Volume Three—Chapter Thirteen.
New Formosa—Voyage in the Calypso.
Surging along the Calypso sought the south, travelling but little faster than the waves, but smoothing a broad wake as she drove over them. Bevis held the oar-rudder under his right arm, with his hand on the handle, and felt the vibration of the million bubbles rising from the edge of the rudder to the surface. Piloting the vessel Mark sometimes directed him to steer to the right, and sometimes to the left.
There were four herons standing in a row on one sand-bank, they rose and made off at their approach; Bevis said he must have a heron’s plume. They could just see the swan a long, long way behind in the broad open water off Fir-Tree Gulf. Not long after passing the heron’s sand-bank, Mark said he was sure the water was deeper, as there were fewer weeds, but there was a long island in front of them which would soon bar their progress. It stretched from one mass of impenetrable weeds to another, and they began to think of lowering sail, when suddenly the raft stopped with a jerk, then swung round, and hung suspended.
“A snag,” said Bevis, recovering himself.
Mark had been pitched forward, and had it not been for the willow-plaited bulwark would have gone overboard. They had the sail down in a moment, fearing that the mast would snap. As they moved on the deck the raft swung now this way now that like a platform on a pivot.
“If it had been the Pinta,” said Mark, “there would have been a hole knocked in the bottom.”
The thin planking of the boat would have been crushed like an egg-shell; the thick beams at the bottom of the Calypso could not be damaged. The only difficulty was to get her off. They tried standing at one edge, and then the other, depressing it where they stood and lightening it at the other part, and at last by moving everything heavy on deck to one corner, she floated and bumped off. Looking over the bulwark they saw the snag, it was the top of a dead and submerged willow. Had they had a large sail, or had the wind been rough the mast would have snapped to a certainty; but the wind had been gradually sinking for some hours. They did not hoist sail again, being so near the long and willow-grown island, but let the raft drift to the shore.
The willows were so thick that it did not appear any use to carry the matchlock with them as the long barrel would constantly catch in the boughs. Bevis took his bow and arrows, Mark his axe, and they climbed ashore through the blue gums, compelling Pan by threats to keep close behind. The island they soon found was nothing but a narrow bank, and beyond it the water recommenced, but even could they have dragged the raft over and launched it afresh the part beyond would not have been navigable. It was plated with pond-weed, the brown leaves overlapping each other like scale-armour on the surface.
There seemed indeed more weed than water, great water-docks at the margin with leaves almost a yard long, branched water plantains with palm-like leaves and pale pink flowers; flags already a little brown, then sedges and huge tussocks; these last—small islets of tall grass—were close together in the shallow water like the ant-hills in the Waste. No course could be forced through or twisted in and out such a mass, and beyond it were beds of reed-grass, out of which rose the reddish and scaling poles of willow. At the distant margin they could see the tops of the trees of the jungle on the mainland. Where the water was visible it had a red tinge and did not look good to drink, very different from that at New Formosa. This was stagnant.
The current, slight as it was, from Sweet River Falls, passed between New Formosa and Serendib, hence the deep channel, and rendered the water there always fresh and pure. Over the pond-weed blue dragon-flies were hovering, and among the willows tits called to each other.
“It’s South America,” said Mark. “It’s a swamp by the Amazon.”
“I suppose it is,” said Bevis. “We can’t go any farther.”
Without wading-boots it was impossible to penetrate the swamp, and even then they could not have gone among the black-jointed horse-tails, the stems of which were turning yellowish, for they would have sunk in ooze to the waist. It would have been the very haunt of the bearded-tit had not that curiously marked bird been extinct on the shores of the New Sea. They had never even heard of the bearded-tit, so completely had it died out there.
They moved a few yards along the bank, but found it was a ceaseless climb from stole to stole, and so went back to the raft, and poled close to the shore looking for traces of the creature. They poled from one end to the other, up to the banks of weeds and flags, but without seeing any sign. So far as they could tell the creature had not started from this place, but it might have swum out from any other part of the shore.
