Bevis Part 72

"How did the rabbits--I mean the kangaroos--get here?" said Bevis presently. "I don't think they could swim so far."

"Savages might bring them," said Mark. "But they don't very often carry pets with them: they eat everything so."

"Nibbling men like goats nibbling hedges," said Bevis. "We must take care: but how did the kangaroos get on the island?"

"It is curious," said Mark. "Perhaps it wasn't always an island--joined to the mainland and the river cut a way through the isthmus."

"Or a volcano blew it up," said Bevis. "We will see if we can find the volcano."

"But it will be gone out now."

"O! yes. All those sort of things happened when there was no one to see them."

"Before we lived."

"Or anybody else."

A large green dragon-fly darted to and fro now under their feet and between them and the water; now overhead, now up to the top of the oak, and now round the cliff and back again; weaving across and across a warp and weft in the air. As they sat still he came close, and they saw his wings revolving, and the sunlight reflected from the membrane. Every now and then there was a slight snap, as he seized a fly, and ate it as he flew: so eager was he that when a speck of wood-dust fell from the oak, though he was yards away, he rushed at it and intercepted it before it could reach the ground. It was rejected, and he had returned whence he started in a moment.

"The buffaloes are moving," said Mark. "They're going up the hill. Get ready. Here, put it on my shoulder."

The herd had begun to ascend the green slope from the water's edge, doubtless in response to the milker's halloo which they could not hear on the island. Bevis rested the telescope on Mark's shoulder, and watched. In point of fact it was not so far but that they could have seen any one by the quarry without a gla.s.s, but the telescope was proper.

"There he is," said Mark.

Bevis, looking through the telescope, saw Charlie come out from behind a sycamore, where he had been lying in the shadow, and standing on the edge of the quarry, wave his white handkerchief three times, with an interval between.

"It's all right. White flag," said Bevis. "He's looking. He can't see us, can he?"

"No, there are bushes behind us. If we stood up against the sky perhaps he might."

"I'll crawl to the dial," said Bevis, and he went on hands and knees to the sundial, where he could stand up without being seen, as there were brambles and the oak between him and the cliff. He drew a line with his pencil where the shadow of the gnomon fell on the circle, that was four o'clock. Mark came after, creeping too.

"We won't sit there again," said Mark, "when it's signal-time. He keeps staring. You can see his face through the telescope. We will keep behind the tree."

"There ought to be a crow's nest up in it," said Bevis. "Suppose we make one. Lash a stout stick across two boughs, or tie cords across and half round, so as to be able to sit and watch up there nicely."

"So we will. Then we can see if the savages are prowling round."

"The sedges are very thick that side," said Bevis, pointing to the eastern sh.o.r.e where they had had such a struggle through them. "They would hide five thousand savages."

They went down to the hut, and Bevis made the sight for the matchlock.

The short spiral of copper wire answered perfectly, and he could now take accurate aim. But after he had put the powder in, and was just going to put a bullet, he recollected the kangaroos. If he shot off much at a target with bullets at that time in the afternoon it would alarm everything on the island, for the report would be heard all over it. Kangaroos and water-fowl are generally about more in the evening than the morning, so he put off the trial with ball and loaded with shot.

It was of no use going into ambush till the shadows lengthened, so he set about getting the tea while Mark sawed off two posts, and drove them into the ground at one side of the doorway of the hut. Each post had a cross-piece at the top, and the two boards were placed on these, forming a table. Bevis made four dampers, and at Mark's suggestion buried a number of potatoes in the embers of the fire, so as to have them baked for supper, and save more cooking.

The mushrooms were saved for breakfast, and the jack, which was about two pounds' weight, would do for dinner. When he had finished the table, Mark went to the teak-tree, and fetched the two poles that had been set up there for the awning. These he erected by the table, and stretched the rug from them over the table, fastening the other two edges to the posts of the hut.

They had found the nights so warm that more than one rug was unnecessary, and the other could be spared for a permanent awning under which to sit at table. Some tea was put aside to be drunk cold, miner fas.h.i.+on, and it was then time to go shooting. Mark was to have the gun, but he would not go by himself, Bevis must accompany him.

They had to go some distance round to get at the glade, and made so much noise pus.h.i.+ng aside branches, and discussing as to whether they were going the right way, that when they reached it if any kangaroos had been out feeding, they had all disappeared.

"I will bring the axe," said Bevis, "and blaze the trees, then we shall know the way in a minute."

Fixing the rest so that he could command the burries on that side of the knoll, Mark sat down under the ash-tree they had previously selected, and leaned the heavy matchlock on the staff. They chose this tree because some brake fern grew in front of it and concealed them. Pan had now come to understand this manner of hunting, and he lay down at once, and needed no holding. Bevis extended himself at full length on his back just behind Mark, and looked up at the sky through the ash branches.

