So they went in, and loaded their pockets with huge double slices of bread-and-butter done up in paper, apples, and the leg of a roast duck from the pantry. Then came the compass, an old one in a brass case; Mark broke his nails opening the case, which was tarnished, and the card at once swung round to the north, pointing to the elms across the road from the window of the sitting-room. Bevis took the bow and three arrows, made of the young wands of hazel which grow straight, and Mark was armed with a spear, a long ash rod with sharpened end, which they thrust in the kitchen fire a few minutes to harden in the proper manner. Besides which, there was Bevis’s pocket-book for the diary, and a large sheet of brown paper for the map; you see travellers have not always everything at command, but must make use of what they have. Pan raced before them up the footpath; the gate that led to the Longpond was locked, and too high to be climbed easily, but they knew a gap, and crept through on hands and knees. “Take care there are no cobras or rattlesnakes among those dead leaves,” said Mark, when they were halfway through, and quite over-arched and hidden under brambles. “Stick your spear into them,” said Bevis, who was first, and Mark, putting his spear past him, stirred up the heap of leaves. “All right,” said he. “But look at that bough--is it a bough or a snake?” There was an oak branch in the ditch, crooked and grey with lichen, half concealed by rushes; its curving shape and singular hue gave it some resemblance to a serpent. But when he stabbed at it with his spear it did not move; and they crept through without hurt. As they stood up in the field the other side they had an anxious consultation as to what piece of water it was they were going to discover; whether it was a lake in Central Africa, or one in America. “I’m tired of lakes,” said Mark. “They have found out such a lot of lakes, and the canoes are always upset, and there is such a lot of mud. Let’s have a new sea altogether.” “So we will,” said Bevis. “That’s capital--we will find a new sea where no one has ever been before. Look!”--for they had now advanced to where the gleam of the sunshine on the mere was visible through the hedge--“look! there it is; is it not wonderful?” “Yes,” said Mark, “write it down in the diary; here’s my pencil. Be quick; put ‘Found a new sea’--be quick--there, come on--let’s run-- hurrah!”