Titty climbed up, and stood on the fallen trunk of the tree, and waved and shouted. There was a shout back from over the water, but at first neither the whalers nor the treasure-hunters could hear each other’s words.
The first words the treasure-hunters heard showed how little what they had been shouting had been understood.
“Aren’t you sick of it?” they heard in Captain Flint’s cheerful voice. “Time to come home.”
“We’ve found it,” shouted Titty.
“Time to come home,” shouted Captain Flint again. “Tea.”
“We’ve found it,” squealed Roger.
Suddenly Captain Flint heard. He bent to his oars and a few minutes later the whaling party reached Cormorant Island. Captain Flint was ashore in a moment, and jumping over the rocks. The others followed. “You haven’t really found anything, have you?” he said, but before they could answer he had seen the box. “Well done, Able-seaman!” he shouted. “Shiver my timbers!” exclaimed Nancy. “Good for you, Titty,” said Captain John. “Then you weren’t dreaming after all,” said Susan. “Who ever would have thought it?” said Peggy. “Why, Captain Nancy had looked for it herself, and never found it.”
Captain Flint dropped on his knees beside the box, and pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket. “They don’t seem to have opened it,” he said, “but they’ve had a jolly good try.”
“That was us,” said the able-seaman.
Captain Flint unlocked it, threw back the clasps, and lifted the lid. Inside was a typewriter in a black case, a lot of canvas-bound diaries, and a huge bundle of typewritten paper.
“That’s all right,” said Captain Flint, fingering the bundle as if he loved it.
“It’s very dull,” said Roger. “Titty said it was treasure.”
“There’s treasure and treasure,” said Captain Flint. “It takes all sorts to make a world. You know, Able-seaman, I can never say thank you enough to you. If I’d lost this, as I thought I had, I’d have lost all the diaries of my pirate past, and I’ve put all the best of my life into this book. It would have been gone for ever if it hadn’t been for you.”
“I heard them say they were coming back for it. So I knew it must be here,” said Titty. “And it’s just what pirates always do. They always mean to come back when they bury anything.”
“Like dogs to a buried bone,” said Captain Flint. “Well, they’ve lost this bone, though it wouldn’t have been much use to them. I can’t imagine them settling down to read Mixed Moss.”
“What are you going to do about them?” said Captain Nancy. “Let’s lie in wait for them and catch them.”
Captain Flint thought for a moment. Then he said, “I’m not going to do anything at all. I told the police to inquire at the landing-places, because I wanted to take any chance there was of getting it back. But I don’t want to send anyone to prison.”
“Prison!” said Nancy. “They ought to be hanged in chains at Execution Dock, and rattle their bones in the wind.”
“They only do that sort of thing to Amazon Pirates nowadays,” said Captain Flint. “What did you hear them say, Able-seaman, about fetching their loot away?”
“They said, ‘We’ll come fishing and catch something worth having.’”
“And so they jolly well shall,” said Captain Flint. “Let’s see if we can find a bit of wood, a flat bit.”
“We found their pipe,” said Roger.
“Good,” said Captain Flint. “We’ll frighten them off burgling for the rest of their lives.”
He found a flat piece of wood among the jetsam gathered by Roger for a fire. He sat down on a rock and pulled out a big knife. Chips of wood flew in all directions.
“What are you doing?” said Roger.
“Giving them something to catch,” said Captain Flint.
He chopped away with the knife and presently the flat piece of wood had a narrow place at one end and a big forked tail beyond it. The rest of it was shaped like a melon, only flat, with a square piece sticking up from the edge of it, like a fin.
“It’s a fish,” said Roger.
“Didn’t they say they were going to catch something?” said Captain Flint.
He carved the head of the fish, giving it big gill covers and a wide mouth and a large, round, staring eye.
“It’s a very good fish,” said Roger.
“They won’t think so when they catch it,” said Captain Flint. “Now,” he said, pulling a bit of string from his pocket, “we’ll tie their pipe to the fish’s tail, and we’ll bury them both under the stones where they hid my box. Then when they come on the lake pretending to be fishing, and land here to dig up their loot, they’ll dig up the fish and find the pipe they lost; and if they put two and two together, as I expect they will, they will think that somebody was close at hand all the time and heard what they said and knows who they are and all about them, and I should think they’ll go off in a hurry, wishing they’d stayed at home.”
He hove up his box and put the fish and the pipe in the hole where the box had lain.
“Half a minute,” he said. “They may as well have a sermon at the same time.” Taking out his pencil he wrote in big letters along the side of the wooden fish, “HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY.” Then he put it back and covered the fish with stones. “Pile it up with stones,” he said, “so it will take them some time to dig down to it.” And the Amazons and Swallows piled in stones until the hole was filled up.
“Now it looks just like it did before I began to make a fireplace,” said Titty.