The flies would run over his face, though Mark handed him a frond of fern to swish them with, so he partly covered himself with his handkerchief. The handkerchief was stretched across his ear like the top of a drum, and while he was lying so quiet a fly ran across the handkerchief there, and he distinctly heard the sound of its feet. It was a slight rustle, as if its feet caught a little of the surface of the handkerchief. This happened several times.

The sun being now below the line of the tree-tops, the glade was in the shadow, except the top of the knoll, up which the shadow slowly rose like a tide as the sun declined. Now the edge of the shadow reached a sand-heap thrown out from a burrow; now a thicker bunch of gra.s.s; then a thistle; at last it slipped over the top in a second.

Mark could see three pairs of tiny, sharp-pointed ears in the gra.s.s. He knew these were young rabbits, or kangaroos, too small for eating. They were a difficulty, they were of no use, but p.r.i.c.ked up and listened, if he made the least movement, and if they ran in would stop larger ones from coming out. There was something moving in the hazel stoles across the glade which he could not make out, and he could not ask Bevis to look and see because of these minute kangaroos.

Ten minutes afterwards a squirrel leaped out from the hazel, and began to dart hither and thither along the sward, drawing his red tail softly over the gra.s.s at each arching leap as lightly as Jack drew the ta.s.sel of his whip over his mare's shoulder when he wished to caress and soothe her. Another followed, and the two played along the turf, often hidden by bunches of gra.s.s.

Mark dared not touch Bevis or tell him, for he fancied a larger rabbit was sitting on his haunches at the mouth of a hole fringed with fern.

Bevis under his handkerchief listened to Pan snapping his teeth at the flics, and looked up at the sky till four parrots (wood-pigeons) came over, and descended into an oak not far off. The oak was thick with ivy, and was their roost-tree, though they did not intend to retire yet.

Presently he saw a heron floating over at an immense height. His wings moved so slowly he seemed to fly without pressure on the air--as slowly as a lady fans herself when there is no one to coquet with. The heron did not mean to descend to the New Sea, he was bound on a voyage which he did not wish to complete till the dusk began, hence his deliberation.

From his flight you might know that there was a mainland somewhere in that direction.

Bang! Mark ran to the knoll, but Pan was there before him, and just in time to seize a wounded kangaroo by the hindquarter as he was paddling into a hole by the fore paws. Mark had seen the rabbit behind the fringe of fern move, and so knew it really was one, and so gently had he got the matchlock into position, moving it the sixteenth of an inch at a time, that Bevis did not know he was aiming. By the new sight he brought the gun to bear on a spot where he thought the rabbit's shoulder must be, for he could not see it, but the rabbit had moved, and was struck in the haunch, and would have struggled out of reach had not Pan had him.

The squirrel had disappeared, and the four parrots had flown at the report.

"This island is full of things," said Bevis, when Mark told him about the squirrel. "You find something new every hour, and I don't know what we shan't find at last. But you have had all the shooting and killed everything."

"Well, so I have," said Mark. "The duck, and the jack, and the kangaroo. You _must_ shoot something next."

End of Volume Two.

Volume Three, Chapter I.

NEW FORMOSA--BEVIS'S ZODIAC.

They returned to the hut and prepared the kangaroo and the fish for boiling on the morrow; the fish was to be coiled up in the saucepan, and the kangaroo in the pot. Pan had the paunch, and with his great brown eyes glaring out of his head with gluttony, made off with it to his own private larder, where, after eating his full, he buried the rest. Pan had his own private den behind a thicket of bramble, where he kept some bones of a duck, a bacon bone, and now added this to his store. Here he retired occasionally from civilisation, like the king of the Polynesian island, to enjoy nature, away from the etiquette of his attendance at court on Bevis and Mark.

Next, Mark with one of the old axes they had used to excavate the store-room, cut a notch in the edge of the cave, where it opened on the hut, large enough to stand the lantern in, as the chest would be required for the raft. They raked the potatoes out of the ashes, and had them for supper, with a damper, the last fragment of a duck, and cold tea, like gold-diggers.

Bevis now recollected the journal he had proposed to keep, and got out the book, in which there was as yet only one entry, and that a single word, "Wednesday." He set it on the table under the awning, with the lantern open before him. Outside the edge of the awning the moon filled the courtyard with her light.

"Why, it's only Thursday now," said Mark. "We've only been here one full day, and it seems weeks."

"Months," said Bevis. "Perhaps this means Wednesday last year."

"Of course: this is next year to that. How we must have altered! Our friends would not know us."

"Not even our mothers," said Bevis.