Powder was easily got from Latten; they bought a pound of loose powder at three halfpence the ounce. This is like black dust, and far from pure, for if a little be flashed off on paper or white wood it leaves a broad smudge, but it answered their purpose very well. While Bevis was fretting and fuming over the lock, for he got white-hot with impatience, though he would and did do it, Mark had made a powder-horn by sawing off the pointed end of a cow’s horn, and fitting a plug of wood into the mouth. For their shot they used a bag, and bought a mould for bullets.
The charger to measure the powder was a brass drawn cartridge-case, two of which Mark had chanced to put in his pocket while they were at Jack’s. It held more than a charge, so they scratched a line inside to show how far it was to be filled. At night the barrel was got out of the house, and taken up the meadows, three fields away, to a mound they had chosen as the best place. Mark brought a lantern, which they did not light till they arrived, and then put it behind the bushes, so that the light should not show at a distance.
The barrel was now charged with three measures of powder and two of shot rammed down firm, and then placed on the ground in front of a tree. From the touch-hole a train of powder was laid along the dry ground round the tree, so that the gun could be fired while the gunner was completely protected in case the breech blew out.
A piece of tar-cord was inserted in a long stick split at the end. Mark wished to fire the train, and having lit the tar-cord, which burned well, he stood back as far as he could and dropped the match on the powder. Puff—bang! They ran forward, and found the barrel was all right. The shot had scored a groove along the mound and lost itself in the earth; the barrel had kicked back to the tree, but it had not burst or bulged, so that they felt it would be safe to shoot with. Such a thickness of metal, indeed, would have withstood a much greater strain, and their barrel, rude as it was, was far safer than many flimsy guns.
The last thing to be made was the rest. For the staff they found a straight oak rod up in the lumber-room, which had once been used as a curtain-rod to an old-fashioned four-poster. Black with age it was hard and rigid, and still strong; the very thing for their rest. The fork for the barrel to lie in was a difficulty, till Bevis hit on the plan of forming it of two pieces of thick iron wire. These were beaten flat at one end, a hole was bored in the top of the staff, and the two pieces of wire driven in side by side, when their flatness prevented them from moving. The wires were then drawn apart and hammered and bent into a half-circle on which the stock would rest.
The staff was high enough for them to shoot standing, but afterwards it was shortened, as they found it best to aim kneeling on one knee. When the barrel was fastened in the stock by twisting copper wire round, it really looked like a gun, and they jumped and danced about the bench-room till the floor shook. After handling it for some time they took it to pieces, and hid it till the cave should be ready, for so long a weapon could not be got out of the house very easily, except in sections. Not such a great while previously they had felt that they must not on any account touch gunpowder, yet now they handled it and prepared to shoot without the least hesitation. The idea had grown up gradually. Had it come all at once it would have been rejected, but it had grown so imperceptibly that they had become accustomed to it, and never questioned themselves as to what they were doing.
Absorbed in the details and the labour of constructing the matchlock, the thinking and the patience, the many trials, the constant effort had worn away every other consideration but that of success. The labour made the object legitimate. They gloried in their gun, and in fact, though so heavy, it was a real weapon capable of shooting, and many a battle in the olden times was won with no better. Bevis was still making experiments, soaking cord in various compositions of saltpetre, to discover the best slow match.
By now the cave began to look like a cave, for every morning, sailing or rowing to New Formosa, they chopped for two or three hours at the hard sand. This cave was Mark’s idea, but once started at work Bevis became as eager as he, and they toiled like miners. After the two headings had been driven in about five feet, they cut away the intervening wall, and there was a cavern five feet square, large enough for both to sit down in.
They had intended to dig in much deeper, but the work was hard, and, worse than that, slow, and now the matchlock was ready they were anxious to get on the island. So they decided that the cave was now large enough to be their store-room, while they lived in the hut, to be put up over the entrance. Bevis drew a sketch of the hut several times, trying to find out the easiest way of constructing it. The plan they selected was to insert long poles in the sand about three feet higher up than the top of the cave. These were to be placed a foot apart; and there were to be nine of them, all stuck in holes made for the purpose in a row, thus covering a space eight feet wide and eight high. From the cliff the rafters were to slope downwards till the lower and outward ends were six feet above the ground. That would give the roof a fall of two feet in case of rain.
Two stout posts were to be put up with a long beam across, on which the outer ends of the rafters were to rest. Two lesser posts in the middle were to mark the doorway. The roof was to be covered with brushwood to some thickness, and then thatched over that with sedges and reed-grass.
