“I can plait rushes,” said Mark; “I can plait eight; but they would not keep out water. What’s over the hedge?” They looked that way; they could see over the thick, close hawthorn, but behind it there rose tall ash-poles, which shut out the view completely. “It is a thick double-mound,” said Bevis. “There’s ash in the middle; like that in our field, you know.” In front they could see nothing but the same endless reed-grass, except that there were more bushes and willows interspersed among it, showing that there must be numerous banks. Tired of holding on to the poles, which had no boughs of size enough to rest on, they let themselves gradually slide down. As they descended Mark spied a dove’s nest in one of the hawthorn bushes; tired as he was he climbed up the pole again, and looked into it from a higher level. There was an egg in it; he had half a mind to take it, but remembered that it would be awkward to carry. “We shall never get home,” he said, after he had told Bevis of the nest. “Pooh,” said Bevis. “Here’s something for you to drink.” He had found a great teazle plant, whose leaves formed cups round the stem. In four of these cups there was a little darkish water, which had been there since the last shower. Mark eagerly sipped from the one which had the most, though it was full of drowned gnats; it moistened his lips, but he spluttered most of it out again. It was not only unpleasant to the taste but warm. “I hate Africa,” he shouted; “I _hate_ it.” “So do I,” said Bevis; “but we’ve got to get through it somehow.” He started again; Mark followed sullenly, and Pan came behind Mark. Thus the spaniel, stepping in the track they made, had the least difficulty of either. Pan’s tail drooped, he was very hungry and very thirsty, and he knew it was about the time the dishes were rattling in the kitchen at home. “Listen,” said Mark presently, putting his hand on Bevis’s shoulder, and stopping him. Bevis listened. “I can’t hear anything,” he said, “except the midsummer hum.” The hum was loud in the air above them, almost shrill, but there was not another sound. Now Mark had called attention to it the noonday silence in that wild deserted place was strange. “Where are all the things?” said Mark, looking round. “All the birds have gone.” Certainly they could hear none, even the brook-sparrows in the sedges by the New Sea were quiet. There was nothing in sight alive but a few swifts at an immense height above them. Neither wood-pigeon, nor dove, nor thrush called; not even a yellow-hammer. “I know,” whispered Bevis. “I know--they are afraid.” “Afraid?” “Yes; can’t you see Pan does not hunt about?” “What is it?” asked Mark in an undertone, grasping his spear tightly. “There are no mummies here?” “No,” said Bevis. “It’s the serpent, you know; he’s a hundred feet long; he’s come over from the Unknown Island, and he’s waiting in these sedges somewhere to catch something; the birds are afraid to sing.”