Missee Lee

by Arthur Ransome

  Artifex and opifex,’”

  “How does it go on?”

  Roger looked at John. John looked like someone trying to remember a dream.

  “I used to know it,” he said.

  “Well, Loger?” said Miss Lee.

  “‘Conviva, vates, advena,

  Testis, civis, incola,’”

  Roger rattled off, hesitated a moment and went on:

  ‘“Parens, sacerdos, custos, vindex,

  Adolescens, infans, index. …”’

  He stuck … “infans, index … um … index. …

  “‘Judex, heres, comes, dux. …’”

  He stuck again. Miss Lee prompted him with:

  “‘Plinceps, municeps, conjux,

  Obses, ales, interples. …’”

  “I know, I know,” said Roger.

  “‘Auctor, exul; and with these

  Bos, dama, talpa, tigris, grus,

  Canis and anguis, serpens, sus.’”

  “I can always remember the dog and the two kinds of snake and the old pig,” he added.

  “John must learn that,” said Miss Lee. “Now, do you know your verbs?”

  But there is no need to describe the whole of that long, uncomfortable examination. Miss Lee looked more and more disappointed as it went on. Indeed, if it had not been for Roger, who had never thought that Latin would come in so useful, she might well have given up her idea there and then, in which case most likely the story would have ended at once and no one would ever have known what had happened to the crew of the Wild Cat. The little schooner and her crew would have vanished like so many other ships and sailors in those far off seas. But, though Susan, Peggy and Nancy had to start at the very beginning, though Nancy and Peggy showed that they thought it waste of time even to begin, though Titty had only picked up a few words, and though Latin had always been John’s weakest subject, a lively rendering by Roger of a bit of Caesar’s “Gallic War” saved the lot of them, and Miss Lee made up her mind to do the best she could with her uneven class.

  “I think Loger will go to top,” she said. “He will sit here. Then John. John had better lead Latin Grammar till he lemembers it. Then Tittee. She was all long about the second declension but she knows the first. Then. …” She looked despairingly at the three others. … “Su-san, Nansee and Peggee. … Never mind. They will lead glammar hard and we will do tlanslation all together. They will soon pick up.”

  “Just try Roger in French,” said Nancy, one time leader but now at the bottom of the class.

  “Flench?” said Miss Lee.

  “They never are any good at French at boys’ schools,” said Nancy.

  “Flench,” said Miss Lee, “is not a classical language. Now Gleek? Do Loger and John learn Gleek?”

  But nobody knew any Greek except John, and he knew only the alphabet, which was wanted for mathematics.

  “Latin first,” said Miss Lee. “Pelhaps Gleek next year or the year after that. …”

  “But we can’t. …” Susan began in horror. She caught Miss Lee’s eye and was silent.

  “And now,” said Miss Lee, “for tomollow. We shall be leading Virgil’s Aeneid, Book Two. Loger and John will take the book and the dictionary and plepare as much as they can. Tittee, Su-san, Peggee and Nansee will take the Latin Glammar and will show me tomollow how well they can learn if they tly. You can go out in the garden. Dismiss.”

  “How soon do you think Gibber and Polly will be here?” asked Roger.

  “They will come quite soon,” said Miss Lee and smiled at the only one of her pupils who had shown any kind of promise.

  *

  “This is pretty awful,” said Nancy as they came back to their own house. “I don’t care what anybody says, I’m not going to do any prep till this evening. What’s the good of learning Latin, anyway? All very well for Roger.”

  “Let’s have a look round that garden while we’ve got a chance,” said John.

  They went out and down the terraces, looked at the gold fish in the little pond, and, going on, found that the whole garden was enclosed by a wall too high and smooth for even John to climb. The only door in the wall was locked. The only other ways out were through Miss Lee’s, or the council chamber, or their own house, into the great courtyard with its armed guards always at the gateway. There was a door into the courtyard just beyond Miss Lee’s house, but that, like the door at the bottom of the garden, was locked.

  “No good,” said John. “We can’t get out unless she lets us.”

