By the New Nile.
“Do you see any canoes?” said Mark.
“No,” said Bevis. “Can you? Look very carefully.”
They gazed across the broad water over the gleaming ripples far away, for the light wind did not raise them by the shore, and traced the edge of the willows and the weeds.
“The savages are in hiding,” said Bevis, after a pause. “Perhaps they’re having a feast.”
“Or gone somewhere to war.”
“Are they cannibals?” said Mark. “I should not like to be gnawn.”
“Very likely,” said Bevis. “No one has ever been here before, so they are nearly sure to be; they always are where no one has been. This would be a good place to begin the map as we can see so far. Let’s sit down.”
“Let’s get behind a tree, then,” said Mark; “else if we stay still long perhaps we shall be seen.”
So they went a little farther to an ash, and sat down by it. Bevis spread out his sheet of brown paper.
“Give me an apple,” said Mark, “while you draw.” Bevis did so, and then, lying on the ground at full length, began to trace out the course of the shore; Mark lay down too, and held one side of the paper that the wind might not lift it. First Bevis made a semicircle to represent the stony bay where they found the roach, then an angular point for the sandy bar, then a straight line for the shelving shore.
“There ought to be names,” said Mark. “What shall we call this?” putting his finger on the bay.
“Don’t splutter over the map,” said Bevis; “take that apple pip off it. Of course there will be names when I have drawn the outline. Here’s the cliff.” He put a slight projection where the cliff jutted out a little way, then a gentle curve for the shore of the meadow, and began another trending away to the left for the place where they were.
“That’s not long enough,” said Mark.
“It’s not finished,” said Bevis. “How can I finish it when we have only got as far as this? How do I know, you stupid, how far this bay goes into the land? Perhaps there’s another sea round there,” pointing over the field. “Instead of saying silly things, just find out some names, now.”
“What sea is it?” said Mark thoughtfully.
“I can’t tell,” said Bevis. “It is most extraordinary to find a new sea. And such an enormous big one. Why how many days’ journey have we come already?”
“Thirty,” said Mark. “Put it down in the diary, thirty days’ journey. There, that’s right. Now, what sea is it? Is it the Atlantic?”
“No; it’s not the Atlantic, nor the Pacific, nor the South Sea; it’s bigger than all those.”
“It’s much more difficult to find a name than a sea,” said Mark.
“Much,” said Bevis. They stared at each other for awhile. “I know,” said Bevis.
“Well, what is it?” said Mark excitedly, raising himself on his knees to hear the name.
“I know,” said Bevis. “I’ll lie down and shut my eyes, and you take a piece of grass and tickle me; then I can think. I can’t think unless I’m tickled.”
He disposed himself very comfortably on his back with his knees up, and tilted his straw hat so as to shade that side of his face towards the sun. Mark pulled a bennet.
“Not too ticklish,” said Bevis, “else that won’t do: don’t touch my lips.”
“All right.”
Mark held the bending bennet (the spike of the grass) bending with the weight of its tip, and drew it very gently across Bevis’s forehead. Then he let it just touch his cheek, and afterwards put the tip very daintily on his eyelid. From there he let it wander like a fly over his forehead again, and close by, but not in the ear (as too ticklish), leaving little specks of pollen on the skin, and so to the neck, and next up again to the hair, and on the other cheek under the straw hat. Bevis, with his eyes shut, kept quite still under this luxurious tickling for some time, till Mark, getting tired, put the bennet delicately on his lip, when he started and rubbed his mouth.
“Now, how stupid you are, Mark; I was just thinking. Now, do it again.”
Mark did it again.
“Are you thinking?” he asked presently.
“Yes,” whispered Bevis. They were so silent they heard the grasshoppers singing in the grass, and the swallows twittering as they flew over, and the loud midsummer hum in the sky.
“Are you thinking?” asked Mark again. Bevis did not answer—he was asleep. Mark bent over him, and went on tickling, half dreamy himself, till he nodded, and his hat fell on Bevis, who sat up directly.
“I know.”
“What is it?”
“It is not one sea,” said Bevis; “it is a lot of seas. That’s the Blue Sea, there,” pointing to the stony bay where the water was still and blue under the sky. “That’s the Yellow Sea, there,” pointing to the low muddy shore where the summer snipe flew up, and where, as it was so shallow and so often disturbed by cattle, the water was thick for some yards out.
