Over the distant firs a heron came drifting like a cloud at his accustomed hour; from over the New Nile the call of a partridge, “caer-wit—caer-wit,” sounded along the surface of the water. There was a slight movement and Bevis saw the match descending, an inverted cone of smoke darted up from the priming, and almost before the report Pan leaped overboard. Mark had watched till two moorhens were near enough together, one he shot outright and Pan caught the other.
At the report the heron staggered in the air as if a bullet had struck him, it was his sudden effort to check his course, and then recovering himself he wheeled and flew towards the woods on the mainland. Bevis said he must have a heron’s plume. To please Mark he poled the raft to Bamboo Island, and then across to the sedgy banks at the southern extremity of New Formosa, but Mark did not get another shot. They then landed and crept quietly to Kangaroo Hill, the rabbits had grown suspicious, and they did not see one, but Pan suddenly raced across the glade—to their great annoyance—and stopped on the verge of the wood.
There he picked up a rabbit in his mouth, and they recollected the wires they had set. The rabbit had been in a wire since the morning. “It will do for Samson,” said Bevis.
When they returned to the hut the full moon—full but low down—had begun to fill the courts of the sky with her light, which permitted no pause of dusk between it and the sunset. The slave’s cheeks were red and scorched from the heat of the fire, which she had tended on her knees, and her chin and tawny neck were streaked with black marks. Handling the charred sticks with her fingers, the fingers had transferred the charcoal to her chin. The hare was well cooked considering the means, or rather the want of means at her command, perhaps it was not the first she had helped to prepare. Searching in the store-room she found a little butter with which she basted it after a manner; they had thought the butter was all gone, they were too hasty—impatient—to look thoroughly. There was no jelly, and it was dry, but they enjoyed it very much sitting at the plank table under the shed.
They had removed the poles on one side of the shed as there was nothing now to dread, but on the other two sides the bars remained, and the flames of the expiring fire every now and then cast black bars of shadow across the table. The slave would have been only too glad to have stayed on the island all night—if they had lent her a great-coat or rug to roll up in she would have slept anywhere in the courtyard—but she said Samson would be so wretched without her, he would be frightened and miserable. She must go; she would come back in the morning about ten.
They filled the flag-basket for her with the moorhens, the rabbit, the dab-chick and thrush, and a tin of preserved tongue. There were still some fragments of biscuit; she said Samson would like these best of all. Thus laden, she would have waded to the mainland, but they would not let her—they took the raft and ferried her over, and promised to fetch her in the morning if she would whistle, she could whistle like a boy. To Loo that voyage on the raft, short as it was, was something beyond compare. Loo had to pass the prickly stubble fields with her bare feet—stubble to the naked foot is as if the broad earth were a porcupine’s back. But long practice had taught her how to wind round at the edge where there was a narrow and thistly band of grass, for thistles she did not care.
“Good-night, slave.”
They poled back to the island, and having fastened Pan up, were going to bed, when Bevis said he wanted the matchlock loaded with ball as he meant to rise early to try for a heron. Mark fired it off, and in the stillness they heard the descending shot rattle among the trees. The matchlock was loaded with ball, and Bevis set the clock of his mind to wake at three. It was still early in the evening, but they had had little or no rest lately, and fell asleep in an instant; they were asleep long before the slave had crept in at her window and quieted Samson with broken biscuits.
The alarum of his mind awoke Bevis about the time he wished. He did not wake Mark, and wishing to go even more quietly than usual left Pan fastened up; the spaniel gave a half-whine, but crouched as Bevis spoke and he recognised the potential anger in the tones of his voice. From the stockade Bevis went along that side of the island where the weeds were, and passed the Calypso which they had left on that side the previous evening. He went by the “blazed” trees leading to Kangaroo Hill, then past the reed-grass where they had captured the slave, but saw nothing. Thence he moved noiselessly up through the wood to the more elevated spot under the spruce firs where he thought he could see over that end of the island without being seen or heard.
There was nothing, the overthrown willow trunk lay still in the water flush with the surface, and close to it there was a little ripple coming out from under a bush, which he supposed was caused by a water-rat moving there. Till now he had been absorbed in what he was doing, but just then, remembering the cones which hung at the tops of the tall firs, he looked up and became conscious of the beauty of the morning, for it was more open there, and he could see a breadth of the sky.