After dinner, as Mark wanted to go fishing, Bevis watched for Charlie, and looking through the telescope, saw the herd of buffaloes on the green hill under the sycamore-trees. One cow held her head low, and a friend licked her poll. A flock of rooks were on the slope, and had he not known, he could have told which way the wind blew, as they all faced in one direction, and always walk to meet the breeze. When they flew up he knew Charlie was approaching. Charlie did not stay after making the signal, so Bevis went down and walked round the island till he found Mark. As yet, Mark had had no success, but he had fixed on a spot to set the night-lines. Returning along the other shore, fishing as he went, Bevis with him, they remembered that that night the letter must be taken to Loo to post, and thought they had better have a look at the channel through the weeds, or else by moonlight they might not get to the mainland so easily. The best tree to climb was a larch which grew apart from the wood, and rose up to a great height, balanced each side with its long slender branches. The larch, when growing alone, is a beautiful tree. It is too often crowded into plantations which to it are like the ‘Black Hole’ of Calcutta to human beings. Up they went, Mark first, as quickly as sailors up the ratlines, for the branches, at regular intervals, had grown on purpose for climbing, only they had to jam their hats on, and not look higher than the bough they were on, because of the dust of the bark they shook down. “There’s the reapers,” said Mark; “what a lot they have cut.” They could see the sheaves stacked, and the stubble, which was of a lighter hue than the standing wheat. Every now and then dark dots came to the golden surface of the wheat like seals to breathe. These dots were the reapers’ heads. “There’s the pheasant,” said Bevis, pointing to the Waste. The bird was making his way zigzag round the green ant-hills, towards the stubble. Sometimes he walked, sometimes he ran, now and then he gave a jump in his run. They lost sight of him behind a great grey boulder-stone, whose top was visible above the brambles and rush-bunches which surrounded its base. “Jack’s busy now up in the hills,” said Mark, looking the other way towards the Downs. “He might just as well let us have the rifle while he’s busy with the harvest.” “Just as well. I say, let’s explore the Waste to-morrow. It is a wilderness--you don’t know what you may not find in a wilderness.” “Grey stones,” said Mark. “They’re tombs--genii live in them.” “Serpents guarding treasures, and lamps burning; they have been burning these ages and ages--” “Awful claps of thunder underground.” “We will go and see to-morrow--I believe there are heaps of kangaroos out there.” “There’s the channel.”