Volume Three—Chapter Thirteen.
New Formosa—Voyage in the Calypso.
Surging along the Calypso sought the south, travelling but little faster than the waves, but smoothing a broad wake as she drove over them. Bevis held the oar-rudder under his right arm, with his hand on the handle, and felt the vibration of the million bubbles rising from the edge of the rudder to the surface. Piloting the vessel Mark sometimes directed him to steer to the right, and sometimes to the left.
There were four herons standing in a row on one sand-bank, they rose and made off at their approach; Bevis said he must have a heron’s plume. They could just see the swan a long, long way behind in the broad open water off Fir-Tree Gulf. Not long after passing the heron’s sand-bank, Mark said he was sure the water was deeper, as there were fewer weeds, but there was a long island in front of them which would soon bar their progress. It stretched from one mass of impenetrable weeds to another, and they began to think of lowering sail, when suddenly the raft stopped with a jerk, then swung round, and hung suspended.
“A snag,” said Bevis, recovering himself.
Mark had been pitched forward, and had it not been for the willow-plaited bulwark would have gone overboard. They had the sail down in a moment, fearing that the mast would snap. As they moved on the deck the raft swung now this way now that like a platform on a pivot.
“If it had been the Pinta,” said Mark, “there would have been a hole knocked in the bottom.”
The thin planking of the boat would have been crushed like an egg-shell; the thick beams at the bottom of the Calypso could not be damaged. The only difficulty was to get her off. They tried standing at one edge, and then the other, depressing it where they stood and lightening it at the other part, and at last by moving everything heavy on deck to one corner, she floated and bumped off. Looking over the bulwark they saw the snag, it was the top of a dead and submerged willow. Had they had a large sail, or had the wind been rough the mast would have snapped to a certainty; but the wind had been gradually sinking for some hours. They did not hoist sail again, being so near the long and willow-grown island, but let the raft drift to the shore.
The willows were so thick that it did not appear any use to carry the matchlock with them as the long barrel would constantly catch in the boughs. Bevis took his bow and arrows, Mark his axe, and they climbed ashore through the blue gums, compelling Pan by threats to keep close behind. The island they soon found was nothing but a narrow bank, and beyond it the water recommenced, but even could they have dragged the raft over and launched it afresh the part beyond would not have been navigable. It was plated with pond-weed, the brown leaves overlapping each other like scale-armour on the surface.