Bevis: The Story of a Boy
Page 68
obliged to do it by shifts, one working solong and then the other. The raft was to be twelve feet long and fivewide. The beams for the foundation gave them most trouble to procure,being largest, and not every tree was exactly the size they wished.
They laboured on into the moonlight, which grew brighter every night asthe moon increased, and did not cease till all the materials were ready;the long beams of aspen and poplar placed side by side (on rollers) andnear these short cross-pieces of fir with holes bored for the nails,then a row of long fir poles, and the short lengths of plank to form thedeck. Everything was just ready for fitting together. It cost themsome self-denial to wait till all was thus prepared instead of at oncebeginning to nail the frame together.
There is something in driving in a nail tempting to the wrist; when theboard is ready, the gimlet-hole made, and the hammer at hand, thephysical mind desires to complete the design. They resisted it, becausethey knew that they should really complete the raft much quicker bygetting every portion of the frame ready before commencing to fix it.They did not recognise how tired they were till they started for thehut; their backs, so long bent over the sawing, had stiffened in thatposition, and pained them as they straightened the sinews to standupright; their fingers were crooked from continually grasping thehandles; they staggered about as they walked, for their stiff limbs werenot certain of foothold, and jerked them where the ground was uneven.
Mark sat down to light the fire in the courtyard, for they wanted somemore tea; Bevis sat by him. They were dog-tired. Looking in the larderto lay out the supper, Mark saw the mushrooms which had been forgotten;he hunted out the gridiron, and put two handsful of them on. Now thesight of these savoury mushrooms raised their fainting spirits more thanthe most solid food, and they began to talk again. While these weredoing, Bevis cut Pan a slice of the cooked bacon on the shelf; it wasrather fat, and pampered Pan, after mumbling it over in his chops,carried it just outside the fence, and came back trying to look as if hehad eaten it.
With the mushrooms they made a capital supper, but they were still verytired. Bevis got out his journal, but he only wrote down "Friday," andthen put it away, remarking that he must soon write a letter home. Evencards could not amuse them, they were so tired; but the cry of a heronroused Bevis a little, and he took the matchlock and loaded it withshot, to see if he could shoot it and get the plumes.
"Heron's plumes were thought a good deal of in our day where we lived,you know. Didn't the knights use to wear them?" he said. "Herons arevery hard to shoot."
Mark came with him and the spaniel, and they walked softly down thepath, now well-worn, and peered over the moonlit water, but the heronwas not on the island, nor in sight. He was probably on some of thelesser islets among the shallows, so they returned home and immediatelywent to bed, quite knocked up. Pan curled round by the bedside forabout an hour, then he got up and slipped out under the curtain into themoonlight.
In the morning when they went to bathe there was a mist over the water,which curled along and gathered thicker in places, once quite hidingSerendib, and then clearing away and drawing towards the unknown river.The water was very warm.
They then began to nail the raft together. On the long thick beams theyplaced short cross-pieces of fir close together and touching; over theselong poles of fir lengthways, also touching; lastly, short planks acrossmaking the deck. There were thus four layers, for they knew that raftssink a good deal and float deep, especially when the wood is green, asyou may see a bough, or a tree-trunk in the brook quite half immersed asit goes by on the current. It was built on rollers, because Bevis,consulting his book, read how Ulysses rigged his vessel:--
And roll'd on levers, launch'd her in the deep.
And, reflecting, he foresaw that the raft being so heavy would beotherwise difficult to move.
The spot where they had built her was a little below where Bevis leapedon shore on the evening of the battle. The ground sloped to the water,which was rather deep. By noon the raft was ready--for they had decidedto complete the rigging, bulwarks, and fittings when she was afloat--andwith levers they began to heave her down.
She moved slowly, rumbling and crushing the rollers into the sward. Bydegrees with a "Yeo! Heave-ho!" at which Pan set up a barking, the raftapproached the water, and the forward part entered it. The weight ofthe rest prevented the front from floating, forcing it straight underthe surface till the water rose a third of the way along the deck.
