elevation, corrects the sight; the gun, too, isadjusted. But the matchlock was the same thickness from end to end, andtill now, had not been tried to determine the accuracy of the shooting.
Bevis got a file and filed down the sight, till it was only a sixteenthof an inch high, and then loading again, he aimed in such a way that thesight should cover the spot he wished to strike. He could see bothsides of the sight, but the exact spot he wanted to hit was hidden byit. He fired, and the ball struck the paper about an inch below and twoinches to the right of the centre. Next time the bullet hit very nearlyon a level with the centre, but still on the right side.
This deflection he could not account for, the sight was in the properposition, and he was certain he aimed correctly. But at last he wascompelled to acknowledge that there was a deflection, and persuadedhimself to allow for it. He aimed the least degree to the left of thebull's-eye--just the apparent width of the sight--and so that he couldsee the bull's-eye on its right, the sight well up. He covered thebull's-eye first with the sight, then slightly moved the barrel till thebull's-eye appeared on the right side, just visible. The ball struckwithin half an inch of the bull's-eye. Bevis was delighted.
He fired again, and the ball almost hit the very centre. Next time thebullet hit the preceding bullet, and was flattened on it. Then Marktried, and the ball again went within a mere trifle of the bull's-eye.Bevis had found out the individual ways of his gun. He did not likeallowing for the deflection, but it was of no use, it had to be done,and he soon became reconciled to the concession. The matchlock had tobe coaxed like the sailing-boat and our ironclads, like fortune andFrances.
Bevis was so delighted with the discovery, that he fired bullet afterbullet, Mark trying every now and then, till the paper was riddled withbullet holes, and the teak-tree coated with lead. He thought he wouldtry at a longer range, and so went back to thirty-five yards, but thoughhe allowed a little more, and tried several ways, it was of no use, thebullet could not be relied on. At twenty yards they could hit thebull's-eye, so that a sparrow, or even a wren, would not be safe; beyondthat, errors crept in which Bevis could not correct.
These were probably caused by irregularities in the rough bore of thebarrel, which was only an iron tube. When the powder exploded, thepower of the explosion drove the ball, by sheer force, almost perfectlystraight--point-blank--for twenty or twenty-five yards. Then the twistgiven by the inequalities of the bore, and gained by the ball by rubbingagainst them, began to tell; sometimes one way, sometimes another, andthe ball became deflected and hardly twice the same way.
Bevis was obliged to be content with accuracy up to twenty, or at mosttwenty-five yards. At twenty he could hit an object the size of asparrow; at twenty-five of a blackbird, after twenty-five he might misshis straw hat. Still it was a great triumph to have found out thesecret, and to be certain of hitting even at that short range.
"Why, that's how it was with Jack's rifle!" he said. "It's only a dodgeyou have to find out."
"Of course it is; if he would lend it to us, we should soon master it,"said Mark. "And now let's go to the unknown river."
Volume Three, Chapter VII.
NEW FORMOSA--SWEET RIVER FALLS.
The matchlock was slung up in the hut, and away they went to the raft;Pan did not want to come, he was tired after his journey in the night,but they made him. Knowing the position of the shoals, and where theycould touch the bottom with the poles, and where not, they got alongmuch quicker, and entered the channel in the weeds, which they haddiscovered beyond Pearl Island in the Pinta.
The channel was often very narrow, and turned several ways, but bydegrees trended to the south-eastwards, and the farther they penetratedit, the more numerous became the banks, covered with a dense growth ofsedges and flags. Some higher out of the water than others, had bushesand willows, so that, after awhile, their view of the open sea behindwas cut off. They did not see any wild-fowl, for as these heard thesplash of the poles, they swam away and hid. Winding round thesedge-grown banks, they presently heard the sound of falling water.
"Niagara!" said Mark.
"No, Zambesi. There are houses by Niagara, so it's not so good."
"No. Look!"
