“Of course, and keep the gun ready.”
“Come on.”
“First drive in the staple to lock the gate outside.”
This was done, and then they went down to the raft, moving cautiously and examining every likely place for the beast to lie in ambush before passing. The raft was poled round and out to Pearl Island, on which no sedges grew, nor were there any within seventy or eighty yards. Nothing could approach without being seen.
Yet, when they stood on the brim ready to go into the water the sense of defencelessness was almost overpowering. The gun was at hand, and the match burning, the axe could be snatched up in a moment, the bow was strung and the sharp arrows by it.
But without their clothes they felt defenceless. The human skin offers no resistance to thorn or claw or tusk. There is nothing between us and the enemy, no armour of hide, his tusk can go straight to our lives at once. Standing on the brink they felt the heat of the sun on the skin: if it could not bear even the sunbeams, how could so sensitive and delicate a covering endure the tiger’s claw?
“It won’t do,” said Mark. “No.”
“Suppose you watch while I swim, and then you swim and I watch?”
“That will be better.”
Bevis stopped on board the raft, threw his coat loosely round his shoulders,—for the sun, if he kept still, would otherwise redden and blister, and cause the skin to peel,—and then took up the matchlock. So soon as Mark saw he had the gun ready, he ran in, for it was too shallow to plunge, and then swam round the raft keeping close to it. When he had had his bath, he threw the towel round his shoulders to protect himself from the heat as Bevis had with his coat and took the gun. Bevis had his swim, and then they dressed.