“He’s not here,” said Bevis. “We shall never hunt him out of all these sedges; I think we had better set a trap for him.”
“In the reeds at home,”—New Formosa was home now.
“In his trail.”
“Dig a pit,” said Mark. “They dig pits for lions.”
“Or set up a big beam to fall and crush him when he pushes a twig.”
“Or a spring gun; would the matchlock do?”
“Only then we want another gun when we go to find him. He might sham dead.”
“Wires are not strong enough.”
“No; the pit’s best,” said Bevis. “Yes; we’ll dig a pit and stick up a sharp spike in it, and put a trap-door at the top—just a slight frame, you know, to give way with his weight—”
“And strew it over with grass.”
“And put the hare to tempt him.”
“And shoot him in the pit!”
“Won’t he glare!”
“Roar!”
“Gnash his grinders!”
“Won’t his teeth gleam!”
“Red tongue and foam!”
“Hot breath—in such a rage!”
“Lash his tail!”
“Tear the sides of the pit!”
“Don’t let’s kill him quick. Let’s make a spear and stick him a little!”
“Come on.”
They seized the poles, all eagerness to return and dig the pit.
“Stupes we were not to do it before.”
“Awful stupes.”
“We never think of things till so long.” Such has been the case with the world since history began. How many thousands of years was it after primeval man first boiled water to the steam-engine? How long from the first rubbing of electron or amber, and a leaping up of little particles to it, to the electric tramway?
They had sailed to the swamp quickly, but it occupied more than an hour to pole back to New Formosa, so that it was the afternoon when they moored the Calypso in the usual place. They were hungry and hastened to the hut, intending to begin the pit directly after dinner, when as they came near, Pan ran on first and barked by the gate. “Ah!”
“He’s been!”
They ran, forgetting even to look at the match of the gun. There was nothing in the enclosure; but Pan sniffed outside, and gave two short “yaps” as much as to say, “I know.”
“Reeds,” said Bevis. “He’s in the reeds.”
“He heard us coming and slipped off—he’s hiding.”
“We shall have him! Now!”
“Now directly!”
“This minute!”
With incredible temerity they ran as fast as they could go to the bed of reed-grass in which they had discovered the trail. Pan barked at the edge; Bevis blew the match.
“Lu—lu—lu! go in!”
“Fetch him out.”
“Hess—ess—go in!”
“Now! Have him!”
Pan stopped at the edge and yapped in the air, wagging his tail and hesitating.
“He’s there!” said Bevis.
“As sure as sure,” said Mark. Their faces were lit up with the wild joy of the combat; as if like hounds they could scent the quarry.
“Go in,” shouted Bevis to the spaniel angrily. Pan crouched, but would not go. Mark kicked him, but he would not move.
“Hold it,” said Bevis, handing the matchlock to Mark. He seized the spaniel by his shaggy neck, lifted and hurled him by main force a few yards crash among the sedges. Pan came out in an instant.
“Go in, I tell you!” shouted Bevis, beside himself with anger; the spaniel shivered at his feet. Again Bevis lifted him, swung him, and hurled him as far this time as the reed-grass. The next instant Pan was at his feet again. Encouragement, persuasion, threats, blows, all failed; it was like trying to make him climb a tree. The dog could not force his nature. Mark threw dead sticks into the reed-grass; Bevis flung some stones.
“You hateful wretch!” Bevis stamped his foot. “Get away.” Pan ran back. “Give me the gun—I’ll go in.”
If the dog would not, he would hunt the creature from its lair himself.
“O! stop!” said Mark, catching hold of his arm, “don’t—don’t go in—you don’t know!”
“Let me go.”
“I won’t.”
“I will go.”
They struggled with each other.
“Shoot first,” said Mark, finding he could not hold him. “Shoot an arrow—two arrows. Here—here’s the bow.”