“Well, that’s that,” said Captain Flint. “Good luck to them. And now,” he said, “if all you people had not been doing exactly what you were doing that night (even if you were supposed to be in bed), I should never have got that box again. I should have been sorry to lose the old box, because it’s been with me all over the world. And I should have lost the book I’ve been writing all summer in spite of the efforts of Nancy and Peggy to make any writing impossible. Never any of you start writing books. It isn’t worth it. This summer has been harder work for me than all the thirty years of knocking up and down that went before it. And if those scoundrels had got away with the box I could never have done it again. I owe a great deal to all of you, and most of all to the able-seaman. Look here, Able-seaman, you tell me anything in the world that I can get for you and you shall have it.”
“You did say that you were going to bring me back a parrot,” said the able-seaman, “and there isn’t anything in the world I’d rather have. If you really meant it,” she added.
“Was it you who said you wanted a grey one?”
“I like green ones best.”
“It’s a long time to wait till next summer,” said Captain Flint.
“I don’t mind waiting,” said the able-seaman.
Just then Captain Flint seemed to think of something suddenly.
“Look here,” he said, “I must go off at once to tell the police to stop making inquiries. I’ll take you across and drop you on your island.”
“You’ll come back for the shark steaks, won’t you?” said Susan.
“Shark?” said Roger. “Did you get a shark?”
“A walloper,” said Peggy.
“I’ll do my best,” said Captain Flint, “but don’t wait for me. I’ve got a long way to row. Come along.” He hove the big box on his shoulder and carried it to his boat. Roger was there before him, looking at a great green and white pike lying on the bottom boards.
“Did you catch him?”
“We caught him between us.”
“He’s nearly as big as the one I didn’t catch. There aren’t any like that in Houseboat Bay.”
“Who’s coming with me and who in Swallow?” asked Captain Flint.
“I’m going with the shark,” said Roger.
“There’s room for you all,” said Captain Flint, “but someone ought to steer Swallow or she’ll be all over the place.”
“I’ll steer Swallow,” said Titty, really because she
wanted to be alone. She had had one idea firm in her head and had held to it when everyone thought she was wrong; and now, when everybody knew she had been right, just for a minute or two she did not want to do any talking.
Everybody else crowded into the big rowing boat. Captain Flint rowed in the bows, looking at his old cabin trunk with its ancient labels. Roger sat on the cabin trunk, looking at the big jaws of the pike. John, Susan, Nancy and Peggy sat in the stern. John held the Swallow’s painter, and the Swallow, with the able-seaman happy at the tiller, slipped smoothly along in the rowing boat’s wake.
*
When Captain Flint had rowed away, leaving the Swallows and Amazons on Wild Cat Island, they found a great deal to do. The fire was out and a new fire had to be made up and the kettle boiled for tea. The mates, Susan and Peggy, took charge of that. John and Nancy were busy taking down all the fishing rods and the fishing tackle. Roger was looking at the fish. Titty paddled Swallow round from the landing-place to the harbour. Then the two captains went to the harbour and joined the able-seaman, who was waiting for them. They stepped Swallow’s mast and then moored her side by side with Amazon but not so near that the two little ships could bump each other. From the harbour, when their work was done and Swallow and Amazon were both ready for the night, they looked out to sea, away to the southern end of the lake.
“Barometer’s gone down two-tenths since morning,” said Captain John.
“When it’s as hot as this in the evening something always happens,” said Captain Nancy. “Probably thunder.”
“Don’t like the look of it at all,” said Captain John. “There’s no wind to speak of, and yet look at that cloud.”
Titty, too, was looking at the big dark cloud coming up in the south. If it was going to rain, she was thinking, what a good thing it had held off for today to let her find the treasure.
The mate’s whistle sounded in the camp, and all three of them hurried back to a late tea of bunloaf and marmalade.
Almost as soon as tea was over and the mugs rinsed out Roger said, “Are we really going to have shark steaks for supper?”
“Why not?” said Mate Susan.
“Mister Mate,” said Peggy, “have you ever scaled shark?”
“Not yet,” said Susan.
“It’s awful,” said Peggy.
“We’d better start on it at once,” said Susan. “It’s late, anyway.”
They went down to the landing-place where the great green and white mottled fish with its huge head and wicked eyes lay on the stones. They knelt beside it, each with a knife, and began scraping.
“You scrape from its middle to its tail, I’ll scrape from its head to its middle,” said Peggy.
The others watched. Roger hung round the mates as near as he could. He could not take his eyes off the fish.
“Whatever you do, don’t get your hand into its mouth,” said Peggy, when Roger tried to measure its head with his hand. “I did once, with a smaller one than this, and I couldn’t hold a rope for a month.”
“Why?” said Roger.
“Look at its teeth,” said Peggy, and she stopped scraping and opened its huge jaws with a stone.
Roger looked in at the rows and rows of sharp teeth pointing backwards and the long teeth, like a dog’s, in the lower jaw.
“Perhaps it’s a good thing there were no sharks in Houseboat Bay,” he said.
“Why?” said Peggy.
“Well, he’s going to bring me a monkey,” said Roger.