  “Even if we did we’d have to get back to Tiger Island and rescue Captain Flint,” said Titty.

  “We’ll think of a plan,” said Nancy. “We’ll just have to stick it for a bit. There’s plenty of time before Chang gets a message to America and back.”

  They were in their house when Titty heard the scream of the ship’s parrot and then a cheerful “Pieces of eight”. They ran through the house and out into the great courtyard to see the one-time cook holding the parrot-cage in one hand and Gibber’s lead in the other, coming in at the big gateway. A crowd that had gathered as he led the monkey through the streets was staring in, and the guards were making faces at the gibbering monkey.

  “Numpa one bad monkey,” said the ex-cook, grinning. “Him bite. Him lun away. Him pull donk ear. Him pull donk tail. Numpa one bad monkey.” He let go of the lead and in a moment the monkey had run to Roger and was hanging round his neck.

  Titty was already talking to the parrot. The ex-cook handed over a small sack that had been slung over his shoulder. “Pallot chow,” he said. “Flom Taicoon Chang.”

  “Is Captain Flint all right?” asked Nancy. “Big man …”

  The ex-cook laughed. “Him first chop,” he said. “Him all light. Him give my chit. In pallot chow.”

  “What? What?” said Nancy. But the ex-cook had turned to join his friends, the guards at the gateway.

  “Pallot chow?” said Nancy.

  “Parrot food,” said Titty. “That’s the Taicoon. He liked Polly. He’s probably sent a lot of sunflower seeds.”

  “But what had Uncle Jim to do with that?” said Nancy.

  Back in the house, while Roger was tickling Gibber and talking to him as if he had not seen him for a year, Titty opened the sack and dipped out a handful of sunflower seeds and things that looked like big white beans.

  CAPTAIN FLINT’S S.O.S.

  “It’s not quite the same as his ordinary food,” she said. “But the Taicoon’s tried to get it. I showed him some of Polly’s food when we were there.”

  “Empty out that bag,” said Nancy.

  “What for? It’ll make an awful mess,” said Susan.

  “I’ll sweep it up,” said Nancy, and took the bag and emptied it out on the floor, a heap of seeds under a little cloud of dust. She spread the seeds wider and wider, and then, suddenly, turned the bag inside out. A folded paper fluttered to the floor. Nancy pounced on it.

  “Now,” she said.

  “What is it?” said John.

  “Letter from Captain Flint of course, just to tell us he’s all right.”

  She held out a drawing that looked like one of her own pictures, except that all the people in it had Chinese hats. It was a picture of a lot of Chinese, in procession, climbing a mountain road. Somehow or other some Chinese junks had found their way up the mountain.

  “Read it aloud,” said John. “What does it say?”

  “REBBIGFOTSA. … Can’t make head or tail of the beginning. He must be up to some new dodge. …”

  “Let’s look,” said Titty.

  “Pencil,” said Nancy, and Roger handed over the copying pencil he had last used in writing in Miss Lee’s dictionary.

  “Not that,” said Nancy. “If it’s really secret, we’ll want to rub it out.”

  Titty dug the stump of a pencil from her pocket and Nancy hurriedly pencilled a letter under each of the little figures in the procession.

  “What about the junks?” said Roger.

  “Leave them,�
� said Nancy.

  “REBBIG FO TSAL EHT EES OT YRROS EB DLUOW I THGUOHT REVEN SP REH FO EDIS THGIR NO PEEK SNEPPAH REVETAHW HTURT ELOHW EEL SSIM LLET RETTEB GNIWERB ELBUORT DNA DNUOR LLA SKOOL KRAD EKATSIM YM OCSIRF NI SROYAMDROL SA SLAMINA HCUS ON SSOB SIH DLOT NOTGNIHSAW EGROEG SIHT AINROFILAC NI STNAP HSAW OT DESU OHW SHGUOT SIH FO ENO NI DELLAC EH NACIREMA DAER TONNAC FEIHC GIB RETRONS A ETORW I NIAGA ROYAM DROL RIEHT EES OT DETNAW YEHT FI KCIUQ PU YAP DNA EMOSDNAH PU YAP OT NEMREDLA YM ETIRW EM EDAM FEIHC GIB SSERP POTS

  SWEN YLIAD

  DNALSI REGIT”

  “That first word’s Gibber the wrong way round,” said Titty.

