“It belongs to the king of this country, I expect,” said Bevis. “He sits on a throne of ebony with a golden footstool, and they wave fans of peacocks’ feathers, and the room is lit up by a single great diamond just in the very top of the dome of the ceiling, which flashes the sunshine through, down from outside. The swan belongs to him.”
“And he keeps the Sweet River just for himself to drink from, and executes everybody who dares drink of it,” said Mark.
Just then a bird flew noiselessly up into the beech over them, they saw it was a jay, and kept quite still. The next instant he was off, and they heard him and his friends, for a jay is never alone, screeching in the jungle. Looking back towards the quiet bay, it appeared as if it was raining fast, but without a sound, for the surface was dimpled with innumerable tiny circlets like those caused by raindrops. These were left by the midges as they danced over the water, touching it now and then.
“Did you hear that?” It was the sound of a distant gun shorn of the smartness of the report by the trees.
“The savages have matchlocks,” said Bevis. “They must be ever so much more dangerous than we thought.”
“Perhaps we’d better go,” said Mark, casting off the beech bough.
The current slowly drifted the raft out into the bay, and then they took their poles, and returned along the channel between the reeds and sedge banks. It took some time to reach New Formosa.
“I wonder if the creature out of the wave has been,” said Mark. “Suppose we go very quietly and see what it is.”
“So we will.”
Keeping Pan close at their heels, they stole along the path to the stockade, then crept up behind it to the gateway, and suddenly burst in. “Ah!”