Bevis seized the bow and fitted the arrow.
“Shoot where the path is,” said Mark. “There—it’s there,”—pointing. Bevis raised the bow. “Now shoot!”
“O!” cried a voice in the reeds, “don’t shoot!”
Bevis instantly lowered the bow.
“What?” he said.
“Who’s there?” said Mark.
“It’s me—don’t shoot me!”
“Who are you?”
“Me.”
They rushed in and found Loo crouching behind the alder in the reed-grass; in her hand was a thick stick which she dropped.
“How dare you!” said Bevis.
“How did you get here?” said Mark. “Don’t you be angry!” said Loo. “But how dare you!”
“On our island!”
“Don’t you—don’t you!” repeated Loo. “You!”
“You!” One word but such intense wrath. “O!” cried Loo, beginning to sob. “You!”
“You!”
“O! Don’t! He were so hungry.” Sob, sob.
“Pooh!”
“Yah!”
“Yow—wow!” barked Pan. “He—he,” sobbed Loo. “He—he—”
“He—what?”
“He were so hungry.” Sob, sob. “Who?”
“Samson.”
“Who’s Samson?”
“My—y—lit—tle—brother.”
“Then you took our things?” said Mark. “He—he—kept on crying.”
“You had the damper—”
“And the potatoes—”
“And the bacon—”
“You didn’t—didn’t care for it,” sobbed Loo. “Did you take the rabbit-skin?” said Mark. “Yes—es.”
“But Samson didn’t eat that; did he?”
“I—I—sold it.”
“What for?”
“Ha’-penny of jumbles for Samson.” Jumbles are sweets.
“How did you get here?”
“I come.”
“How?”
“I come.”
“It’s disgusting,” said Bevis, turning to Mark; “spoiling our island.”
“Not a tiger,” said Mark. “Only a girl.”
“It’s not proper,” said Bevis in a towering rage. “Tigers are proper, girls are not proper.”
“No; that they’re not.”
“Girls are—Foo!—”
“Very—foo!” Contemptuous puffing. “It’s not the stealing.”
“No; it’s the coming—”
“Where you’re not wanted—”
“Horrible!”
“Hateful!”
“What shall we do?”
“Can’t kill her.”
“Nor torture her.”
“Nor scalp her.”
“Thing!”
“Creature!”
“Yow—wow!”
“Tie her up.”
“If we were savages we’d cook you!”
“Limb at a time.”
“What can we do with her?”
“Let me stop,” said Loo pleadingly. “Let you stop! You!”
“I can cook and make tea and wash things.”
“Stop a minute,” said Mark. “Perhaps she’s a native.”
“Ah!” This was more proper. “She looks brown.”
“Copper coloured.”
“Are you a savage?”
“If you says so,” said Loo penitently. “Are you very sorry?”
“You’re sure you’re a savage?”
“Will she do?”
“You’re our slave.”
“Ar-right,” (all-right), said Loo her brown eyes beginning to sparkle through her tears. “I’ll be what you wants.”
“Mind you’re a slave.”
“So I be.”
“You’ll be thrashed.”
“Don’t care. Let I bide here.”
“I suppose we must have her.”
“You’re a great nuisance.”
“Ar-right.”
“Slave! Carry that.” Mark gave her the axe. “And that.” Bevis gave her the bow. Loo took them proudly.
“You’re to keep behind—Pan’s to go before you.”
“Dogs first, slaves next.”
“Make her fetch the water.”
“Chop the wood.”
“Turn the spit.”
“Capital; we wanted a slave!”
“Just the thing.”
“Hurrah!”
“But it’s not so nice as a tiger.”
“O! No!”
“Nothing like.”
They marched out of the reed-grass, Pan and the slave behind.
“But how did you get here?” said Bevis, stopping suddenly.
“I come, I told you.”
“Can you swim?”
“No.”
“There’s no boat.”
“Did you have a catamaran?”
