Bevis Part 73

"Nor our jolly old mokes and governors."

"Shot a kangaroo," said Bevis, writing; "shot a duck and a jack--No.

Are they jacks? That's such a common name?"

"No; not jacks: jack-sharks."

"No; sun-fish: they're always in the sun."

"Yes; sun-fish."

"Shot a sun-fish: saw two squirrels, and a heron, and four parrots--"

"And a kingfisher--"

"Halcyon," said Bevis, writing it down--"a beautiful halcyon; made a table and a sun-dial. I must go up presently and mark the meridian by the north star."

"Saw one savage."

"Who was that?"

"Why, Charlie."

"O yes, one savage; believe there are five thousand in the jungle on the mainland."

"Seven thousand miles from anywhere. Put it down," said Mark.

"Twenty degrees north lat.i.tude; right. There, look; half a page already!"

"We ought to wash some sand to see if there's any gold," said Mark--"in a cradle, you know."

"So we did. We ought to have looked in the duck's gizzard; tiny nuggets get in gizzards sometimes."

"Everything goes to the river beyond the weeds," said Mark; "that ought to be written."

"Does everything go to the river?"

"Everything. While I was fis.h.i.+ng I saw them all come back to Serendib from it."

"We must make haste with the raft."

"Like lightning," said Mark.

"Let me see," said Bevis, leaning his arm on the table and stroking his hair with the end of the penholder. "There are blue gum trees, and palms, and banyans."

"Reeds--they're canes."

"Sedges are papyrus."

"The big bulrushes are bamboos." He meant the reed-mace.

"Yes, bamboos. I've put it down. There ought to be a list of everything that grows here--cedars of course; that's something else.

Huge b.u.t.terflies--"

"Very huge."

"Heaps of flies."

"And a tiger somewhere."

"Then there ought to be the names of all the fossils, and metals, and if there's any coal," said Bevis; "and when we have the raft we must dredge up the anemones and pearl oysters, and--"

"And write down all the fish."

"And everything. The language of the natives will be a bother. I must make a new alphabet for it. Look! that will do for A,"--he made a tiny circle; "that's B, two dots."

"They gurgle in their throats," said Mark.

"That's a gurgle," said Bevis, making a long stroke with a dot over and under it; "and they click with their tongues against the roofs of their mouths. No: it's awkward to write clicks. I know: there, CK, that's for click, and this curve under it means a tongue--the way you're to put it to make a click."

"Click! Click!"

"Guggle!"

"Then there's the names of the idols," said Mark. "We'd better find some."

"You can cut some," said Bevis; "cut them with your knife out of a stick, and say they're models, as they wouldn't let you take the real ones. The names; let's see--Jog."

"Hick-kag."

"Hick-kag; I've put it down. Jog and Hick-kag are always quarrelling, and when they hit one another, that's thunder. That's what they say."

"Noodles."

"Natives are always noodles."

"But they can do one thing capital though."

"What's that?"

"Stick up together."

"How? Why?"

"If you take a hatchet and chop a big notch in them, they stick up together again directly."

"Join up."

"Like glue."