have the raft we must dredgeup the anemones and pearl oysters, and--"
"And write down all the fish."
"And everything. The language of the natives will be a bother. I mustmake a new alphabet for it. Look! that will do for A,"--he made a tinycircle; "that's B, two dots."
"They gurgle in their throats," said Mark.
"That's a gurgle," said Bevis, making a long stroke with a dot over andunder it; "and they click with their tongues against the roofs of theirmouths. No: it's awkward to write clicks. I know: there, CK, that'sfor click, and this curve under it means a tongue--the way you're to putit to make a click."
"Click! Click!"
"Guggle!"
"Then there's the names of the idols," said Mark. "We'd better findsome."
"You can cut some," said Bevis; "cut them with your knife out of astick, and say they're models, as they wouldn't let you take the realones. The names; let's see--Jog."
"Hick-kag."
"Hick-kag; I've put it down. Jog and Hick-kag are always quarrelling,and when they hit one another, that's thunder. That's what they say."
"Noodles."
"Natives are always noodles."
"But they can do one thing capital though."
"What's that?"
"Stick up together."
"How? Why?"
"If you take a hatchet and chop a big notch in them, they stick uptogether again directly."
"Join up."
"Like glue."
"Then the thing is, how did the savages get here? Nobody has ever beenhere before us; now where did they come from? There are sure to begrand ruins in the jungle somewhere," said Bevis, "all carved, andcovered with inscriptions."
"Huge trees growing on the top."
"Magic signs chipped out on stones, and books made of string with knotsinstead of writing."
Kaak! kaak! A heron was descending. The unearthly noise made them lookup.
"Are there any tidal waves?" said Mark.
"Sometimes--a hundred feet high. But the thing is how did they gethere? How did anybody ever get anywhere?"
"It's very crooked," said Mark, "very crooked: you can't quite see it,can you? Suppose you go and do the sun-dial: I'm sleepy."
"Well, go to bed; I can do it."
"Good-night!" said Mark. "Lots of chopping to do to-morrow. We oughtto have brought a grindstone for the axes. You have got the plan readyfor the raft?"
"Quite ready."
Mark went into the hut, placed the lantern in the niche, and threwhimself on the bed. In half a minute he was firm asleep. Bevis wentout of the courtyard, round outside the fence, and up on the cliff tothe sun-dial. The stars shone brighter than it is usually thought theydo when there is no moon; but in fact it is not so much the moon as thestate of the atmosphere. There was no haze in the dry air, and he couldsee the Pole Star distinctly.
He sat down--as the post on which the dial was supported was low--on thesouthern side, with it between him and the north. He still had to stooptill he had got the tip of the gnomon to cover the North Star. Closingone eye, as if aiming, he then put his pencil on the dial in the circleor groove scratched by the compass. The long pencil was held upright inthe groove, and moved round till it intercepted his view of the star.The tip of the gnomon, the pencil, and the Pole Star were in a directline, in a row one behind the other.
To make sure, he raised his head and looked over the gnomon and pencilto the star, when he found that he had not been holding the pencilupright; it leaned to the east, and made an error to the west in hismeridian. "It ought to be a plumb-line," he thought. "But I think it'sstraight now."
He stooped again, and found the gnomon and pencil correct, and pressingon the pencil hard, drew it towards him out of the groove a little way.By the moonlight when he got up he could see the mark he had left, andwhich showed the exact north. To-morrow he would have to draw a linefrom that mark straight to the gnomon, and when the shadow fell on thatline it would be noon. With the fixed point of noon and the fixed pointof four o'clock, he thought he could make the divisions for the rest ofthe hours.
The moonlight cast a shadow to the east of the noon-line, as she hadcrossed the meridian. Looking up, he saw the irregular circle of themoon high in the sky, so brilliant that the scored relievo work enchasedupon her surface was obscured by the bright light reflected from it.
