“Oh yes,” she said. “I promised to tell you. Mother came here really to see you, not me. It was about Captain Flint being so beastly. She wanted to know if you’d like her to write to Mrs. Blackett to ask her to tell Captain Flint that he was a liar, not you, and that you’d never touched his boat.”
“What did you say?” asked John quickly.
“I said I didn’t know. I said I’d ask you.”
John jumped up and went into his tent to look at the chronometer.
“I’m going to Holly Howe to talk to Mother,” he said, when he came back.
“Native talk?” asked Titty.
“Yes,” said John. “I must tell her she’d better not write.”
“Can I come too?” said Roger.
“You stay here,” said Titty. “It’s native talk he’s going for. You’d only be in the way. Besides I’ve got a plan for us.”
“What plan?”
“A tremendous one.”
“What’s it about?”
“Treasure,” said Titty. “Come on and see the captain off. Then we’ll go to a secret place while the mate goes on with your buttons.”
*
Captain John sailed away up the lake to Holly Howe. It was a grim business this, of being unjustly suspected by Captain Flint, but at the same time he could not let Mother write to Mrs. Blackett about it. That might mean trouble for the Amazons. He found Mother writing letters in the Holly Howe garden.
“I say, Mother, you’re not writing to Mrs. Blackett?”
“Not I,” said Mother. “I wasn’t going to write unless you wanted me to. That was why I rowed down to the island yesterday. What time did you get back last night? After I left Titty, Nurse and I kept a look-out for you by the boathouse, thinking I might stop you on your way back and ask you about writing.”
John was a little taken aback. With Captain Flint in his mind, he had forgotten quite a number of other things.
“We didn’t get back till this morning,” he said.
“So the Blacketts made you stop the night,” said Mother. “Poor Titty!”
“It wasn’t poor Titty at all,” said John. “Titty did better than any of us. She captured the Amazon all by herself.”
“But then where were the Blacketts?”
“They were on Wild Cat Island.”
“But where were you?”
“We were up the Amazon River, that’s the river where they live, you know, and then it got too dark and we had to stop by the islands until it was light enough to see.”
“Don’t you think that was very nearly like being duffers?”
“Yes,” said John, “it was rather. But you see it was war and it was our only chance. And I promise we shall never do it again. Stay out at night, I mean. There won’t be any need. The Amazon pirates are coming to the island tomorrow to camp with us. The war between us is over. We’ve won. At least Titty won it. And Roger had two of everything on last night and slept in Swallow. And nobody has caught a cold or anything. But, I say, Mother.”
“What?”
“All this is a most deadly secret, between you and me. I mean you mustn’t talk about it, not to anybody.” He had just remembered that the Amazons had escaped from their beds to make their night attack.
“All right,” said Mother. “Mrs. Blackett seemed to know pretty well what sort of young women hers were. I shan’t tell her. But all the same I’m glad it’s over. There must be no more sailing at night. Promise?”
“I promise.”
“You know you’ve only got about three days left. We are going home at the end of the week. It would be a pity if two or three of you were to get drowned first.”
“Only three more days,” said John.
“The weather can’t keep on like this much longer and when it breaks you’ll have to come away from the island anyhow. A camp of drowned rats is no fun for anyone. I’ve tried it. You make the most of your three days. We’ll come again next year. You’re sure you’d rather I didn’t write to say you had never touched the houseboat?”
“Much rather.”
“Very well. Come in and see Vicky and have some tea.”
*
As soon as they had watched Swallow’s brown sail disappear beyond the look-out point and the north end of the island, Able-seaman Titty and the boy left the landing-place and went to the harbour.
“This isn’t a secret place,” said the boy.
“Any place is secret if nobody else is there,” said Titty.
“Besides, we’re going up on my rock, where I was when I saw the bird that bobbed and flew under water.”
“Will the bird be there?”
“I don’t know. He may be.”
“Then it won’t be secret.”
“Yes it will. Birds don’t count. There’s nobody on the whole island except us and the mate, and she’s sewing on buttons. How many buttons has she got to sew?”
“Dozens,” said the boy. “One from each sleeve and then all the others came off the front when I tried to get both my shirts off at once.”
“That’ll take her a long time,” said the able-seaman. “This place will be as secret as any place could possibly be. Come on. Take your shoes and stockings off.”
They took their shoes and stockings off and left them on the beach. Then they paddled across the shallow to the big rock at the side of the harbour, climbed up it and settled themselves on the top of it, dangling their legs in the sunlight and looking out over the rippled lake.
“Anybody could see us here,” said the boy.
“Nobody could hear us,” said the able-seaman.
“What is the plan?” said the boy.
“Treasure,” said the able-seaman. “But I can’t tell you unless you promise to come, all by yourself with me.…”
“Nobody else?”
“Nobody else.”
“Not even Susan?”