“And what is that out there!” said Mark, pointing southwards to the broader open water where the ripples were sparkling bright in the sunshine.
“That is the Golden Sea,” said Bevis. “It is like butterflies flapping their wings,”—he meant the flickering wavelets.
“And this round here,” where the land trended to the left, and there was a deep inlet.
“It is the Gulf,” said Bevis; “Fir-Tree Gulf,” as he noticed the tops of fir-trees.
“And that up at the top yonder, right away as far as you can see beyond the Golden Sea?”
“That’s the Indian Ocean,” said Bevis; “and that island on the left side there is Serendib.”
“Where Sinbad went?”
“Yes; and that one by it is the Unknown Island, and a magician lives there in a long white robe, and he has a serpent a hundred feet long coiled up in a cave under a bramble bush, and the most wonderful things in the world.”
“Let’s go there,” said Mark.
“So we will,” said Bevis, “directly we have got a ship.”
“Write the names down,” said Mark. “Put them on the map before we forget them.”
Bevis wrote them on the map, and then they started again upon their journey. Where the gulf began they found a slight promontory, or jutting point, defended by blocks of stone; for here the waves, when the wind blew west or south, came rolling with all their might over the long broad Golden Sea from the Indian Ocean. Pan left them while they stood here, to hunt among the thistles in an old sand-quarry behind. He started a rabbit, and chased it up the quarry, so that when they looked back they saw him high up the side, peering into the bury. Sand-martins were flying in and out of their round holes. At one place there was only a narrow strip of land between the ocean and the quarry, so that it seemed as if its billows might at any time force their way in.
They left the shore awhile, and went into the quarry, and winding in and out the beds of nettles and thistles climbed up a slope, where they sank at every step ankle deep in sand. It led to a broad platform of sand, above which the precipice rose straight to the roots of the grass above, which marked the top of the cliff with brown, and where humble-bees were buzzing along the edge, and, bending the flowers down on which they alighted, were thus suspended in space. In the cool recesses of the firs at the head of Fir-Tree Gulf a dove was cooing, and a great aspen rustled gently.
They took out their knives and pecked at the sand. It was hard, but could be pecked, and grooves cut in it. The surface was almost green from exposure to the weather, but under that white. When they looked round over the ocean they were quite alone: there was no one in sight either way, as far as they could see; nothing but the wall of sand behind, and the wide gleaming water in front.
“What a long way we are from other people,” said Mark.
“Thousands of miles,” said Bevis.
“Is it quite safe?”
“I don’t know,” doubtfully.
“Are there not strange creatures in these deserted places?”
“Sometimes,” said Bevis. “Sometimes there are things with wings, which have spikes on them, and they have eyes that burn you.”
Mark grasped his knife and spear, and looked into the beds of thistles and nettles, which would conceal anything underneath.
“Let’s call Pan,” he whispered.
Bevis shouted “Pan.”
“Pan!” came back in an echo from another part of the quarry. “Pan!” shouted Bevis and Mark together. Pan did not come. They called again and whistled; but he did not come.
“Perhaps something has eaten him,” said Mark.
“Very likely,” said Bevis. “We ought to have a charm. Don’t forget next time we come to bring a talisman, so that none of these things can touch us.”
“I know,” said Mark. “I know.” He took his spear and drew a circle on the platform of sand. “Come inside this. There, that’s it. Now stand still here. A circle is magic, you know.”
“So it is,” said Bevis. “Pan! Pan!”
Pan did not come.
“What’s in those holes?” said Mark, pointing to some large rabbit-burrows on the right side of the quarry.
“Mummies,” said Bevis. “You may be sure there are mummies there, and very likely magic writings in their hands. I wish we could get a magic writing. Then we could do anything, and we could know all the secrets.”
“What secrets?”
“Why, all these things have secrets.”
“All?” said Mark.
“All,” said Bevis, looking round and pointing with an arrow in his hand. “All the trees, and all the stones, and all the flowers—”
“And these?” said Mark, picking up a shell.
“Yes, once; but can’t you see it is dead, and the secret, of course, is gone. If we had a magic writing.”