The walls they meant to make of hurdles stood on end, and fastened with tar-cord to upright stakes. Outside the hurdles they intended to pile up furze, brushwood, faggots, bundles of sedges—anything, in short. A piece of old carpeting was to close the door as a curtain. The store-room was five feet square, the hut would be eight, so that with the two they thought they should have plenty of space.
The semi-circular fence or palisade starting from the cliff on one side, and coming to it on the other, of the hut was to have a radius of ten yards, and so enclose a good piece of ground, where they could have their fire and cook their food secure from wild beasts or savages. A gateway in the fence was to be just wide enough to squeeze through, and to be closed by two boards nailed to a frame.
It took some time to settle all these details, for Bevis would not begin till he had got everything complete in his mind, but the actual work did not occupy nearly so long as the digging of the cave. There were plenty of poles growing on the island, which Mark cut down with Bevis’s own hatchet, not the blunt ones they had used for excavating, but the one with which he had chopped at the trees in the Peninsula.
As Mark cut them down, some ash, some willow, and a few alder, Bevis stripped off the twigs with a billhook, and shortened them to the proper length. All the poles were ready in one morning, and in the afternoon coming again they set up the two stout corner posts. Next day the rafters were fitted, they had to bring a short ladder to get at the cliff over the mouth of the cave. Then the hurdles were brought and set up, and the brushwood cut and thrown on the top.
Sedges grew in quantities at the other end of the island, where the ground sloped till it became level with the water. In cutting them they took care to leave an outer fringe standing, so that if any one passed, or by any chance looked that way from the shore, he should not see that the sedges had been reaped. They covered the roof two feet thick with brushwood, sedges, and reed-grass, which they considered enough to keep out any ordinary shower.
Of course if the tornadoes common to these tropical countries should come they must creep into the inner cave. Against such fearful storms no thatch they could put up would protect them. The walls took a whole day to finish, as it required such a quantity of brushwood, and it had to be fastened in its place with rods, thrust into the ground, and tied at the top to the outside rafters.
At last the hut was finished, and they could stand up, or walk about in it; but when the carpet-curtain was dropped, it was dark, for they had forgotten to make a window. But in the daytime they would not want one, as the curtain could be thrown aside, and the doorway would let in plenty of light, as it faced the south. At night they would have a lantern hung from the roof.
“It’s splendid,” said Mark; “we could live here for years.”
“Till we forgot what day it was, and whether it was Monday or Saturday,” said Bevis.
“And our beards grow down to our waists.” Their chins were as smooth as possible.
“Ships would be sent out to search for us.”
“And when we come home everybody would come to see us,” said Mark. “Just think of all the wonders we shall have to tell them!”
“I wish Ted could see it,” said Bevis, “and Charlie, and Val.”
“Wouldn’t they be jealous if they knew,” said Mark. “They’d kill us if we did not let them come too.”
“It’s a great secret,” said Bevis; “we must be very careful. There may be mines of gold in this island, don’t you see.”
“Diamonds.”
“There’s a pearl fishery, I’m sure.”
“Birds of Paradise.”
“Spices and magic things.”
“It’s the most wonderful island ever found out.”
“Hurrah!”
“Let’s have a sail.”
“So we will.”
“Not work any more this afternoon.”
“No; let’s sail up farther—”
“Beyond the island?”
“Yes; unknown seas, don’t you know. Come on.”
Away they ran to the Pinta. The wind lately had blown lightly from the east, and continued all day. These light easterly summer breezes are a delight to those who watch the corn, for they mean fine weather and full wheat-ears. Mark took the tiller, and they sailed southwards through the channel, between New Formosa and Serendib. Not far beyond, Bevis, looking over the side, saw the sunken punt. She was lying in six or seven feet of water, but the white streak on her gunwale could be clearly seen. He told Mark.
“I hope the governor won’t get her up yet,” said Mark. “Lucky he’s so busy—”
“Why?”
“Don’t you see,” said shrewd Mark, “while the punt’s at the bottom nobody can come to our island to see what we’re at.”
“Ah!” said Bevis. “What a jolly good thing I was shipwrecked.”
As they went southwards they passed several small islands or sandbanks, and every now and then a summer snipe flew up and circled round them, just above the water, returning to the same spot.
“Those are the Coral Isles,” said Bevis. “They’re only just above the surface.”