“Nobody. We’ll go to a desert island, a really desert island, not this one, and there we’ll dig for treasure buried by pirates. For a long time we shan’t find it. They never do. But then, at last, there will be a hollow sound under our pickaxes and thousands of gold pieces will be rolling about in the sand.”
“But where is the island?”
“You haven’t said you’ll come. Treasure-seekers only tell each other. If I told you, you might go and let it out to a pirate or somebody.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Well, will you come?”
“All right,” said the boy.
“You swear. Properly we ought to have a bit of paper and you ought to make a mark with your own blood. Can’t you prick your finger?”
“No,” said Roger.
“Well, you promise to come?”
“Yes.”
“Then lean over a bit that way. Bend down so that you can see under that bough. That’s the island.”
“But that’s Cormorant Island.”
“It’s Treasure Island too.”
“How do you know?”
“I heard the pirates burying their treasure there last night when I was in Amazon.”
“Real pirates?”
“Of course, real ones. They swore like anything.”
“Real treasure?”
“Of course, real treasure. I heard them say how heavy it was.”
“How shall we carry it if it’s very heavy?”
“Bit by bit. Some of it will be in ingots of gold. And then there’ll be lots of gold pieces, guineas and things. And precious stones. Diamonds. We’ll carry away a little at a time.”
The boy listened while the able-seaman told him all she knew about treasure islands. She knew a great deal. She told him how pirates captured ship after ship and took all the treasure out of each ship and made the crew walk the plank and fall into the sea to feed the sharks, and then how the pirates sank their prize and sailed on to capture another, to be emptied and sunk in the same way. She told him how, when the pirate ship was so crammed with treasure that there wasn’t room fo
r dancing on the decks and the pirates could hardly get into their own cabins when they wanted to go to sleep, they sailed to an island and buried all the treasure in a safe place. She told him how they made a chart so that they could come and find the treasure when they were tired of pirating and wanted to retire and live in a house by the seashore, where they could spend their days looking out to sea with a telescope and thinking of the wicked things they had done. (“Or live in a houseboat, like Captain Flint,” said Roger.) She told him how the pirates always, or nearly always, lost the chart and how the treasure-seekers (“That’s you and me”) sometimes found the treasure instead of the pirates. She told him how sometimes the pirates fought among themselves till none were left, so that nobody knew where the treasure was. (“But we know, because I heard them putting it there.”) She was still talking about it when they heard Susan calling from the camp and, paddling back to the island, put on their shoes and stockings and ran to the camp for tea.
*
Just when they were finishing washing up after a tea that had been very native, probably because Susan was still not feeling happy about having let them stay up until morning, Captain John came home.
His first words were, “I told Mother about our being out all last night and not coming home till today.”
“Was she very upset about it?” said Susan.
“I think she was rather, inside. But she hid it, and it’s all right now. Only, I’ve promised not to do it again.”
After that, Susan cheered up and became much less like a native and more like a mate.
“The worst of it is,” said John, “that Mother says we’ve only got another three days, even if the weather does hold out.”
“We can do a lot in three days,” said Susan.
“There’s one thing we must do now,” said John. “And that’s make our chart. The Amazons will be here tomorrow, and they’ve got their own names for everywhere. We must make our chart today. Who’s going to help?”
Everybody wanted to help. A few minutes later Captain John was lying flat on his stomach on the ground with the guide-book and its map open before him. The others squatted round him, watching him copy the outline of the lake on two pages of the big exercise book that had been brought for a log.
“There isn’t room to do it here really properly,” he said, “but this is a sketch chart and we’ll do a good one after we get home.”
“A huge one,” said Roger, “like Daddy’s chart of the China Seas.”
“And we’ll hang it up on the schoolroom wall to show where we’ve been,” said Susan.
“And to plan more explorings,” said Titty.
“Will it have colours?” said Roger.
“Colours for the lights. We’ll put a blob of yellow for our lighthouse and two little blobs for the leading lights.”
“What colour will the land be?”
“They leave the land white on charts. It doesn’t count, except where you can see it from a ship. And even then only bits of it count. They’d put in Darien, because it’s a high point, but they wouldn’t bother to mark Holly Howe.”
“We will, won’t we?”
“We’ll put it in as a native settlement. They do that sometimes.”
“With a little picture?”
John drew a tiny house with trees and three little figures, a quarter of an inch high, for the natives, Mother, Vicky and Nurse. Then, in Houseboat Bay, he wrote its name and made a picture of the houseboat. Then again there was Dixon’s Farm, with a little figure and a cow, to show the produce of the country.
“Put in the savages with their wigwam and their snake,” said Titty, and a snake, a three-cornered black mark for the hut, and a fire, showed the country of the charcoal-burners.
Rio was marked with little houses and landing stages. The islands off Rio Bay were drawn in, but only one of them had a name. John wrote “Landing Island” beside the one where landing was forbidden and the Swallow had rested, swinging from the wooden pier in the darkness of the night.
“You ought to put in my island,” said Titty.
“Which island?”
“Where I watched for the Amazons that first day we saw them.”
