He had to chop them at the side with his spade first, and then there was a root of the willow in the way; a very obstinate stout root, for which the little hatchet had to be brought to cut it. Under the softer turf the ground was very hard, as it had long been dry, so that by the time Bevis had drawn his plan and stuck in little sticks to show the course the canal was to take, Mark had only cleared about a foot square, and four or five inches deep, just at the edge of the bank, where he could thrust it into the stream.
"I have been thinking," said Bevis as he came back from the other end of the line, "I have been thinking what we are, now we are making this canal?"
"Yes," said Mark, "what are we?--they do not make canals on the Mississippi. Is this the Suez canal?"
"Oh no," said Bevis. "This is not Africa; there is no sand, and there are no camels about. Stop a minute. Put down that spade, don't dig another bit till we know what we are."
Mark put down the spade, and they both thought very hard indeed, looking straight at one another.
"I know," said Bevis, drawing a long breath. "We are digging a canal through Mount Athos, and we are Greeks."
"But was it the Greeks?" said Mark. "Are you sure--"
"Quite sure," said Bevis. "Perfectly quite sure. Besides, it doesn't matter. _We_ can do it if they did not, don't you see?"
"So we can: and who are you then, if we are Greeks?"
"But I _must_ be somebody," said Mark, "else it will not do."
"Well, you are: let me see--Pisistratus."
"I don't know," said Bevis. "It doesn't matter in the least. Now dig."
Pisistratus dug till he came to another root, which Alexander the Great chopped off for him with the hatchet. Pisistratus dug again and uncovered a water-rat's hole which went down aslant to the water. They both knelt on the grass, and peered down the round tunnel: at the bottom where the water was, some of the fallen petals of the may-bloom had come in and floated there.
"This would do splendidly to put some gunpowder in and blow up, like the miners do," said Bevis. "And I believe that is the proper way to make a canal: it is how they make tunnels, I am sure."
"Greeks are not very good," said Mark. "I don't like Greeks: don't let's be Greeks any longer. The Mississippi was very much best."