Bevis Part 25

"I am thirsty," said Mark. Bevis was the same, so they went down towards the water. Mark began to run down the slope, when Bevis suddenly remembered.

"Stop," he cried; "you can't drink there."

"Why not?"

"Why of course it's the New Sea. We must go round to the Nile; it's fresh water there."

So they ran through the firs to the Nile, and lapped from the brook. On the way home a little boy stepped out from the trees on the bank where it was high, and he could look down at them.

"I say!"--he had been waiting for them--"say!"

"Well!" growled Mark.

"Bevis," said the boy. Bevis looked up, he could not demean himself to answer such a mite. The boy looked round to see that he was sure of his retreat through the trees to the gap in the hedge he could crawl through, but they would find it difficult. Besides, they would have to run up the bank, which was thick with brambles. He got his courage together and shouted in his shrill little voice,--

"I say, Ted says he shan't play if you don't have war soon."

Mark picked up a dead branch and hurled it at the mite; the mite dodged it, and it broke against a tree, then he ran for his life, but they did not follow. Bevis said nothing till they reached the blue summer-house at home and sat down. Then he yawned.

"War is a bother," he said, putting his hands in his pockets, and leaning back in an att.i.tude of weary despair at having to do something.

If the rest would not have played, he would have egged them on with furious energy till they did. As they were eager he did not care.

"O! well!" said Mark, nodding his head up and down as he spoke, as much as to indicate that he did not care personally; but still, "O! well! all I know is, if you don't go to war Ted will have one all to himself, and have a battle with somebody else. I believe he sent Charlie." Charlie was the mite.

"Did he say he would have a war all to himself?" said Bevis, sitting upright.

"I don't know," said Mark, nodding his head. "They say lots of things."

"What do they say?"

"O! heaps; perhaps you don't know how to make war, and perhaps--"

"I'll have the biggest war," said Bevis, getting up, "that was ever known, and Ted's quite stupid. Mind, he doesn't have any more cherries, that's certain. I hate him--awfully! Let's make the swords."

"All right," said Mark, jumping up, delighted that the war was going to begin. He was as eager as the others, only he did not dare say so.

Most of the afternoon they were cutting sticks for swords, and measuring them so as to have all the same length.

Next morning the governor went with them to bathe, as he wanted to see how they were getting on with their swimming. They had the punt, and the governor stopped it about twenty yards from the sh.o.r.e, to which they had to swim. Bevis dived first, and with some blowing and spluttering and splas.h.i.+ng managed to get to where he could bottom with his feet. He could have gone further than that, but it was a new feeling to know that he was out of his depth, and it made him swim too fast and splash. Mark having seen that Bevis could do it, and knowing he could swim as far as Bevis could, did it much better.

The governor was satisfied and said they could now have the blue boat, but on two conditions, first, that they still kept their promise not to go out of their depth, and secondly, that they were to try and see every day how far they could swim along the sh.o.r.e. He guessed they had rather neglected their swimming; having learnt the art itself they had not tried to improve themselves. He said he should come with them once or twice a week, and see them dive from the punt so as to get used to deep water.

If they would practise along the sh.o.r.e in their depth till they could swim from the rocky point to the rails, about seventy yards, he would give them each a present, and they could then go out of their depth. He was obliged to be careful about the depth till they could swim a good way, because he could not be always with them, and fresh water is not so buoyant as the sea, so that young swimmers soon tire.

The same day they carried the mast up, and fitted it in the hole in the thwart. The mast was a little too large, but that was soon remedied.

The bowsprit was lashed to the ring to which the painter was fastened, and at its inner end to the seat and mast. Next the gaff was tried, and drew up and down fairly well through the curtain-ring. But one thing they had overlooked--the sheets, or ropes for the jib, must work through something, and they had not provided any staples. Besides this, there was the rudder to be fitted with a tiller instead of the ropes. Somehow they did not like ropes; it did not look like a s.h.i.+p. This instinct was right, for ropes are not of much use when sailing; you have no power on the rudder as with a tiller.

After fitting the mast and bowsprit they uns.h.i.+pped them, and carried them home for safety till the sails were ready. Bevis wanted Mark to go and ask Frances to be quick, but Mark was afraid to return just yet, as Frances would now know from Jack that he had forgotten the letter.

Every now and then bundles of sticks for swords, and longer ones for spears and darts, and rods for arrows, were brought in by the soldiery.

All these were taken upstairs into the bench-room, or armoury, because they did not like their things looked at or touched, and there was a look and key to that room. Bevis always kept the key in his pocket now.

They could not fit a head to the oyster barrel for the fresh water on the voyage, but found a large round tin canister with a tight lid, such as contain cornflour, and which would go inside the oyster barrel. The tin canister would hold water, and could be put in the barrel, so as to look proper. More sticks kept coming, and k.n.o.bbed clubs, till the armoury was crowded with the shafts of weapons. Now that Bevis had consented to go to war, all the rest were eager to serve him, so that he easily got a messenger to take a note (as Mark was afraid to go) to Frances to be quick with the st.i.tching.

In the evening Bevis tore another broad folio page or fly-leaf from one of the big books in the parlour, and took it out into the summer-house, where they kept an old chair--the back gone--which did very well for a table. Cutting his pencil, Bevis took his hat off and threw it on the seat which ran round inside; then kneeling down, as the table was so low, he proceeded to draw his map of the coming campaign.

Volume One, Chapter XIV.

THE COUNCIL OF WAR.

"I say!"

"Battleaxes--"

"Saint George is right--"

"Hold your tongue."

"Pikes twenty feet long."

"Marching two and two."

"Do stop."

"I shall be general."

"That you won't."

"Romans had s.h.i.+elds."

"Battleaxes are best."

"k.n.o.bs with spikes."

"I say--I say!"

"You're a donkey!"

"They had flags--"

"And drums."

"I've got a flute."

"I--"

"You!"

"Yes, _me_."

"Hi!"