“Tornadoes would sweep right over them,” said Mark. “That’s why there are no cocoa-nut trees.”
Another sandbank some way on the left they named Grey Crow Island, because a grey or hooded crow rose from it.
“Do you see any weeds?” said Mark presently. “You know that’s a sign of land.”
“Some,” said Bevis, looking over the side into the ripples. “They are brown and under water; I suppose it’s too deep for them to come to the top.”
The light breeze carried them along pleasantly, though slowly.
“Swallows,” said Bevis; “I can see some swallows, high up, there. That’s another sign of land.”
“Heave the lead,” said Mark.
“We’ve forgotten it; how stupid! Mind you remember it next time.”
New Formosa was a long way in the rear now.
“That’s Pearl Island,” said Mark, pointing to a larger sandbank. “Can’t you see the shells glistening; it’s mother-of-pearl.”
“So it is.”
The crows had carried the mussels up on the islet, and left the shells strewn about. The inner part reflected the sunlight. If examined closely there are prismatic colours.
“There’s that curious wave,” said Mark, standing up and pointing to an undulation of the water on the other side of a small patch of green weeds. The undulation went away from them till they lost sight of it. “What is it?”
“There are all sorts of curious things in the tropic seas,” said Bevis. “Some of them are not found out even yet. Nobody can tell what it is.”
“Perhaps it’s magic,” said Mark.
“Lots of magic goes on in the south,” said Bevis. “I believe we’re very nearly on the equator; just feel how hot the gunwale is,”—the wood was warm from the sunshine—“and the sun goes overhead every day, and it’s so, light at night. We will bring the astrolabe and take an observation—I say!”
The Pinta brought up with a sudden jerk. They had run on a shoal.
“Wrecked!” shouted Mark joyfully. “But there are no waves. It’s no good with these ripples.”
Bevis pushed the Pinta off with a scull, and so feeling the bottom, told Mark to ease the tiller and sail more to the right. Two minutes afterwards they grounded again, and again pushed off. On the left, or eastern side, they saw a broad channel leading up through the weeds. Bevis told Mark to tack up there. Mark did so, and they slowly advanced with the weeds each side. The tacks were short, and as the wind was so light they made little progress. Presently the channel turned south; then they ran faster; next it turned sharp to the east, and came back. In trying to tack here Mark ran into the weeds.
“Stupe!” said Bevis.
“That I’m not,” said Mark. “You can’t do it.”
“Can’t I?” said Bevis contemptuously.
“Try then,” said Mark, and he left the tiller. Bevis took it and managed two tacks very well. At the third he too ran into the weeds, for in fact the channel was so narrow there was no time to get weigh on the ship.
“Stupe yourself,” said Mark.
He tried to row out, but every time he got a pull the wind blew them back, and they had to let the mainsail down.
“It wants a canoe,” said Bevis.
“Of course it does. It’s no use going on unless you’re going to row.”
“No; but look!” Bevis pointed to a small branch which was floating very slowly past them.
“There’s a current,” said Mark.
“River,” said Bevis. “In the sedges somewhere.”
“What is it? I know; it’s the Orinoco.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Amazon?”
“No.”
“Hoang-Ho?”
“How can we tell, till we get the astrolabe and take an observation? Most likely it’s a new river, the biggest ever found.”
“It must be a new river,” said Mark. “This is the New Sea. We’re drifting back a little.”
“We’ll come again in a canoe, or something,” said Bevis.
They rowed out of the channel, set the mainsail, and sailed back, past Pearl Island, Grey Crow Island, the Coral Isles, and approached New Formosa. Mark looked over the side, and watched to see the sunken punt.
“It’s a wreck,” said he presently, as they passed above the punt. “She foundered.”
“It’s a Spanish galley,” said Bevis. “She’s full of bullion, gold and silver—”
“Millions of broad gold pieces.”
“Doubloons.”
“Pistoles.”
“Ingots.”
“You can see the skeletons chained at the oar-benches.”
“Yes—just as they went down.”
“There are strange sounds here at night.”
“Bubbles come up, and shouts, and awful shrieks.”
“Hope we shan’t hear them when we’re in our hut.”
“No; it’s too far.”
They sailed between New Formosa and Serendib, and homewards through Mozambique to the harbour. The east wind, like the west, was a there-and-back wind, and they could reach their island, or return from it, in two or three tacks, sometimes in one stretch.