  “I’ve seen that,” said Nancy. “Up hill instead of down.” And, stopping sometimes when she had run two words together, and finding out at once that the junks were meant as stops, and that each line went from right to left no matter which way the climbers seemed to be going, she read aloud:

  “TIGER ISLAND DAILY NEWS. STOP PRESS.. BIG CHIEF MADE ME WRITE MY ALDERMEN TO PAY UP HANDSOME AND PAY UP QUICK IF THEY WANTED TO SEE THEIR LORD MAYOR AGAIN. I WROTE A SNORTER. BIG CHIEF CANNOT READ AMERICAN. HE CALLED IN ONE OF HIS TOUGHS WHO USED TO WASH PANTS IN CALIFORNIA. THIS GEORGE WASHINGTON TOLD HIS BOSS NO SUCH ANIMALS AS LORDMAYORS IN FRISCO. MY MISTAKE. DARK LOOKS ALL ROUND AND TROUBLE BREWING. BETTER TELL MISS LEE WHOLE TRUTH. WHATEVER HAPPENS KEEP ON RIGHT SIDE OF HER. PS. NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD BE SORRY TO SEE THE LAST OF GIBBER.”

  “Giminy,” said Nancy. “It’s an S.O.S.”

  “He isn’t all right at all,” said John. “They’ve found him out.”

  “Perhaps they’ve done it already,” said Roger and did not explain what he meant.

  “Look here,” said Nancy. “We can’t sit here doing Latin while Uncle Jim’s having his head cut off.”

  “What are we to do?” said Susan.

  “There’s only one thing we can do,” said Nancy. “We’ve got to make Miss Lee get him out.”

  “But how?”

  “Ultimatum,” said Nancy. “Tip her the black spot. It worked with Uncle Jim. It’ll work with her. She’s dead keen on these beastly lessons. We’ll go on strike. We’ll depose her. She can’t be a schoolmarm if she’s got no pupils. Tell her ‘No Captain Flint, no lessons’.”

  “We’ll want some paper,” said Titty.

  “Hop along, Roger,” said Nancy. “You’re the top of the class. You hop along and ask for some paper.”

  Roger, with the monkey in his arms, ran out into the garden. In five minutes he was back, blushing and looking very serious. He held out a sheet of ricepaper and something in a saucer.

  “I say,” he said, “she doesn’t like Gibber. She says he is dirty. She says he’s got fleas. And he hasn’t, not since that last scrubbing. She is a bit Great Auntish after all. She says I must never bring him into her room. And he isn’t to sleep in the house. He’s got to go into one of those cages every night.”

  “Well, you’ve got the paper all right,” said Nancy.

  “She perked up like anything when I asked for it,” said Roger. “She was very pleased, and said it would be a good thing to copy out some of those rhymes like Artifex and Opifex and the simple stuff you’ve got to learn. She was talking to the old man with a beard. I say, you know why his fingers look so long? His nails are as long as his fingers. I didn’t tell her what we really wanted the paper for.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Nancy. “She’ll know when we hand in the ultimatum. I say. Hadn’t she got a pen?” She was looking at the saucer of black ink and at a bamboo writing-brush with its pointed tip of fine hair.

  “She has a fountain pen herself,” said Roger.

  “Oh, well,” said Nancy. “Let’s get the thing written.”

  There was some argument about the wording. Nancy was all for making it hot and strong. Susan was for mildness. Titty pointed out that Captain Flint himself had said that they ought to keep on the right side of Miss Lee. Nancy said that all that mattered was to make Miss Lee take him away from Chang.

  The rough copy, written by Nancy herself, with corrections by everybody, was done in pencil. The final copy was done by Titty, because she was the best hand with a paintbrush, using Miss Lee’s ink for the sake of politeness.

