“Anyhow,” said Crassus, “we’re sure to have him, he can’t get away; and Mark’s a mile off by this time.”
“Look sharp then; let’s go down and hunt round the stone heaps.”
“There’s the old oak,” said some one; “it’s hollow; perhaps he’s in that.”
“Let’s look in the oak as we go round to get down, and then behind the stones. Are there any caves?”
“I don’t know,” said Crassus. “Very likely. We’ll see. March.”
They moved along to the left; Bevis opened his eyes, and saw the sting and its sheath left sticking in his hand. He drew it out, waited a moment, and then peered out again from the brambles. Crassus and the cohort were going towards the old hollow oak, which stood not far from the quarry on low ground by the shore of the New Sea, so that their backs were towards him. Bevis stood out for a second to try and see Mark. There was not a sign of him, the field was quite deserted, and he remembered that Crassus had said Mark was a mile away. “The battle’s lost,” said Bevis to himself. “Mark has fled, and Pompey’s after him, and they’ll have me in a minute.”
He darted down the slope into the hollow which concealed him for the time, and gave him a chance to think. “If I go out on the Plain they’ll see me,” he said to himself; “if I ran to the firs I must cross the open first; if I hide behind the stones, they’re coming to look. What shall I do? The New Sea’s that side, and I can’t. O!”
He was over the bank and on the shore in a moment. The jutting point was rather higher than the rest of the ground there, and hid him for a minute. He put his left knee on the punt, and pushed hard with his right foot. The heavy punt, already loosened by the waves, yielded, moved, slid off the sand, and floated. He drew his other knee on, crept down on the bottom of the punt, and covered himself with two sacks, which were intended to hold sand. He was, too, partly under the seat, which was broad. The impetus of his push off and the wind and waves carried the punt out, and it was already fifteen or twenty yards from the land when Crassus and his men appeared.