Bevis: The Story of a Boy
Page 34
roundbehind the tree and darted on Caesar, whose strategy had left him alone,intending to grasp him and seize him by main force.
Caesar Bevis slipped from him by the breadth of half an inch.
Pompey hit hard, twice, thrice; crash, clatter. His arm was strong, andthe sword fell heavy; rattle, crash. He hit his hardest, fearing helpwould come to Bevis. Swish! slash!
Thwack! He felt a sharp blow on his shoulder. Bevis kept him off, sawan opportunity, and cut him. With swords he was more than Ted's match.He and Mark had so often practised they had both become crafty atfencing. The harder Ted hit, overbalancing himself to put force intothe blow, and the less able to recover himself quickly, the easier Beviswarded, and every three knocks gave Ted a rap. Ted danced round him,trying to get an advantage; he swung his sword to and fro in front ofhim horizontally. Bevis retired to avoid it past the sycamore. Findingthis answer, Ted swung it all the more furiously, and Bevis retreated,watching his chance, and they passed several trees on to the narrowbreadth of level short sward between the trees and the quarry.
Ted's chest heaved with the fury of his blows; Bevis could not wardthem, at least not so as to be able to strike afterwards. But suddenly,as Ted swung it still fiercer, Bevis resolutely received the sword fullon his left arm--thud, and stopped it. Before Ted could recover himselfBevis hit his wrist, and his sword dropped from it on the ground.
Ted instantly rushed in and grappled with him. He seized him, and bysheer strength whirled him round and round, so that Bevis's feet butjust touched the sward. He squeezed him, and tried to get him acrosshis hip to throw him; but Bevis had his collar, and he could not do it.Bevis got his feet the next instant, and worked Ted, who breathed hard,back.
The quarry was very near, they were hardly three yards from the edge ofthe cliff; the sward beneath their feet was short where the sheep hadfed it close to the verge, and yellow with lotus flowers. Yonder farbelow were the waves, but they saw nothing but themselves.
The second's pause, as Bevis forced Ted back two steps, then another,then a fourth, as they glared at each other, was over. Ted burst on himagain. He lifted Bevis, but could not for all his efforts throw him.He got his feet again.
"You punched me!" hissed Ted between his teeth.
"I didn't."
"You did." Ted hit him with doubled fist. Bevis instantly hit back.They struck without much parrying. At this, as at swords, Bevis's quickeye and hand served him in good stead. He kept Ted back; it was atwrestling Ted's strength was superior. Ted got a straight-out blow onthe chin; his teeth rattled.
He hurled himself bodily on Bevis; Bevis stepped back and avoided thedirect hug, but the cliff yawned under him. Into Ted's mind thereflashed, vivid as a picture, something he had seen when two men werefighting in the road. Without a thought, it was done in the millionthof a second, he tripped Bevis. Bevis staggered, swung round, half savedhimself, clutched at Ted's arm, and put his foot back over the cliffinto nothing.
Ted did but see his face, and Bevis was gone. As he fell hedisappeared; the edge hid him. Crash!
Ted's face became of a leaden pallor, his heart stopped boating; anuncontrollable horror seized upon him. Some inarticulate sound camefrom between his teeth. He turned and fled down the slope into thefirs, through the fields, like the wind, for his home under the hills.He fled from his own act. How many have done that who could have facedthe world! Bevis he knew was dead. As he ran he muttered to himself,constantly repeating it, "His bones are all smashed; I heard them. Hisbones are all smashed." He never stopped till he reached his home. Herushed upstairs, locked his door, and got into bed with all his thingson.
Bevis was not dead, nor even injured. He had scarcely fallen ten feetbefore he was brought up by a flake, which is a stronger kind of hurdle.It was one of those originally placed along the edge of the precipiceto keep cattle from falling over. It had become loose, and a horserubbing against it sent it over weeks before. The face of the cliffthere had been cut into a groove four or five feet wide years ago by thesand-seekers. This groove went straight down to a deep pool of water,which had filled up the ancient digging for the stone of the lowerstratum. As the flake tumbled it presently lodged aslant the cutting,and it was in that position when Bevis fell on it.