“What be that?”
“Why don’t you tell us how you got here?”
“I come—a-foot.”
“Waded? You couldn’t.”
“I walked drough’t,”—i.e. through it.
They would not believe her at first, but she adhered to her story, and offered to wade back to the mainland to prove that it was possible. She pointed out to them the way she had come by the shoals and sedge-grown banks; the course she had taken curved like half a horse-shoe. First it went straight a little way, then the route or ford led to the south and gradually turned back to the west, reaching the mainland within sixty or seventy yards of the place where they always disembarked from the raft. It took some time for Loo to explain how she had done it, and how she came to know of it, but it was like this.
Once now and then in dry seasons the waters receded very much, and they were further lowered by the drawing of hatches that the cattle might get water to drink low down the valley, miles away. As the waters of the New Sea receded the shallower upper, or southern end, became partly dry. Then a broad low bank of sand appeared stretching out in the shape of half a horse-shoe the extremity of which being much higher was never submerged, but formed the island of New Formosa. At such times any one could walk from the mainland out to New Formosa dryshod for weeks together.
This was how the island became stocked with squirrels and kangaroos; and it was the existence of the rabbits in the burries at the knoll that had originally led to Loo’s knowledge of the place. Her father went there once when the water was low to ferret them, and she was sent with his luncheon to and fro. That was some time since, but she had never forgotten, and often playing about the shore, had no difficulty in finding the shoal. The route or ford was, moreover, marked to any one who knew of its existence by the tops of sand-banks, and sedge-grown islets, which were in fact nothing but high parts of the same long, curved bank.
There was not more than a foot deep of water anywhere the whole distance, and often not six inches. This was in August, in winter there would be much more. Tucking up her dress she had waded through easily, feeling the bottom with a thick stick to guide her steps. The worst place was close to the island, by the reed-grass, where she sunk a little in the ooze, but it was only for a few yards.
At the hut the weapons were laid aside, and the slave put out the dinner for them. Bevis and Mark sat, one each side of the table, on their stools of solid blocks, Pan sat beside Bevis on his haunches expectant; the slave knelt at the table.
She was bare-headed. Her black hair having escaped, fell to her waist, and her neck was tawny from the harvest sunshine. The torn brown frock loosely clung about her. Her white teeth gleamed; her naked feet were sandy like Pan’s paws. Her brown eyes watched their every movement; she was intent on them. They were full of their plans of the island; she was intent on them.
She ate ravenously, more eagerly than the spaniel. Seeing this, Bevis kept cutting the preserved tongue for her, and asked if Samson was so very hungry. Loo said they were all hungry, but Samson was most hungry. He cried almost all day and all night, and woke himself up crying in the morning. Very often she left him, and went a long way down the hedge because she did not like to hear him.
“But,” objected Bevis, “my governor pays your father money, and I’m sure my mamma sends you things.”
So she did, but Loo said they never got any of them; she twisted up her mouth very peculiarly to intimate that they were intercepted by the ale-barrel. Bevis became much agitated, he said he would tell the governor, he would tell dear mamma, Samson should not cry any more. Loo should take home one of the tins of preserved tongue, and the potatoes, and all the game there was—all except the hare.
Now Bevis had always been in contact almost with these folk, but yet he had never seen; you and I live in the midst of things, but never look beneath the surface. His face became quite white; he was thoroughly upset. It was his first glance at the hard roadside of life. He said he would do all sorts of things; Loo listened pleased but dimly doubtful, she could not have explained herself, but she, nevertheless, knew that it was beyond Bevis’s power to alter these circumstances. Not that she hinted at a doubt; it was happiness enough to kneel there and listen.
Then they made her tell them how many times she had been to the island, and all about it, and as she proceeded recognised one by one, little trifles that had previously had no meaning till now they were connected and formed a continuous strand. In her rude language it occupied a long time, and was got at by cross-questioning from one and the other. Put into order it was like this.