Fables of Today—I

Other Island

By JACQUETTA HAWKES

ASMALL island, temperate and fertile, supported a thriving population of beavers. They had been settled there for a long time, and had built and maintained a darn and lodge in the one river which drained the island. They knew of nothing beyond their own little domain, the unbounded ocean surrounding it, and a misty shape on the western horizon that Showed shell-pink at dawn and stood out black against the setting sun. From time immemorial the beavers had venerated this distant sea-mark, calling it Other Island and identifying it as both the home and the very person of Bea, their ruling goddess. .

As the years went by, however, some of the most energetic beavers, the animals of action, came to feel restless and frus- trated. They could find no satisfaction in the pleasant social life of the lodge, in aquatics, or in the beautiful myths and tales which had been handed on from generation to generation and which were the chief glory of beaver existence. They began to seek an outlet for their energies in sea-swimming, an undertaking of great difficulty and discomfort for fresh-water animals. They devised masks to keep the salt water out of their eyes and mouths, and by a combination of persistence and acts of real courage made journeys of as much as five miles from the island. Their natural goal was Other Island. When they were nearer to it by the five miles that proved to be the absolute limit of beaver endurance, swimmers were able to observe that 'it appeared to be quite an ordinary island. There was no sign of a divine residence or of any remarkable feature —indeed as far as they could see it was both flat and barren.

Nevertheless Other Island exercised a stronger and stronger attraction on the beavers. Many of fhem gave up all their old relaxations, their sports, story-telling and idling in the sun; they also gave up earning their dilly fish—that is to say helping to maintain the dam and lodge—and hunting. At first this neglect didn't seem to make much difference to the beaver community, for fish were plentiful and the buildings in good repair. So.the young males who had felt the lure of Other Island devoted their energy to devising ways of getting there. Their mates thought they were mad, and after a time grew tired of saying that it was wonderful to be left in peace. The enthusiasts used their keen and expert teeth to fell a huge tree of far greater size than any they had ever tackled before, then set to work to hollow it. For all their skill beavers are not shaped to use their teeth like an adze, and so this task of making a dug-out boat proved to be a long and painful one, leaving many of them with very sore snouts. Still they persisted; they were creatures obsessed. At great cost to their tender noses they left two cross partitions amidships, and lined the space between them with clay, thus converting it into a tank which they intended to flood and stock with live fish. They also constructed benches along the sides with holes above them so shaped and arranged that beavers crouched on the benches could thrust through their tails and use them as oars. They named their vessel " Ocean Tree." At last the Other Island Expedition was ready to start. The whole population came to the river-mouth to see it off, and the Chief Elder made a long and high-minded speech. In his peroration the Elder said how great a thing it was that at last beavers were to set paw in the Other Island, how it would express the great spirit of the race and how those who had perforce to stay at home would send their hearts with the explorers, experiencing with them every hardship and every joy. The audience barked hysterically, thundering their broad tails upon the ground. The explorers beavered their boat, each one of the rowers wriggling his tail through the correct slot and clinging on to the bench with all his claws, while their leader attached a wooden extension to the end of his tail and hung it over the stern as a rudder. Then at a signal from the steersman the whole crew raised their tails as one beaver and rowed away at a rapid stroke, their whiskers trembling with the strain. So they set out on a journey of 500,000 paws—a journey, as it seemed to them, into outermost space.

Only one person was absent from the ceremony. This was an animal who had been the most gifted teller of tales, old and new, in the days when the beavers had more time to listen and enjoy. He failed to notice when the rest swarmed away and stayed meditating in the lodge. When he roused himself and found he was alone he swam off to do a little fishing.

A fortnight later the expedition returned; the stay-at-home beavers saw the vessel come crawling jerkily up the river. nearly half the rowing-holes without a tail, and the survivors ragged of fur and emaciated. The welcome home was a little less enthusiastic than the send-off, because during the past two weeks the absence of so many of the most active young males had led to a fish-shortage, while there had been a serious collapse of the dam, undoubtedly caused by the neglect it had suffered during the making of " Ocean Tree." Still, most of the beavers went down to the river-bank, and helped to support or carry their exhausted fellows back to the lodge.

When the worst cases of exhaustion had been put to sleep and the rest given a little food and first aid, the Elder made a short formal speech of welcome and asked the leader of the expedition for some account of the great adventure. The leader described the terrible strain of rowing, of using the tail in so unnatural a manner; he told of a violent squall which had nearly capsised the whole boat, but happily in the end had merely swept five beavers overboard. Then he spoke of the worst catastrophe of all; for reasons they could not understand, after less than a day's voyaging, the fish in the tank had begun to die and the explorers had been obliged to live on bad water and rotting fish. It was this which had caused the largest number of deaths in the party, and the most horrible suffering. However all sacrifice had been justified at last, for the expedi- tion had reached its goal : beavers had explored Other Island. There was a murmur among the audience.

" And what did you discover there ? " asked the Elder.

" Nothing " replied the leader. " You surely didn't expect us to bring back Bea in her fish-scale cloak, or logs from her golden house ? "

" Well then, what was it like ? " said the Elder, nettled...

" You know Barren Point on the far side of this island ? Well, it was very much like that but even more harsh and rocky. Indeed, two of the party died of thirst and fatigue while exploring it."

The company applauded loudly, and more speeches were made proclaiming the triumph of beaverkind in at last reaching this furthest known part of the universe. During the tail- thumping after the last of these speeches the leader suddenly caught sight of the beaver who had failed to attend the fare- well ceremony. The noise had disturbed his reveries, and he was uncurling himself and looking about him in an uncertain sort of way.

" I say," said the Leader of the Expedition, " surely that beaver ought to show more interest ? I'm not thinking of myself, of course. I was no more than an instrument. But loyalty, you know . . . the honour of beaverdom."

I quite agree," added one of the other explorers. " He ought to join in. Why, it's almost an insult to Bea. . . ."

" Don't mind him," the Elder answered reassuringly. " As I expect you can remember, he is a great dreamer, and prob- ably even now is far away, perhaps wandering in some magic land where the rivers are deliciously perfumed and flavoured. where the lodges stand for ever and are filled with music. where beavers are as beautiful as kingfishers. The banquet is now ready—or the nearest approach to a banquet that is pos- sible in the present food-shortage. When we have refreshed ourselves we will get the fellow to recite to us. I don't think you've had much experience of his powers. You'll be astonished how easily he can transport you to these strange lands of his. . . ."

And in truth the beavers listened far into the night.