"I know," said Bevis, "I know--these savages here think the pigeons sacred, and don't kill them--that's why there are so many."
Not much looking where they were going, they came out into a space where the poles had been cut in the winter, and the stoles bore only young shoots a few feet high. There was a single waggon track, the ruts overhung with grasses and bordered with rushes, and at the end of it, where it turned, they saw a cock pheasant. They tried to go through between the stoles, but the thistles were too thick and the brambles and briars too many; they could flourish here till the ash-poles grew tall and kept away the sun. So they followed the waggon track, which led them again under the tall poles.
To avoid the savages they kept a very sharp lookout, and paused if they saw anything. There was a huge brown crooked monster lying asleep in one place, they could not determine whether an elephant or some unknown beast, till, creeping nearer from stole to bush and bush to stole, they found it to be a thrown oak, from which the bark had been stripped, and the exposed sap had dried brown in the sun. So the vast iguanodon may have looked in primeval days when he laid him down to rest in the brushwood.
"When shall we come to the New Sea again?" said Mark presently, as they were moving more slowly through a thicker growth.
"I cannot think," said Bevis. "If we get lost in this jungle, we may walk and walk and walk and never come to anything except banyan-trees, and cobras, and tigers, and savages."
"Are you sure we have been going straight?"
"Did you follow the sun?" asked Mark. "No, indeed, I did not; if you walk towards the sun you will go round and round, because the sun moves."
"I forgot. O! I know, where's the compass?"
"How stupid!" said Bevis. "Of course it was in my pocket all the time."
He took it out, and as he lifted the brazen lid the white card swung to and fro with the vibration of his hand.
"Rest your hand against a pole," said Mark. This support steadied Bevis's hand, and the card gently came to a standstill. The north, with the three feathers, pointed straight at him.
"Now, which way was the sea?" said Mark, trying to think of the direction in which they had last seen it. "It was that side," he said, holding out his right hand; he faced Bevis.