The raft glided out of the channel into a small open bay, free fromweeds, and with woods each side. Where it narrowed a little stream felldown in two short leaps, having worn its way through the sandstone. Thewater was not so much as ran over the hatch of the brook near home, butthis, coming over stone or rock, instead of dropping nearly straight,leaped forward and broke into spray. The sides of the worn channel weregreen with moss, and beneath, but just above the surface of the water,long cool hart's-tongue ferns grew, and were sprinkled every moment.
The boughs of beech-trees met over the fall, and shaded the water below.They poled up so near that the spray reached the raft; Mark caught holdof a drooping beech bough, and so moored their vessel. They could notsee up the stream farther than a few yards, for it was then overhungwith dark fir boughs. On the firs there were grey flecks of lichen.
"How sweet and clear it looks!" said Bevis. "Shall we call it SweetRiver?"
"And Sweet River Falls?"
"Yes. It comes out of the jungle," Bevis looked over the edge of theraft, and saw the arch of water dive down unbroken beneath the surfaceof the pool, and then rise in innumerable bubbles under him. Thehart's-tongue ferns vibrated, swinging slightly, as the weight of thedrops on them now bore them down and now slipped off, and let them up.
By the shore of the pool the turquoise studs of forget-me-nots, withgolden centres, were the brighter for the darkness of the shade. Sothick were the boughs, that the sky could not be seen through them;there was a rustle above as the light south-east wind blew, butunderneath the leaves did not move.
"I like this," said Mark. He sat on the chest, or locker, holding thebeech bough. "But the birds do not sing."
The cuckoo was gone, the nightingale silent, the finches were in thestubble, there might be a chiff-chaff "chip-chipping," perhaps deep inthe jungle, one pair of doves had not quite finished nesting on NewFormosa, now and then parties of greenfinches called "ky-wee, ky-wee,"and a single lark sang in the early dawn. But the jungle here wassilent. There was no song but that of the waterfall.
Though there was not a breath of wind under the boughs, yet the sound ofthe fall now rose, and now declined, as the water ran swifter or withless speed. Sometimes it was like a tinkling; sometimes it laughed;sometimes it was like voices far away. It ran out from the woods with amessage, and hastening to tell it, became confused.
Bevis sat on the raft, leaning against the willow bulwark; Pan crept tohis knee.
The forget-me-nots and the hart's-tongue, the beeches and the firs,listened to the singing. Something that had gone by, and something thatwas to come, came out of the music and made this moment sweeter. Thismoment of the singing held a thousand years that had gone by, and thethousand years that are to come. For the woods and the waters are veryold, that is the past; if you look up into the sky you know that athousand years hence will be nothing to it, that is the future. But theforget-me-nots, the hart's-tongue, and the beeches, did not think of theages gone, or the azure to come. They were there _now_, the sunshineand the wind above, the shadow and the water and the spray beneath, thatwas all in all. Bevis and Mark were there now, listening to thesinging, that was all in all.
Presently there was a sound--a "swish"--and looking up, they saw apheasant with his tail behind like a comet, flying straight out to sea.This awoke them.
Bevis held out the palm of his hand, and Pan came nearer and put hischin in the hollow of it, as he had done these hundreds of times. Panlooked up, and wagged his tail, thump, thump, on the deck of the raft.If we could put the intelligence of the dog in the body of the horse,size, speed, and grace, what an animal that would be!
"Lots of perch here," said Mark; "I shall come and fish. Suppose weland and go up the Sweet River?"
"It belongs to the kin
g of this country, I expect," said Bevis. "Hesits on a throne of ebony with a golden footstool, and they wave fans ofpeacocks' feathers, and the room is lit up by a single great diamondjust in the very top of the dome of the ceiling, which flashes thesunshine through, down from outside. The swan belongs to him."
"And he keeps the Sweet River just for himself to drink from, andexecutes everybody who dares drink of it," said Mark.
Just then a bird flew noiselessly up into the beech over them, they sawit was a jay, and kept quite still. The next instant he was off, andthey heard him and his friends, for a jay is never alone, screeching inthe jungle. Looking back towards the quiet bay, it appeared as if itwas raining fast, but without a sound, for the surface was dimpled withinnumerable tiny circlets like those caused by raindrops. These wereleft