Part 90 (2/2)
”There's the 'wait-a-bit thorns.'”
They had never been through the thicket of blackthorn.
”Pan never barked though. He's been all round the island with us.”
”Perhaps he was afraid--like he was just now.”
”Ah, yes, very likely.”
”And we hit him too to keep him quiet, not to startle the kangaroos.”
”Or the water-fowl--so we did: we may have gone close by it without knowing.”
”In the 'wait-a-bits' or the hazel.”
”Or the sedges, where it's drier.”
”Foxes lie in withy beds--why should not this?”
”Of course: but I say--only think, we may have gone within reach of its paw ten times.”
”While we were lying down too,” said Bevis, ”in ambush It might have been in the ferns close behind.”
”All the times we walked about and never took the gun,” said Mark; ”or the bow and arrow, or the axe, or anything--and just think! Why we came back from the raft without even a stick in our hands.”
”Yes--it was silly: and we came quietly too, to try and see it.”
”Well, we just were stupid!” said Mark. ”Only we never thought It could be anything big.”
”But It must be.”
”Of course It is: we won't go out again without the gun, and the axe--”
”And my bow to shoot again, because you can't load a matchlock quick.”
”That's the worst of it: tigers get loose too sometimes, don't they? and panthers more often, because there are more of them.”
”Yes, one is as dangerous as the other. Panthers are worse than lions.”
”More creepy.”
”Cattish. They slink on you; they don't roar first.”
”Then perhaps it's a panther.”
”Perhaps. This is a very likely place, if anything has got loose; there's the jungle on the mainland, and all the other woods, and the Chase up by Jack's.”
”Yes--plenty of cover: almost like forest.”
<script>