Behind him numerous lights glittered in the still water, near at handthey were sharp clean points, far away they were short bands of lightdrawn towards him. Bevis went to the young oak and sat down under it.Cassiopeia fronted him, and Capella; the Northern Crown, was faint andlow; but westward great Arcturus shone, though the moon had taken theredness from him. The cross of Cygnus was lying on its side as it wascarried through the eastern sky; beneath it the Eagle's central starhung over the Nile. Low in the south, over the unknown river Antares,too, had lost his redness.
Up through the branches of the oak he saw Lyra, the purest star in theheavens, white as whitest and clearest light may be, gleaming at thezenith of the pale blue dome. But just above the horizon northwardsthere was a faint white light, the faintest aurora, as if another moonwas rising there. By these he knew his position, and that he waslooking the same way as if he had been gazing from the large northernwindow of the parlour at home, or if he had been lying on the green pathby the strawberries, as he sometimes did in the summer evenings.
Then the North Star, minute but clear--so small, and yet chosen for theaxle and focus of the sky, instead of sun-like Sirius--the North Staralways shone just over the group of elms by the orchard. Summer andwinter, spring and autumn, it was always there, always over the elms--whether they were reddening with the buds and flowers of February,whether they were dull green now in the heats of August, whether theywere yellow in October.
Dick and his Team, whose waggon goes backwards, swung round it like astone in a sling whirled about the shoulders. Sometimes the tail of theBear, where Dick bestrides his second horse, hung down behind the elmsinto the vapour of the horizon. Sometimes the Pointers were nearlyoverhead. If they were hidden by a cloud, the Lesser Bear gave a point;or you could draw a line through Cassiopeia, and tell the North by herchair of stars.
The comets seemed to come within the circle of Bootes--Arcturus youalways know is some way beyond the tail of the Bear. The comets comeinside the circle of the stars that never set. The governor had seenthree or four appear there in his time, just over the elms under thePole. Donati's, which perhaps you can remember, came there--a tinything twelve inches long from nucleus to tail to look at, afterwards theweird sign the world stood amazed at. Then there was another not longafter, which seemed to appear at once as a broad streak across the sky.
Like the sketches in old star-maps, it did indeed cross the whole skyfor a night or two, but went too quickly for the world to awake atmidnight and wonder at. Lately two more have come in the enchantedcircle of the stars that never set.
All the stars from Arcturus to Capella came about the elms by theorchard; as Arcturus went down over the place of sunset in autumn,Capella began to shine over another group of elms--in the meadow to thenorth-east. Capella is sure to be seen, because it begins to becomeconspicuous just as people say the sky is star-lit as winter sends thefirst frost or two. But Capella is the brightest star in the northernsky in summer, and it always came up by the second or north-east groupof elms.
Between these two groups of tall trees--so tall and thick that they weregenerally visible even on dark nights--the streamers of the AuroraBorealis shot up in winter, and between them in summer the faintreflection of the midnight sun, like the lunar dawn which precedes therising of the moon always appeared. The real day-dawn--the white footof Aurora--came through the sky-curtain a little to the right of thesecond group, and about over a young oak in the hedge across the road,opposite the garden wall.
When the few leaves left on this young oak were brown, and rustled inthe frosty night, the massy shoulder of Orion came heaving
up throughit--first one bright star, then another; then the gleaming girdle, andthe less definite scabbard; then the great constellation stretchedacross the east. At the first sight of Orion's shoulder Bevis alwaysfelt suddenly stronger, as if a breath of the mighty hunter's had comedown and entered into him.
He stood upright; his frame enlarged; his instep lifted him as hewalked, as if he too could swing the vast club and chase the lion fromhis lair. The sparkle of Orion's stars brought to him a remnant of theimmense vigour of the young world, the frosty air braced his sinews, andpower came into his arms.
As the constellation rose, so presently new vigour too entered into thetrees, the sap moved, the buds thrust forth, the
Bevis: The Story of a Boy Page 65
