They followed the edge of the low cliff as nearly as they could, walking under the beeches where it was cool and shady, and the wind blow through. Twice they saw squirrels, but they were too quick, and Bevis could not get a shot with his bow.
“We ought to take home something,” said Mark. “Something wonderful. There ought to be some pieces of gold about, or a butterfly as big as a plate. Can’t you see something?”
“There’s a dragonfly,” said Bevis. “If we can’t catch him, we can say we saw one made of emerald, and here’s a feather.”
He picked up a pheasant’s feather. The dragonfly refused to be caught, he rushed up into the air nearly perpendicularly; and seeing another squirrel some way ahead, they left the dragonfly and crept from beech trunk to beech trunk towards him.
“It’s a red squirrel,” whispered Mark. “That’s a different sort.” In summer the squirrels are thought to have redder fur than in winter. Mark stopped now, and Bevis went on by himself; but the squirrel saw Pan, who had run along and came out beyond him. Bevis shot as the squirrel rushed up a tree, and his arrow struck the bark, quivered a moment, and stuck there.
“The savages will see some one has been hunting,” said Mark. “They are sure to see that arrow.”
In a few minutes they came to some hazel bushes, and pushing through these there was a lane under them in a hollow ten feet deep. They scrambled down and followed it, and came to a boulder-stone, on which some specks sparkled in the sunshine, so that they had no doubt it was silver ore. Round a curve of the lane they emerged on the brow of a green hill, very steep; they had left the wood behind them. The trees from here hid the New Sea, and in front, not far off, rose the Downs.
“What are those mountains?” asked Mark.
“The Himalayas, of course,” said Bevis. “Let’s go to them.”
They went along the brow, it was delicious walking there, for the sun was now much lower, and the breeze cool, and beneath them were meadows, and a brook winding through. But suddenly they came to a deep coombe—a nullah.