"What letter?"
Mark had started for his clothes, which were in a heap on the sward, he seized his coat, and drew a note much frayed from one of the pockets.
He looked at it, heaved a deep sigh, and ran with all his might to intercept Jack. Bevis watched him tearing across the field and laughed; then he sat down on the gra.s.s to wait for him.
Mark, out of breath and with thistles in his feet, would never have overtaken the dog-cart had not Jack seen him coming and stopped. He could not speak, but handed up the note in silence, more like Cupid than messengers generally. He panted so that he could not run away directly, as he had intended.
"You rascal," said Jack, flicking at him with his whip. "How long have you had this in your pocket?"
Mark tried to run away, he could only trot; Jack turned his mare"s head, as if half-inclined to drive after him.
"If you come," said Mark, shaking his fist, "we"ll shoot you and stick a spear into you. Aha! you"re afraid! aha!"
Jack was too eager to read his note to take vengeance. Mark walked away jeering at him. The reins hung down, and the mare cropped as the master read. Mark laughed to think he had got off so easily, for the letter had been in his pocket a week, though he had faithfully promised to deliver it the same day--for a shilling. Had he not been sent home with the sails it might have remained another week till the envelope was fretted through.
Frances asked if he had given it to Jack.
Mark started. "Ah," said she, "you have forgotten it."
"Of course I have," said Mark. "It"s so long ago."
"Then you did really?"
"How stupid you are," said Mark; and Frances could not press him further, lest she should seem too anxious about Jack. So the young dog escaped, but he did not dare delay longer, and had not Jack happened to cross the field meant to have ridden up to his house on the donkey.
When Jack had read the note he looked at the retreating figure of Cupid and opened his lips, but caught his breath as it were and did not say it. He put his whip aside as he drove on, lest he should unjustly punish the mare.
Mark strolled leisurely back to the bathing-place, but when he got there Bevis was not to be seen. He looked round at the water, the quarry, the sycamore-trees. He ran down to the water"s edge with his heart beating and a wild terror causing a whirling sensation in his eyes, for the thought in the instant came to him that Bevis had gone out of his depth.
He tried to shout "Bevis!" but he was choked; he raised his hands; as he looked across the water he suddenly saw something white moving among the fir-trees at the head of the gulf.
He knew it was Bevis, but he was so overcome he sat down on the sward to watch, he could not stand up. The something white was stealthily pa.s.sing from tree to tree like an Indian. Mark looked round, and saw his own harpoon on the gra.s.s, but at once missed the bow and arrows.
His terror had suspended his observation, else he would have noticed this before.
Bevis, when Mark ran with the letter to Jack, had sat down on the sward to wait for him, and by-and-by, while still, and looking out over the water, his quiet eye became conscious of a slight movement opposite at the mouth of the Nile. There was a ripple, and from the high ground where he sat he could see the reflection of the trees in the water there undulate, though their own boughs shut off the light air from the surface. He got up, took his bow and arrows, and went into the firs.
The dead dry needles or leaves on the ground felt rough to his naked feet, and he had to take care not to step on the hard cones. A few small bramble bushes forced him to go aside, so that it took him some little time to get near the Nile.
Then he had to always keep a tree trunk in front of him, and to step slowly that his head might not be seen before he could see what it was himself. He stooped as the ripples on the other side of the brook became visible; then gradually lifting his head, sheltered by a large alder, he traced the ripples back to the sh.o.r.e under the bank, and saw a moorc.o.c.k feeding by the roots of a willow. Bevis waited till the c.o.c.k turned his back, then he stole another step forward to the alder.
It was about ten yards to the willow which hung over the water, but he could not get any nearer, for there was no more cover beyond the alder-- the true savage is never content unless he is close to his game. Bevis grasped his bow firm in his left hand, drew the arrow quick but steadily--not with a jerk--and as the sharp point covered the bird, loosed it. There was a splash and a fluttering, he knew instantly that he had hit. "Mark! Mark!" he shouted, and ran down the bank, heedless of the jagged stones. Mark heard, and came racing through the firs.
The arrow had struck the moorc.o.c.k"s wing, but even then the bird would have got away, for the point had no barb, and in diving and struggling it would have come out, had not he been so near the willow. The spike went through his wing and nailed it to a thick root; the arrow quivered as it was stopped by the wood. Bevis seized him by the neck and drew the arrow out.
"Kill him! Kill him!" shouted Mark. The other savage pulled the neck, and Mark, leaping down the jagged stones, took the dead bird in his eager hands.
"Here"s where the arrow went in."
"There"s three feathers in the water."
"Feel how warm he is."
"Look at the thick red on his bill."
"See his claws."
"Hurrah!"
"Let"s eat him."
"Raw?"
"No. Cook him."
"All right. Make a fire."
Thus the savages gloated over their prey. They went back up the bank and through the firs to the sward.
"Where shall we make the fire?" said Mark. "In the quarry?"
"That old stupe may come for sand."
"So he may. Let"s make it here."
"Everybody would see."
"By the hedge towards the elms then."
"No. I know, in the hollow."
"Of course, n.o.body would come there."
"Pick up some sticks."
"Come and help me."
"I shall dress--there are brambles."
So they dressed, and then found that Mark had broken a nail, and Bevis had cut his foot with the sharp edge of a fossil sh.e.l.l projecting from one of the stones. But that was nothing, they could think of nothing but the bird. While they were gathering armsful of dead sticks from among the trees, they remembered that John Young, who always paunched the rabbits and hares and got everything ready for the kitchen, said coots and moorhens must be skinned, they could not be plucked because of the "dowl."
Dowl is the fluff, the tiny featherets no fingers can remove. So after they had carried the wood they had collected to the round hollow in the field beyond the sycamore-trees, they took out their knives, and haggled the skin off. They built their fire very skilfully; they had made so many in the Peninsula (for there is nothing so pleasant as making a fire out of doors), that they had learnt exactly how to do it. Two short sticks were stuck in the ground and a third across to them, like a triangle. Against this frame a number of the smallest and driest sticks were leaned, so that they made a tiny hut. Outside these there was a second layer of longer sticks; all standing, or rather leaning against the first.
If a stick is placed across, lying horizontally, supposing it catches fire, it just burns through the middle and that is all, the ends go out.
If it is stood nearly upright, the flame draws up it; it is certain to catch; it burns longer and leaves a good ember. They arranged the rest of their bundles ready to be thrown on when wanted, and then put some paper, a handful of dry gra.s.s, and a quant.i.ty of the least and driest twigs, like those used in birds"-nests, inside the little hut. Then having completed the pile they remembered they had no matches.
"It"s very lucky," said Bevis. "If we had we should have to throw them away. Matches are not proper."
"Two pieces of wood," said Mark. "I know; you rub them together till they catch fire, and one piece must be hard and the other soft."
"Yes," said Bevis, and taking out his knife he cut off the end of one of the larger dead branches they had collected, and made a smooth side to it. Mark had some difficulty in finding a soft piece to rub on it, for those which touched soft crumbled when rubbed on the hard surface Bevis had prepared.
A bit of willow seemed best, and Bevis seizing it first, rubbed it to and fro till his arm ached and his face glowed. Mark, lying on the gra.s.s, watched to see the slight tongue of flame shoot up, but it did not come.