's, knocked out as the bird struck a branch in his rude haste. Mark tickled Bevis's face and neck. ”Tell me a story,” he said.

”My grandpa is the man for stories,” said Bevis. ”If you ask him to tell you the story of his walking-stick, he'll tell you all about it, and then two or three more; only you must be careful to ask him for the walking-stick one first, and then he'll give you five s.h.i.+llings.”

”Regular moke,” said Mark. ”He stumped into London with the stick and a bundle, didn't he, and made five millions of money?”

”Heaps more than that.”

”Now tell me a story.”

”Tickle me then--very nicely.”

”Now go on.”

Volume Three, Chapter V.

NEW FORMOSA--THE STORY OF THE OTHER SIDE.

”Once upon a time,” said Bevis, closing his eyes now, ”there was a great traveller who went sailing all round every sea--”

”Except the New Sea,” said Mark. ”Yes, except the New Sea which we found, and went riding over all the lands and countries, and climbing up all the mountains, and tramping through all the forests, and shooting the elephants and Indians and sticking pigs, and skinning boa-constrictors, and finding magicians--”

”What did the magicians do?”