The morning of the 3rd of August—the very day Columbus sailed—the long desired day, was beautifully fine, calm, and cloudless. They were in such haste to start they could hardly say “Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” said Polly the dairymaid.
“Don’t want to see you,” said Bevis. Polly was not yet forgiven for the part she had taken in hustling Mark into the cellar. They had got out into the meadow with Pan, when Bevis’s mother came running after.
“Have you any money?” she asked, with her purse in her hand.
They laughed, for the thought instantly struck them that they could not spend money on New Formosa, but they did not say they did not want any. She gave them five shillings each, and kissed them again. She watched them till they went through the gateway with Pan, and were hidden from sight.
Pan leaped on board after them, and they rowed to the island. It was so still, the surface was like glass. The spaniel ran about inside the stockade, and sniffed knowingly at the coats on the bedstead, but he did not wag his tail or look so happy when Bevis suddenly drew his collar three holes tighter and buckled it. Bevis knew very well if his collar was not as tight as possible Pan would work his head out. They fastened him securely to the post at the gateway in the palisade, and hastened away.
When Pan realised that they were really gone, and heard the sound of the oars, he went quite frantic. He tugged, he whined, he choked, he rolled over, he scratched, and bit, and shook, and whimpered; the tears ran down his eyes, his ears were pulled over his head by the collar, against which he strained. But he strained in vain. They heard his dismal howls almost down to the Mozambique.
“Poor Pan!” said Bevis. “He shall have a feast the first thing we shoot.”
They had left their stockings on the island, and everything else they could take off so as not to have very large bundles on their backs while paddling, and took their pocket-knives out of their trouser’s pockets and left them, knowing things are apt to drop out of the pockets. The Pinta was drawn up as far as she would come on the shore at the harbour, and then fastened with a chain, which they had ready, to a staple and padlocked. Mark had thought of this, so that no one could go rowing round, and he had a piece of string on the key with which he fastened it to a button-hole of his waistcoat that it might not be lost.
This done, they got through the hedge, and retraced the way they had come home on the night of the battle, through the meadows, the cornfields, and lastly across the wild waste pasture or common. From there they scrambled through the hedges and the immense bramble thickets, and regained the shore opposite their island.