His weight drove it down several feet farther, when the lower partcaught in a ledge at that side of the groove, and it stopped with ajerk. The jerk cracked one bar of the flake, which was made much like avery slender gate, and it was this sound which Ted in his agony of mindmistook for the smashing of bones.
Bevis when he struck the flake instinctively clutched it, and it waswell that he did so, or he would have rolled over into the pool. Forthe moment when he felt his foot go into space, he lost consciousconsciousness. He really was conscious, but he had no control, or will,or knowledge at the time, or memory afterwards. That moment passedcompletely out of his life, till the jerk of the flake brought him tohimself. He saw the pool underneath as through the bars of a grating,and clasped the flake still firmer.
In that position, lying on it, he remained for a minute, getting hisbreath, and recognising where he was. Then he rose up a little, andshouted "Mark!" The gale took his voice out over the New Sea, whosewaves were rolling past not more than twenty yards from the base of thecliff.
"Mark!" No one answered. He sat upon the flake still holding it, andbegan to try and think what he should do if Mark did not come.
His first thought was to climb up somehow, but when he looked he sawthat the sand was as straight as a wall. Steps might be cut in the softsand, and he put his hand in his pocket for his knife, when he reflectedthat steps for the feet would be of no use unless he had something tohold to as well. Then he looked down, inclined for the moment to dropinto the water, which would check his fall, and bring him up withoutinjury. Only the sides of the pool were as steep as the cliff itself,so that any one swimming in it could not climb up to get out.
He recollected the frog which he and Mark put in the stone trough, tosee how it swam, and how it went round and round, and could not escape.So he should be if he fell into the pool. He could only swim round andround until his strength failed him. If the flake broke, or tipped, orslipped again, that was what would happen.
Bevis sat still, and tried to think; and while he did so he looked outover the New Sea. The sun was now lower, and all the waves were touchedwith purple, as if the crests had been sprinkled with wine. The windblew even harder, as the sun got nearer the horizon, and fine particlesof sand were every now and then carried over his head from the edge ofthe precipice.
What would Ulysses have done? He had a way of getting out ofeverything; but try how he would, Bevis could not think of any plan,especially as he feared to move much, lest the insecure platform underhim should give way. He could see his reflection in the pool beneath,as if it were waiting for him to come in reality.
While he sat quite still, pondering, he thought he heard a rumblingsound, and supposed it to be the noise of tramping feet, as the legionsbattled above. He shouted again, "Mark! Mark!" and immediately wishedhe had not done so, lest it should be a party fetched by Pompey to seizehim; for if he was captured the battle would be lost. He did not knowthat Pompey had fled, and feared that his shout would guide hispursuers, forgetting in his excitement that if he could not get up tothem, neither could they get down to him. He kept still looking up,thinking that in a minute he should see faces above.
But none appeared, and suddenly there was another rumbling noise, anddirectly afterwards a sound like scampering, and then a splashunderneath him. He looked, and some sand was still rolling downsprinkling the pool. "A rabbit," thought Bevis. "It was a rabbit and aweasel. I see--of course! Yes; if it was a rabbit then there's aledge, and if there's a ledge I can get along."
Cautiously he craned his head over the edge of the flake, carefullykeeping his weight as well back as he could. There was a ledge abouttwo feet lower than the flake, very narrow, not more than three or fourin
ches there; but having seen so many of these ledges in the quarrybefore, he had no doubt it widened. As that was the extreme end, itwould be narrowest there. He thought he could get his foot on it, butthe difficulty was what to hold to.
It was of no use putting his foot on a mere strip like that unless therewas something for his hand to grasp. Bevis saw a sand-martin pass atthat moment, and it occurred to him that if he could find a martin'shole to put his hand in, that would steady him. He felt round the edgeof the groove, when, as he extended himself to do so, the flake tipped alittle, and he drew back hastily. His chest thumped with sudden terror,and he sat still to recover himself. A humble-bee went by round theedge of the groove, and presently a second, buzzing close to him, andseeing these two he remembered that one had passed before, making threehumble-bees.
"There must be thistles," said Bevis to himself, knowing thathumble-bees