It went in and was marked “Titty’s Island”.
Wild Cat Island was marked, with its lighthouse tree, its landing-place, its harbour and camp. Then a fish was drawn in Shark Bay, where they went perch-fishing. Then the captain began putting in a dotted line to show the track of the Swallow from Wild Cat Island to the Amazon River and back again.
“How far up the river did you go?” asked Titty.
“As far as the lagoon,” said John. “I’ve marked that.”
“Put in the octopuses,” said Roger.
“I’m no good at drawing octopuses,” said John, when he had done his best.
The chart began really to look like a chart. North and south of the part of the lake they knew were dotted lines and the words “Uncharted waters” or “Unexplored”. “It’s no good putting in what we don’t know,” said John. “But of course we must put in mountains, where you can see them from the parts we have explored.” John began drawing little anchors at all the ports where the Swallow had called. There was one by the island off Rio, and one at Rio itself, and one in the Holly Howe bay, and one in Shark Bay where Roger had hooked and lost his big fish, and one at the point where they had landed to visit the charcoal-burners, and one at the landing for Dixon’s Farm.
“What about the place where I anchored in Amazon?” said Titty.
“Yes, that ought to go in,” said John, and a little anchor was drawn close to the north end of Cormorant Island.
“There ought to be a Treasure Island,” said Titty, “but the one that’s got treasure on it has got a name already.”
“Which?” said John.
“Cormorant Island.”
“But there’s nothing there but cormorants.”
“It’s a secret,” said Titty, “but there is treasure there. Roger and I are going to discover it. The pirates put it there last night while I was anchored in Amazon.”
“What pirates?”
“They came in the dark, rowing. I heard them.”
“Fishermen, probably,” said John.
“No, they weren’t,” said Titty. “They nearly smashed their boat and they swore.”
“How you do romance,” said Susan.
“You were asleep and dreaming,” said John. “But, look here, we’ll make one of the other islands a Treasure Island if you like. The biggest one off Rio hasn’t got a name.”
“But there really is treasure on Cormorant Island. Tons of Spanish gold. Roger and I are going to look for it. Let’s go at once and make sure.”
“Steady on, Titty,” said Susan.
“It’s too late to go tonight, anyhow,” said John, “and there can’t be any treasure there really.”
“They put it there at dead of night,” said Titty. “Tons and tons of it.”
“Oh, look here, Titty,” said Susan, almost turning native again. “Time to get supper now. All hands early to bed. Remember the Amazons are coming in the morning.”
CHAPTER XXIV
GRAVE NEWS FROM HOUSEBOAT BAY
AFTER A GOOD night’s sleep the Swallows felt themselves again. They were up early and bathed. Then they went fishing for their breakfast and caught a dozen perch, for they wanted plenty of breakfast for the Amazons too in case they came early. “You never know when they might start,” said Susan. “I don’t suppose they’ll be here in time, but if they are we’ve got enough for six. We’ll cook the lot in case, and now somebody had better go up to the farm for the milk.”
They had been anchored for the fishing in Shark Bay, not far from the Dixons’ landing-place. They rowed ashore, and Roger and Titty went up the field with the milk-can, while the captain and the mate cleaned perch by the side of the lake.
“Titty’ll be wanting to go off with Roger to look for her treasure,” said the captain. “Of course there isn’t any
really, but she’ll want to go.”
“Sometimes she doesn’t know what has happened and what hasn’t,” said the mate. “They can go this afternoon. But I expect she’ll have forgotten all about it when the Amazon pirates come and Nancy and Peggy are putting up their tent and planning what to do next.”
“We’ve got an awful lot to do this morning,” said the captain. “I want to splice all the reef points before they come. I ought to have done it yesterday. And then Swallow really wants a scrub.”
“And I want the camp to be like a new pin,” said the mate. “My pots and pans are a disgrace.”
By the time the perch were all cleaned and laid out in a neat row in the bottom of the boat, Roger and Titty came back with the milk.
“It’s too bad,” said Titty, as soon as she was near enough to talk. “Captain Flint’s been at it again, worse than ever. We’d hardly said good morning to Mrs. Dixon before she said we ought never to have touched the houseboat. I told her we hadn’t. She said, ‘Well, somebody has.’ Then she shut up and didn’t say any more even when I said Captain Flint was a beast and I wished his houseboat was sunk.”
“You oughtn’t to have said that,” said Susan.
“I forgot she was a native,” said Titty.
“She didn’t give us any cake or molasses. Not even an apple,” said Roger.
“Why can’t he leave us alone?” said John.
“Which perch did I catch?” asked Roger, looking at the row of cleaned perch in the bottom of the boat. “Was it this one? It wasn’t the very little one. Susan caught that. I saw her.”
They rowed back to Wild Cat Island. Susan stoked up her fire, put butter in the frying-pan and melted it for the frying of the perch. Roger watched her. John went up to the look-out point. Titty followed him.
Swallows and Amazons Page 22
