Bevis: The Story of a Boy

on a stick, and after six or seven trials hit it at twenty yards.He could always hit a tree. Mark was afraid to throw his bone-headedharpoon at a tree, lest the head should break off; but he had another,without a bone head, to cast; and he too could generally hit a tree.

  "Now we are quite savages," said Bevis, one evening, as they sat up inthe bench-room, and the sun went down red and fiery, opposite the littlewindow, filling the room with a red glow and gleaming on their faces.It put a touch of colour on the pears, which were growing large, justoutside the window, as if they were ripe towards the sunset. Theboomerang on the wall was lit up with the light; so was a parcel ofcanvas, on the floor, which they had bought at Latten town, for thesails of their ship.

  There was an oyster barrel under the bench, which was to contain thefresh water for their voyage, and there had been much discussion as tohow they were to put a new head to it.

  "We ought to see ourselves on the shore with spears and things when weare sailing round," said Mark.

  "So as not to be able to land for fear."

  "Poisoned arrows," said Mark. "I say, how stupid! we have not got anypoison."

  "No more we have. We must get a lot of poison."

  "Curious plants nobody knows anything about but us."

  "Nobody ever heard of them."

  "And dip our arrows and spear's in the juice."

  "No one ever gets well after being shot with them."

  "If the wind blows hard ashore and there are no harbours it will beawful with the savages all along waiting for us."

  "We shall see them dancing and shouting with bows and throw-sticks, andyelling."

  "That's you and me."

  "Of course. And very likely if the wind is very hard we shall have tolet down the sails, and fling out an anchor and stay till the gale goesdown."

  "The anchor may drag."

  "Then we shall crash on the rocks."

  "And swim ashore."

  "You can't. There's the breakers and the savages behind them. I shallstop on the wreck, and the sun will go down."

  "Red like that," pointing out of window.

  "And it will blow harder still."

  "Black as pitch."

  "Horrible."

  "No help."

  "Fire a gun."

  "Pooh!"

  "Make a raft."

  "The clouds are sure to break, or something."

  "I say," said Bevis, "won't all these things,"--pointing to theweapons--"do first-rate for our war?"

  "Capital. There will be arrows sticking up everywhere all over thebattle-field."

  "Broken lances and horses without riders."

  "Dints in the ground."

  "Knights with their backs against trees and heaps of soldiers choppingat them."

  "Flashing swords! the ground will shake when we charge."

  "Trumpets!"

  "Groans!"

  "Grass all red!"

  "Blood-red sun like that!" The disc growing larger as it neared thehorizon, shone vast through some distant elms.

  "Flocks of crows."

  "Heaps of white bones."

  "And we will take the shovels and make a tumulus by the shore."

  The red glow on the wall slowly dimmed, the colour left the pear, andthe song of a thrush came from the orchard.

  "I want to make some magic," said Bevis, after a pause. "The thing isto make a wand."

  "Genii are best," said Mark. "They do anything you tell them."

  "There ought to be a black book telling you how to do it somewhere,"said Bevis; "but I've looked through the bookcase and there's nothing."

  "Are you sure you have quite looked through?"

  "I'll try again," said Bevis. "There's a lot of books, but neveranything that you want."

  "I know," said Mark suddenly. "There's the bugle in the old cupboard--that will do for the war."

  "So it will; I forgot it."

  "And a flag."

  "No; we must have eagles on a stick."

  Knock! They jumped; Polly had hit the ceiling underneath with thehandle of a broom.

  "Supper."

  When they went to bathe next morning, Bevis took with him his bow andarrows, intending to shoot a pike. As they walked beside the shore theyoften saw jacks basking in the sun at the surface of the water, and onlya few yards distant. He had fastened a long thin string one end to thearrow and the other to the bow, so that he might draw the arrow back tohim with the fish on as the savages do. Mark brought his bone-headedharpoon to try and spear something, and between them they also carried aplank, which was to be used as a catamaran.

  A paddle they had made was tied to it for convenience, that their handsmight not be too full. Mark went first with one end of the plank on hisshoulder, and Bevis followed with the other on his, and as they had tohold it on edge it rather cut them. Coming near some weeds where theyhad seen a jack the day before, they put the catamaran down, and Beviscrept quietly forward. The jack was not there, but motioning to Mark tostand still, Bevis went on to where the first railings stretched outinto the water.

  There he saw a jack about two pounds' weight basking within an inch ofthe surface, and aslant to him. He lifted his bow before he went near,shook out the string that it might slip easily like the coil of aharpoon, fitted the arrow, and holding it almost up, stole closer. Heknew if he pulled the bow in the usual manner the sudden motion of hisarms would send the jack away in an instant. With the bow already inposition, he got within six yards of the fish, which, quite still, didnot seem to see anything, but to sleep with eyes wide open in the sun.The shaft flew, and like another arrow the jack darted aslant into deepwater.

  Bevis drew back his arrow with the string, not altogether disappointed,for it had struck the water very near if not exactly at the place thefish had occupied. But he thought the string impeded the shaft, andtook it off for another trial. Mark would not stay behind; he insistedupon seeing the shooting, so leaving the catamaran on the grass, theymoved gently along the shore. After a while they found another jack,this time much larger, and not less than four pounds' weight, stationaryin a tiny bay, or curve of the land. He was lying parallel to theshore, but deeper than the first, perhaps six inches beneath thesurface. Mark stood where he could see the dark line of the fish, whileBevis, with the bow lifted and arrow half drawn, took one, two, three,and almost another step forward.

  Aiming steadily at the jack's broad side, just behind the front fins,where the fish was widest, Bevis grasped his bow firm to keep it fromthe least wavering (for it is the left hand that shoots), drew hisarrow, and let go. So swift was the shaft, unimpeded, and drawn toothis time almost to the head, in traversing the short distance between,that the jack, quick as he was, could not of himself have escaped.Bevis saw the arrow enter the water, and, as it seemed to him, strikethe fish. It did indeed strike the image of the fish, but the real jackslipped beneath it.

  Bevis looked and looked, he was so certain he had hit it, and so he hadhit the mark he aimed at, which was the refraction, but the fish wasunhurt. It was explained to him afterwards that the fish appears higherin the water than it actually is, and that to have hit it he should haveaimed two inches underneath, and he proved the truth of it by trying totouch things in the water with a long stick. The arrow glanced aftergoing two feet or so deep, and performed a curve in the water exactlyopposite to that it would have traced in the air. In the air it wouldhave curved over, in the water it curved under, and came up to thesurface not very far out; the water checked it so. Bevis fastened thestring again to another arrow, and shot it out over the first, so thatit caught and held it, and he drew them both back.

  They fetched the catamaran, and went on till they came to the pointwhere there was a wall of stones rudely put together to shield the landfrom the full shock of the waves, when the west wind rolled them heavilyfrom the Indian Ocean and the Golden Sea. Putting the plank down again,Mark went forward with his harpoon, for he knew that shoals of fishoften played in the water when it was still,
just beneath this rockywall. As he expected, they were there this morning, for the most partroach, but a few perch. He knelt and crept out on all fours to the edgeof the wall, leaving his hat on the sward. Looking over, he could seeto the stony bottom, and as there was not a ripple, he could seedistinctly.

  He put his harpoon gently, without a splash, into the sunlit water, andlet it sink slowly in among the shoal. The roach swam aside a yard orso from it, but showed no more fear than that it should not touch them.Mark kept his harpoon still till a larger roach came slowly by withineighteen inches of the point, when he jerked it at the fish. It passedsix inches behind his tail, and though Mark