“Shall we say that was a gun at sea?” continued Mark. “They are always heard at night,” said Bevis. “Pitch black, you know.” “Everything is somehow else,” said Mark. Pan closed his idle old eyes, and grunted with delight as Bevis rubbed his ribs with his foot. Bevis put his hands in his pockets and sighed deeply. The sun looked down on these sons of care, and all the morning beamed. “Savages!” shouted Mark kicking the gate to with a slam that startled Pan up. “Savages, of course!” “Why?” “They swim, donk: don’t they? They’re always in the water, and they have catamarans and ride the waves and dance on the shore, and blow shells--” “Trumpets?” “Yes.” “Canoes?” “Yes.” “No clothes?” “No.” “All jolly?” “Everything.” “Hurrah!” Away they ran towards the bathing-place to be savages, but Mark stopped suddenly, and asked what sort they were? They decided that they were the South Sea sort, and raced on again, Pan keeping pace with a kind of shamble; he was too idle to run properly. They dashed into the water, each with a wood-pigeon’s feather, which they had found under the sycamore-trees above the quarry, stuck in his hair. At the first dive the feathers floated away. Upon the other side of the rails there was a large aspen-tree whose lowest bough reached out over the water, which was shallow there. Though they made such a splashing when Bevis looked over the railings a moment, he saw some little roach moving to and fro under the bough. The wavelets from his splashing rolled on to the sandy shore, rippling under the aspen. As he looked, a fly fell on its back out of the tree, and struggled in vain to get up. Bevis climbed over the rails, picked an aspen leaf, and put it under the fly, which thus on a raft, and tossed up and down as Mark dived, was floated slowly by the undulations to the strand. As he got over the rails a kingfisher shot out from the mouth of the Nile opposite, and crossed aslant the gulf, whistling as he flew. “Look!” said Mark. “Don’t you know that’s a ‘sign.’ Savages read ‘signs,’ and those birds mean that there are heaps of fish.” “Yes, but we ought to have a proper language.” “Kalabala-blong!” said Mark. “Hududu-blow-fluz!” replied Bevis, taking a header from the top of the rail on which he had been sitting, and on which he just contrived to balance himself a moment without falling backwards. “Umplumum!” he shouted, coming up again. “Ikiklikah,” and Mark disappeared. “Noklikah,” said Bevis, giving him a shove under as he came up to breathe. “That’s not fair,” said Mark, scrambling up. Bevis was swimming, and Mark seized his feet. More splashing and shouting, and the rocks resound. The echo of their voices returned from the quarry and the high bank under the firs.