Part 85 (1/2)

The matchlock was slung up in the hut, and away they went to the raft; Pan did not want to come, he was tired after his journey in the night, but they made him. Knowing the position of the shoals, and where they could touch the bottom with the poles, and where not, they got along much quicker, and entered the channel in the weeds, which they had discovered beyond Pearl Island in the Pinta.

The channel was often very narrow, and turned several ways, but by degrees trended to the south-eastwards, and the farther they penetrated it, the more numerous became the banks, covered with a dense growth of sedges and flags. Some higher out of the water than others, had bushes and willows, so that, after awhile, their view of the open sea behind was cut off. They did not see any wild-fowl, for as these heard the splash of the poles, they swam away and hid. Winding round the sedge-grown banks, they presently heard the sound of falling water.

”Niagara!” said Mark.

”No, Zambesi. There are houses by Niagara, so it's not so good.”

”No. Look!”

The raft glided out of the channel into a small open bay, free from weeds, and with woods each side. Where it narrowed a little stream fell down in two short leaps, having worn its way through the sandstone. The water was not so much as ran over the hatch of the brook near home, but this, coming over stone or rock, instead of dropping nearly straight, leaped forward and broke into spray. The sides of the worn channel were green with moss, and beneath, but just above the surface of the water, long cool hart's-tongue ferns grew, and were sprinkled every moment.

The boughs of beech-trees met over the fall, and shaded the water below.

They poled up so near that the spray reached the raft; Mark caught hold of a drooping beech bough, and so moored their vessel. They could not see up the stream farther than a few yards, for it was then overhung with dark fir boughs. On the firs there were grey flecks of lichen.

”How sweet and clear it looks!” said Bevis. ”Shall we call it Sweet River?”

”And Sweet River Falls?”

”Yes. It comes out of the jungle,” Bevis looked over the edge of the raft, and saw the arch of water dive down unbroken beneath the surface of the pool, and then rise in innumerable bubbles under him. The hart's-tongue ferns vibrated, swinging slightly, as the weight of the drops on them now bore them down and now slipped off, and let them up.

By the sh.o.r.e of the pool the turquoise studs of forget-me-nots, with golden centres, were the brighter for the darkness of the shade. So thick were the boughs, that the sky could not be seen through them; there was a rustle above as the light south-east wind blew, but underneath the leaves did not move.

”I like this,” said Mark. He sat on the chest, or locker, holding the beech bough. ”But the birds do not sing.”

The cuckoo was gone, the nightingale silent, the finches were in the stubble, there might be a chiff-chaff ”chip-chipping,” perhaps deep in the jungle, one pair of doves had not quite finished nesting on New Formosa, now and then parties of greenfinches called ”ky-wee, ky-wee,”

and a single lark sang in the early dawn. But the jungle here was silent. There was no song but that of the waterfall.

Though there was not a breath of wind under the boughs, yet the sound of the fall now rose, and now declined, as the water ran swifter or with less speed. Sometimes it was like a tinkling; sometimes it laughed; sometimes it was like voices far away. It ran out from the woods with a message, and hastening to tell it, became confused.

Bevis sat on the raft, leaning against the willow bulwark; Pan crept to his knee.

The forget-me-nots and the hart's-tongue, the beeches and the firs, listened to the singing. Something that had gone by, and something that was to come, came out of the music and made this moment sweeter. This moment of the singing held a thousand years that had gone by, and the thousand years that are to come. For the woods and the waters are very old, that is the past; if you look up into the sky you know that a thousand years hence will be nothing to it, that is the future. But the forget-me-nots, the hart's-tongue, and the beeches, did not think of the ages gone, or the azure to come. They were there _now_, the suns.h.i.+ne and the wind above, the shadow and the water and the spray beneath, that was all in all. Bevis and Mark were there now, listening to the singing, that was all in all.

Presently there was a sound--a ”swish”--and looking up, they saw a pheasant with his tail behind like a comet, flying straight out to sea.

This awoke them.

Bevis held out the palm of his hand, and Pan came nearer and put his chin in the hollow of it, as he had done these hundreds of times. Pan looked up, and wagged his tail, thump, thump, on the deck of the raft.

If we could put the intelligence of the dog in the body of the horse, size, speed, and grace, what an animal that would be!

”Lots of perch here,” said Mark; ”I shall come and fish. Suppose we land and go up the Sweet River?”

”It belongs to the king of this country, I expect,” said Bevis. ”He sits on a throne of ebony with a golden footstool, and they wave fans of peac.o.c.ks' feathers, and the room is lit up by a single great diamond just in the very top of the dome of the ceiling, which flashes the suns.h.i.+ne through, down from outside. The swan belongs to him.”

”And he keeps the Sweet River just for himself to drink from, and executes everybody who dares drink of it,” said Mark.

Just then a bird flew noiselessly up into the beech over them, they saw it was a jay, and kept quite still. The next instant he was off, and they heard him and his friends, for a jay is never alone, screeching in the jungle. Looking back towards the quiet bay, it appeared as if it was raining fast, but without a sound, for the surface was dimpled with innumerable tiny circlets like those caused by raindrops. These were left by the midges as they danced over the water, touching it now and then.

”Did you hear that?” It was the sound of a distant gun shorn of the smartness of the report by the trees.

”The savages have matchlocks,” said Bevis. ”They must be ever so much more dangerous than we thought.”