“Let’s buy a book,” said Mark.
“They are not books; they are rolls, and you unroll them very slowly, and see curious things, pictures that move over the paper—”
Boom!
They started. Mark lifted his spear, Bevis his bow. A deep, low, and slow sound, like thunder, toned from its many mutterings to a mighty sob, filled their ears for a moment. It might have been very distant thunder, or a cannon in the forts far away. It was one of those mysterious sounds that are heard in summer when the sky is clear and the wind soft, and the midsummer hum is loud. They listened, but it did not come again.
“What was that?” said Mark at last.
“I don’t know; of course it was something magic.”
“Perhaps they don’t like us coming into these magic places,” said Mark. “Perhaps it is to tell us to go away. No doubt Pan is eaten.”
“I shall not go away,” said Bevis, as the boom did not come again. “I shall fight first;” and he fitted his arrow to the string. “What’s that!” and in his start he let the arrow fly down among the thistles.
It was Pan looking down upon them from the edge above, where he had been waiting ever since they first called him, and wondering why they did not see him. Bevis, chancing to glance up defiantly as he fitted his arrow to shoot the genie of the boom, had caught sight of the spaniel’s face peering over the edge. Angry with Pan for making him start, Bevis picked up a stone and flung it at him, but the spaniel slipped back and escaped it.
“Fetch my arrow,” said Bevis, stamping his foot.
Mark went down and got it. As he came up the sandy slope he looked back.
“There’s a canoe,” he said.
“So it is.”
A long way off there was a black mark as it were among the glittering wavelets of the Golden Sea. They could not see it properly for the dazzling gleam.
“The cannibals have seen us,” said Mark. “They can see miles. We shall be gnawn. Let’s run out of sight before they come too near.”
They ran down the slope into the quarry, and then across to the fir-trees. Then they stopped and watched the punt, but it did not come towards them. They had not been seen. They followed the path through the firs, and crossed the head of the gulf.
A slow stream entered the lake there, and they went down to the shore, where it opened to the larger water. Under a great willow, whose tops rose as high as the firs, and an alder or two, it was so cool and pleasant, that Mark, as he played with the water with his spear, pushing it this way and that, and raising bubbles, and a splashing as a whip sings in the air, thought he should like to dabble in it. He sat down on a root and took off his shoes and stockings, while Bevis, going a little way up the stream, flung a dead stick into it, and then walked beside it as it floated gently down. But he walked much faster than the stick floated, there was so little current.
“Mark,” said he, suddenly stopping, and taking up some of the water in the hollow of his hand, “Mark!”
“Yes. What is it?”
“This is fresh water. Isn’t it lucky?”
“Why?”
“Why, you silly, of course we should have died of thirst. That’s the sea,” (pointing out). “This will save our lives.”
“So it will,” said Mark, putting one foot into the water and then the other. Then looking back, as he stood half up his ankles, “We can call here for fresh water when we have our ship—when we go to the Unknown Island.”
“So we can,” said Bevis. “We must have a barrel and fill it. But I wonder what river this is,” and he walked back again beside it.
Mark walked further out till it was over his ankles, and then till it was half as deep as his knee. He jumped up both feet together, and splashed as he came down, and shouted. Bevis shouted to him from the river. Next they both shouted together, and a dove flew out of the firs and went off.
“What river is this?” Bevis called presently.
“O!” cried Mark suddenly; and Bevis glancing round saw him stumble, and, in his endeavour to save himself, plunge his spear into the water as if it had been the ground, to steady himself; but the spear, though long, touched nothing up to his hand. He bent over. Bevis held his breath, thinking he must topple and fall headlong; but somehow he just saved himself, swung round, and immediately he could ran out upon the shore. Bevis rushed back.
“What was it?” he asked.
“It’s a hole,” said Mark, whose cheeks had turned white, and now became red, as the blood came back. “An awful deep hole—the spear won’t touch the bottom.”
As he waded out at first on shelving sand he laughed, and shouted, and jumped, and suddenly, as he stepped, his foot went over the edge of the deep hole; his spear, as he tried to save himself with it, touched nothing, so that it was only by good fortune that he recovered his balance. Once now and then in the autumn, when the water was very low, dried up by the long summer heats, this hole was visible and nearly empty, and the stream fell over a cataract into it, boiling and bubbling, and digging it deeper. But now, as the water had only just begun to recede, it was full, so that the stream ran slow, held back and checked by their sea.
