“Why, you silly, of course we should have died of thirst. That’s the sea,” (pointing out). “This will save our lives.”
“So it will,” said Mark, putting one foot into the water and then the other. Then looking back, as he stood half up his ankles, “We can call here for fresh water when we have our ship—when we go to the Unknown Island.”
“So we can,” said Bevis. “We must have a barrel and fill it. But I wonder what river this is,” and he walked back again beside it.
Mark walked further out till it was over his ankles, and then till it was half as deep as his knee. He jumped up both feet together, and splashed as he came down, and shouted. Bevis shouted to him from the river. Next they both shouted together, and a dove flew out of the firs and went off.
“What river is this?” Bevis called presently.
“O!” cried Mark suddenly; and Bevis glancing round saw him stumble, and, in his endeavour to save himself, plunge his spear into the water as if it had been the ground, to steady himself; but the spear, though long, touched nothing up to his hand. He bent over. Bevis held his breath, thinking he must topple and fall headlong; but somehow he just saved himself, swung round, and immediately he could ran out upon the shore. Bevis rushed back.
“What was it?” he asked.
“It’s a hole,” said Mark, whose cheeks had turned white, and now became red, as the blood came back. “An awful deep hole—the spear won’t touch the bottom.”
As he waded out at first on shelving sand he laughed, and shouted, and jumped, and suddenly, as he stepped, his foot went over the edge of the deep hole; his spear, as he tried to save himself with it, touched nothing, so that it was only by good fortune that he recovered his balance. Once now and then in the autumn, when the water was very low, dried up by the long summer heats, this hole was visible and nearly empty, and the stream fell over a cataract into it, boiling and bubbling, and digging it deeper. But now, as the water had only just begun to recede, it was full, so that the stream ran slow, held back and checked by their sea.
This hollow was quite ten feet deep, sheer descent, but you could not see it, for the shore seemed to slope as shallow as possible.