The scales came off easily enough, but flew in all directions. The arms of the two mates were covered with them. They even got scales in their hair. When one side of the fish was scraped they turned its slippery body over on the stones to scrape the other. Then the shark had to be cut open and cleaned, and that was even worse. It was done, and the mates washed the shark and their hands in the lake. Then they carried the great fish up to the camp and Mate Susan cut it into thick steaks, cutting it clean across from one side to the other and hacking through the backbone. She cut seven steaks, each about two inches thick. They put all that was left of the pike in the fire. Then, with plenty of butter in the frying-pan, they fried the steaks, turning them over and over, spooning up the butter when it ran down into the side of the pan and pouring it over the sizzling chunks of fish, until the butter turned dark and the steaks were nicely browned.
There was still no sign of Captain Flint in the distance when the shark steaks were ready for eating. And it was growing dusk. The sun had disappeared in clouds long before it set.
“Captain Flint did say we weren’t to wait for him,” said Susan, “and, anyhow, they smell too good to wait.”
“Let’s get at them,” said Captain Nancy.
“I’m hungry,” said Roger.
“We may as well begin,” said John.
“We can keep his hot,” said Titty.
“Pass your plates, then,” said Susan, and the shark steak supper began.
It was found, by experiment, that fingers were a good deal better than forks. There are a lot of bones in fresh-water sharks and, though this was such a big one that the bones were easy to find, fingers were better than forks at pulling them out. So the Swallows and Amazons sat by their fire with a lot of salt in the lid of a tin and dipped their steaks in the salt and ate them, more like savages than explorers.
“I wish we weren’t going tomorrow,” said Titty. “We haven’t had time for a furthest north expedition, or for a furthest south. There’s lots of unexplored at both ends of our chart. I say,” she turned suddenly to Captain John, remembering something important, “we can alter Cormorant Island to Treasure Island now, can’t we?”
“Well, you did find the treasure there,” said John.
“Oh, look here,” Peggy objected. “We call it Cormorant Island too. And treasure is only there sometimes, but cormorants are there always.”
“Cormorant Island is a very good name,” said Captain John. “How would it be if we were to leave it Cormorant Island and put a cross on it to show where the treasure was and mark it ‘Treasure found here’?”
Titty agreed.
“Let’s do it at once,” she said, and Captain John licked his fingers clean from the shark steak and went into his tent and came back with the chart. There and then “Treasure found here” was written in in small letters and a cross put on Cormorant Island to mark the place.
“Yes,” said Titty, “now we’ve found the treasure it isn’t exactly a treasure island. It’s an island where treasure was.”
“The only treasure there now,” said Roger, “is a wooden fish. When the burglars find it and dig it up they won’t even be able to make steaks of it. Too tough.”
“It’s a jolly good chart,” said Captain Nancy, looking at it with Peggy and holding it by the fire to see better. “But there are lots of names you haven’t got.”
“The savages are fine,” said Peggy, “and so is the shark, but what have you put in our lagoon?”
“It’s meant for an octopus,” said John.
“Next year you can fill in a lot more,” said Captain Nancy. “We’ll do something splendid. We can plan it all winter. It’ll be something to think about during lessons. Either Furthest North or Furthest South would be good. Going south, we should have to take a canoe to shoot the rapids in, and then we should come to the sea. Anything might happen. We could grab a ship.”
“There must be something beyond the big mountains in the north.” said Titty.
“You can get a long way into the hills, going up the river,” said Peggy. “And then, in the mountains, we could walk. But there’d be the tents to carry.”
“We could get a hill pony to carry the tents,” said Nancy. “That’s it. We’ll go prospecting for gold.”
“Beyond the ranges,” said Titty.
“You can go for miles and miles up there and never see a single native,” said Peggy.
“Captain Flint said he’d be one of us next year,” said Nancy. “When he is, he makes things h
um. He may charter a big ship, three or four times as big as Amazon and ship us all as crew. He’s often said he would some day. Now that there are the Swallows as well, we could sail a really big one.”
“What about his steak?” said Titty.
“I’m keeping it warm,” said Susan, “but it’s getting a bit dry.”
“Stick another lump of butter on it,” said Peggy.
It was nearly dark when at last they heard the sound of oars and then the scrunch of a boat on the shingle at the landing-place. A moment later Captain Flint walked into the firelight. He carried a large cage wrapped up in a blue cloth cover. You could see it was a cage by the bottom of it. The firelight glittered on the big brass knob that stuck out at the top above the cover. There was a ring in the knob to carry it by or for hanging it to a beam. Captain Flint put it on the ground by Titty. A big white label was fastened to the ring. Titty read it by the light of the fire:
“From Captain Flint to the able-seaman who saved his Life.”
“But I didn’t save your life,” said Titty.
“I didn’t write life. I wrote Life,” said Captain Flint. “Mixed Moss. It’s the same thing.”
“Thank you very much indeed,” said Titty. “I’ll hang it up in the schoolroom, ready for the parrot.”
But just then there was a noise of scraping from under the blue cover.
“Look inside,” said Captain Flint. “I thought it would be rather a long time to wait till I come back from the south next spring.”
Swallows and Amazons Page 28
