Part 100 (2/2)

”Anywhere in the wood.”

”Slave, you're to cook the hare for supper.”

”And mind you don't make a noise when we're out hunting and frighten the kangaroos.”

Loo said she would be as quiet as a mouse.

”We shall want some tea presently. I say!” said Mark, ”we've forgotten Charlie!”

He ran up on the cliff, but it was too late; Charlie had been and waved his cap three times, in token that all was not quite right at home.

Mark looked at the sun-dial; it was nearly five. They had not had dinner till later than usual, and then Loo's explanation and cross-examination had filled up the time. Still as Loo told them she was certain every one was quite well at home, they did not trouble about having missed Charlie. Mark wished to go shooting again round Serendib, and they started, leaving the slave in charge of the hut to cook their supper.

Mark had the matchlock, and Bevis poled the raft gently round Serendib, but the water-fowl seemed to have become more cautious, as they did not see any. Bevis poled along till they came to a little inlet, where they stopped, with blue gum branches concealing them on either hand. Mark knelt where he could see both ways along the sh.o.r.e; Bevis sat back under the willows with Pan beside him.

They were so quiet that presently a black-headed reed-bunting came and looked down at them from a willow bough. Moths fluttered among the tops of the branches, the wind was so light that they flew whither they listed, instead of being borne out over the water. The brown tips of a few tall reeds moved slightly as the air came softly; they did not bow nor bend; they did but just sway, yielding a.s.sent.

Every now and then there was a rush overhead as five or six starlings pa.s.sed swiftly, straight as arrows, for the firs at the head of Fir-Tree Gulf. These parties succeeding each other were perhaps separate families gathering together into a tribe at the roosting-trees. Over the distant firs a thin cloud like a black bar in the sky spread itself out, and then descended funnel-shaped into the firs. The cloud was formed of starlings, thousands of them, rising up from the trees and settling again. One bird as a mere speck would have been invisible; these legions darkened the air there like smoke.

But just beyond the raft the swallows glided, dipping their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and sipping as they dipped; the touch and friction of the water perceptibly checked their flight. They wheeled round and several times approached the surface, till having at last the exact balance and the exact angle they skimmed the water, leaving no more mark than a midge.

Bevis watched them, and as he watched his senses gradually became more acute, till he could distinctly hear the faint far off sound of the waterfall at Sweet River. It rose and fell, faint and afar; the flutter of a moth's wings against the greyish willow leaves overbore and silenced it. As he listened and watched the swallows he thought, or rather felt--for he did not think from step to step upwards to a conclusion--he felt that all the power of a bird's wing is in its tip.

It was with the slender-pointed and elastic tip, the flexible and finely divided feather point that the bird flew. An artist has a c.u.mbrous easel, a heavy framework, a solid palette which has a distinct weight, but he paints with a tiny point of camel's hair. With a camel's hair tip the swallow sweeps the sky.

That part of the wing near the body, which is thick, rigid, and contains the bones, is the easel and framework; it is the shaft through which the driving force flows, and in floating it forms a part of the plane or surface, but it does not influence the air. The touch of the wing is in its tip. There where the feathers fine down to extreme tenuity, so that if held up the light comes through the filaments, they seem to feel the air and to curl over on it as the end of a flag on a mast curls over on itself. So the tail of a fish--his one wing--curls over at the extreme edge of its upper and lower corners, and as it unfolds presses back the water. The swallow, pure artist of flight, feels the air with his wing-tips as with fingers, and lightly fanning glides.

Over the distant firs a heron came drifting like a cloud at his accustomed hour; from over the New Nile the call of a partridge, ”caer-wit--caer-wit,” sounded along the surface of the water. There was a slight movement and Bevis saw the match descending, an inverted cone of smoke darted up from the priming, and almost before the report Pan leaped overboard. Mark had watched till two moorhens were near enough together, one he shot outright and Pan caught the other.

At the report the heron staggered in the air as if a bullet had struck him, it was his sudden effort to check his course, and then recovering himself he wheeled and flew towards the woods on the mainland. Bevis said he must have a heron's plume. To please Mark he poled the raft to Bamboo Island, and then across to the sedgy banks at the southern extremity of New Formosa, but Mark did not get another shot. They then landed and crept quietly to Kangaroo Hill, the rabbits had grown suspicious, and they did not see one, but Pan suddenly raced across the glade--to their great annoyance--and stopped on the verge of the wood.

There he picked up a rabbit in his mouth, and they recollected the wires they had set. The rabbit had been in a wire since the morning. ”It will do for Samson,” said Bevis.

When they returned to the hut the full moon--full but low down--had begun to fill the courts of the sky with her light, which permitted no pause of dusk between it and the sunset. The slave's cheeks were red and scorched from the heat of the fire, which she had tended on her knees, and her chin and tawny neck were streaked with black marks.

Handling the charred sticks with her fingers, the fingers had transferred the charcoal to her chin. The hare was well cooked considering the means, or rather the want of means at her command, perhaps it was not the first she had helped to prepare. Searching in the store-room she found a little b.u.t.ter with which she basted it after a manner; they had thought the b.u.t.ter was all gone, they were too hasty--impatient--to look thoroughly. There was no jelly, and it was dry, but they enjoyed it very much sitting at the plank table under the shed.

They had removed the poles on one side of the shed as there was nothing now to dread, but on the other two sides the bars remained, and the flames of the expiring fire every now and then cast black bars of shadow across the table. The slave would have been only too glad to have stayed on the island all night--if they had lent her a great-coat or rug to roll up in she would have slept anywhere in the courtyard--but she said Samson would be so wretched without her, he would be frightened and miserable. She must go; she would come back in the morning about ten.

They filled the flag-basket for her with the moorhens, the rabbit, the dab-chick and thrush, and a tin of preserved tongue. There were still some fragments of biscuit; she said Samson would like these best of all.

Thus laden, she would have waded to the mainland, but they would not let her--they took the raft and ferried her over, and promised to fetch her in the morning if she would whistle, she could whistle like a boy.

To Loo that voyage on the raft, short as it was, was something beyond compare. Loo had to pa.s.s the p.r.i.c.kly stubble fields with her bare feet--stubble to the naked foot is as if the broad earth were a porcupine's back. But long practice had taught her how to wind round at the edge where there was a narrow and thistly band of gra.s.s, for thistles she did not care.

”Good-night, slave.”

They poled back to the island, and having fastened Pan up, were going to bed, when Bevis said he wanted the matchlock loaded with ball as he meant to rise early to try for a heron. Mark fired it off, and in the stillness they heard the descending shot rattle among the trees. The matchlock was loaded with ball, and Bevis set the clock of his mind to wake at three. It was still early in the evening, but they had had little or no rest lately, and fell asleep in an instant; they were asleep long before the slave had crept in at her window and quieted Samson with broken biscuits.

The alarum of his mind awoke Bevis about the time he wished. He did not wake Mark, and wis.h.i.+ng to go even more quietly than usual left Pan fastened up; the spaniel gave a half-whine, but crouched as Bevis spoke and he recognised the potential anger in the tones of his voice. From the stockade Bevis went along that side of the island where the weeds were, and pa.s.sed the Calypso which they had left on that side the previous evening. He went by the ”blazed” trees leading to Kangaroo Hill, then past the reed-gra.s.s where they had captured the slave, but saw nothing. Thence he moved noiselessly up through the wood to the more elevated spot under the spruce firs where he thought he could see over that end of the island without being seen or heard.

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