This hollow was quite ten feet deep, sheer descent, but you could not see it, for the shore seemed to slope as shallow as possible.
Mark was much frightened, and sat down on the root to put on his shoes and stockings. Bevis took the spear, and going to the edge, and leaning over and feeling the bottom with it, he could find the hole, where the spear slipped and touched nothing, about two yards out.
“It is a horrid place,” he said. “How should I have got you out? I wish we could swim.”
“So do I,” said Mark. “And they will never let us go out in a boat by ourselves—I mean in a ship to the Unknown Island—till we can.”
“No; that they won’t,” said Bevis. “We must begin to swim directly. My papa will show me, and I will show you. But how should I have got you out if you had fallen? Let me see; there’s a gate up there.”
“It is so heavy,” said Mark. “You could not drag it down, and fling it in quick enough. If we had the raft up here.”
“Ah, yes. There is a pole loose there—that would have done.” He pointed to some railings that crossed the stream. The rails were nailed, but there was a pole at the side, only thrust into the bushes. “I could have pulled that out and held it to you.”
Mark had now got his shoes on, and they started again, looking for a bridge to cross the stream, and continue their journey round the New Sea. As they could not see any they determined to cross by the railings, which they did without much trouble, holding to the top bar, and putting their feet on the second, which was about three inches over the water. The stream ran deep and slow; it was dark, because it was in shadow, for the trees hung over from each side. Bevis, who was first, stopped in the middle and looked up it. There was a thick hedge and trees each side, and a great deal of fern on the banks. It was straight for a good way, so that they could see some distance till the boughs hid the rest.
“I should like to go up there,” said Mark. “Some day, if we can get a boat under these rails, let us go up it.”
“So we will,” said Bevis. “It is proper to explore a river. But what river is this?”
“Is it the Congo?” said Mark.
“O! no. The Congo is not near this sea at all. Perhaps it’s the Amazon.”
“It can’t be the Mississippi,” said Mark. “That’s a long way off now. I know—see it runs slow, and it’s not clear, and we don’t know where it comes from. It’s the Nile.”
“So it is,” said Bevis. “It is the Nile, and some day we will go up to the source.”
“What’s that swimming across up there?” said Mark.
“It is too far; I can’t tell. Most likely a crocodile. How fortunate you did not fall in.”
When they had crossed, they whistled for Pan, who had been busy among the fern on the bank, sniffing after the rabbits which had holes there. Pan came and swam over to them in a minute. They travelled on some way and found the ground almost level and so thick with sedges and grass and rushes that they walked in a forest of green up to their waists. The water was a long way off beyond the weeds. They tried to go down to it, but the ground got very soft and their feet sank into it; it was covered with horsetails there, acres and acres of them, and after these shallow water hidden under floating weeds. Some coots were swimming about the edge of the weeds too far to fear them. So they returned to the firm ground and walked on among the sedges and rushes. There was a rough path, though not much marked, which wound about so as to get the firmest footing, but every now and then they had to jump over a wet place.
“What immense swamps,” said Mark; “I wonder where ever we shall get to.”
Underfoot there was a layer of the dead sedges of last year which gave beneath their weight, and the ground itself was formed of the roots of sedges and other plants. The water had not long since covered the place where they were, and the surface was still damp, for the sunshine could not dry it, having to pass through the thick growth above and the matted stalks below. A few scattered willow bushes showed how high the water had been by the fibres on the stems which had once flourished in it and were now almost dried up by the heat. A faint malarious odour rose from the earth, drawn from the rotting stalks by the hot sun. There was no shadow, and after a while they wearied of stepping through the sedges, sinking a little at every step, which much increases the labour of walking.
The monotony, too, was oppressive, nothing but sedges, flags, and rushes, sedges and horsetails, and they did not seem to get much farther after all their walking. First they were silent, labour makes us quiet; then they stopped and looked back. The perfect level caused the distance to appear more than it really was, because there was a thin invisible haze hovering over the swamp. Beyond the swamp was the gulf they had gone round, and across it the yellow sand-quarry facing them. It looked a very long way off.