"Yeo! Heave-ho!"
Yow-wow-wow! Pan, who had been idle all the morning lying on theground, jumped round and joined the chorus.
"Now! Heave-ho! She's going! Now!"
"Stop!"
"Why?"
"She'll slip away--right out!"
"So she will."
"Run for a rope."
"All right."
Mark ran for a piece of cord from the hut. The raft as it were hung onthe edge more than half in and heaving up as the water began to floather, and they saw that if they gave another push she would go out andthe impetus of her weight would carry her away from the shore out ofreach. Mark soon returned with the cord, which was fastened to twostout nails.
"Ready?"
"Go!"
One strong heave with the levers and the raft slid off the last roller,rose to the surface, the water slipping off the deck each side, andfloated. Seizing the cord as it ran out, they brought her to, and Markinstantly jumped on board. He danced and kicked up his heels--Panfollowed him and ran round the edge of the raft, sniffing over at thewater. The raft floated first-rate, and the deck, owing to the threelayers under it, was high above the surface. These layers, too, gavethe advantage that they could walk to the very verge without depressingit to the water. Mark got off and held the cord while Bevis got on,then they both shouted, "Serendib!"
They pushed off with long poles, like punting, Pan swam out so soon asthey had started, and was hauled on board. A short way from shore thechannel was so deep the poles would not reach the bottom, but the rafthad way on her and continued to move, and paddling with the poles theykept up the slow movement till they reached the shallows. Thence toSerendib they poled along, one each side. The end of the raft crashedin among the willow boughs, and the jerk as it grounded almost threwthem down. Pan leaped off directly, and they followed, fastening theraft by the cord or painter to the willows.
"Nothing but blue gums," said Mark, who led the way. "What are these?"pointing to the wild parsnips or "gix" which rose as high as theirheads, with hollow-jointed stalks and broad heads of minute whiteflowers.
"It's a new kind of bamboo," said Bevis. "Listen! Pan's hunting outthe moorhens again. This is some kind of spice--you sniff--the air isheavy with the scent, just as it always is in the tropics."
As they pushed along they shook the meadowsweet flowers which grew verythickly, and the heavy perfume rose up. In a willow stole or blue gumMark found the nest of a sedge bird, but empty, the young birds hatchedlong since.
"Mind you don't step on a crocodile," said Mark, "you can't see a bit."
The ground was so matted with vegetation that their feet never touchedthe earth at all, they trampled on grasses, rushes, meadowsweet, andtriangular fluted carex sedges. Sometimes they approached the shore andsaw several empty nests of moorhens and coots, but just above the levelof the water. Sometimes their uncertain course led them in the interiorto avoid thickets of elder. If they paused a moment they could hear therustling as water-fowl rushed away. Pan had gone beyond hearing now.Presently they came on a small pool surrounded with sedges--ablack-headed bunting watched them from a branch opposite.
"No fish," said Bevis: they could see the bottom of the shallow water."Herons and kingfishers have had them of course."
Crashing through the new bamboos they at last reached the southernextremity of the island, where the shallow sea was covered with thefloating leaves of weeds, over which blue dragon-flies flew to and fro.
"Everything's gone to the river again," said Ma
rk; "and where's Pan?He's gone too, I dare say."
A short bark in that direction in a few minutes made them look at anislet round which reed-mace rose in a tall fringe, and there was Pancreeping up out of the weeds, dragging his body after him on to the firmground. He set up a great yelping on the islet.
"Something's been there," said Bevis. "Perhaps it's the thing thatmakes the curious wave. Pan! Pan!"--whistling. Pan would not come: hewas too excited. "We must come here in the evening," said Bevis, "andmake an ambush. There's heaps of moorhens."
As there was nothing else to see on Serendib they worked a way betweenthe blue gums back to the raft, and re-embarked for New Formosa. Justbefore they landed Pan dashed into the water from Serendib and swam tothem. He did