“Sometimes—a hundred feet high. But the thing is how did they get here? 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 ought to have brought a grindstone for the axes. You have got the plan ready for the raft?”
“Quite ready.”
Mark went into the hut, placed the lantern in the niche, and threw himself on the bed. In half a minute he was firm asleep. Bevis went out of the courtyard, round outside the fence, and up on the cliff to the sun-dial. The stars shone brighter than it is usually thought they do when there is no moon; but in fact it is not so much the moon as the state of the atmosphere. There was no haze in the dry air, and he could see the Pole Star distinctly.
He sat down—as the post on which the dial was supported was low—on the southern side, with it between him and the north. He still had to stoop till he had got the tip of the gnomon to cover the North Star. Closing one eye, as if aiming, he then put his pencil on the dial in the circle or groove scratched by the compass. The long pencil was held upright in the 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 direct line, in a row one behind the other.
To make sure, he raised his head and looked over the gnomon and pencil to the star, when he found that he had not been holding the pencil upright; it leaned to the east, and made an error to the west in his meridian. “It ought to be a plumb-line,” he thought. “But I think it’s straight now.”
He stooped again, and found the gnomon and pencil correct, and pressing on 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, and which showed the exact north. To-morrow he would have to draw a line from that mark straight to the gnomon, and when the shadow fell on that line it would be noon. With the fixed point of noon and the fixed point of four o’clock, he thought he could make the divisions for the rest of the hours.
The moonlight cast a shadow to the east of the noon-line, as she had crossed the meridian. Looking up, he saw the irregular circle of the moon high in the sky, so brilliant that the scored relievo work enchased upon her surface was obscured by the bright light reflected from it.