  Here is the ultimatum:

  “To Miss Lee

  We the undersigned point out that Captain Flint is one of us and it is all wrong to put him in one place and us in another. He is not used to cages. How can anybody learn Latin when their uncle is shut up like an animal in a Zoo? We will do our best to learn Latin (Nancy’s original sentence was ‘We’ll stick to those lessons’) if Captain Flint is here too. But we cannot be any good at it while (Titty’s suggestion) our hearts are far away. Save Captain Flint and we will work like anything. But if not, not. (Nobody but Nancy liked that last sentence, but she was so pleased with it that they had to let it pass.)

  Members of the crew of the Wild Cat which was burnt through no fault of our own.”

  “Buck up, Titty,” said Nancy.

  “It’s pretty difficult writing with a brush,” said Titty who was kneeling on the floor painting letter by letter on the paper spread in front of her.

  “You simply must buck up,” said Nancy.

  “I am,” said Titty, working away with the tip of her tongue between her lips.

  It was done at last and Nancy grabbed it.

  “Look out,” said Titty. “It’s still wet.”

  “All right,” said Nancy. “Let’s have that brush. Giminy, what a thing to write with.” She signed her name, put the name of her ship and gave the paper to Peggy. One by one they all signed and Titty held the paper in the sun to get the ink dry.

  “Who takes it to her?” asked Roger. “Not me. I went in and got the paper.”

  “All of us,” said Nancy. “Come on. And leave that monkey behind.”

  Going through the garden they met the old counsellor coming from Miss Lee’s. He looked through them as if they were not there and turned in at the small door in the back of the council chamber. They went on and were stopped by the amah.

  THE ULTIMATUM

  “You wantee see Missee Lee?” she asked.

  They waited. The amah came out and led them to the door of Miss Lee’s study.

  “Please come in,” said Miss Lee. “You want help with your grammar? If there is anything you do not understand, you may always come and ask.”

  “It isn’t that,” said Nancy.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s about Captain Flint.” Nancy gave Miss Lee the ultimatum.

  “From all of us,” said John.

  Miss Lee laid the paper on her desk and read it through to the end. She looked at them through narrowed eyes.

  “I can not,” she said. “Wu and my counsellor want to keep my father’s law. I am bleaking it, because I want my students. You are English, but I tell them it is safe because you cannot get away, because no one knows you are here, and because even if you could get away you would not know how to come back with gunboats. But they think better to chop off heads and have no trouble. Chang thinks it is safe to keep your Captain Flint because he is Amelican not English. …” Her eyes narrowed still more. “It is a bargain. Quid plo quo. I keep my students. Chang keeps his Amelican.”

  “But he isn’t American,” said Nancy.

  “I did not think he was,” said Miss Lee. “But Chang thinks he is. No matter. No hully. That man velly well in plison. He is a velly uncultured man and it is good for him to sit and think. Chang will keep him safe until his messenger goes to Amelica and comes back.”

  “But it’s all wrong.” said Nancy. “Chang’s beginning to guess already.”

  “How do you know?”

  There was a pause full of doubts. Captain Flint had told them to tell Miss Lee the truth, but he had not meant them to show her his letter.

  “How do you know?” asked Miss Lee again.

  “Better show her,” said Titty. “It’ll be all right if she says ‘Honest Pirate’ first.”

&
nbsp; “You won’t give him away to Chang if we tell you?” said Nancy.

  “He belongs to Chang already,” said Miss Lee.

  “I mean you won’t … Look here. We’ll have to take the risk. You’ve got the letter, John.”

  John handed over the paper with Captain Flint’s message.

  “A picture?” said Miss Lee. “Not velly good.”

  “Semaphore,” said Nancy. “You said you’ve been a Girl Guide. Signals. You have to read them backwards.”

  “Chinese fashion,” said Miss Lee and, working backwards, looking at the little figures, starting at the bottom of the hill and going to and fro to the top, she read the message through.

  “The junks are full stops,” said Nancy.

  “I see you have litten the letters,” said Miss Lee.

  “So I did,” said Nancy. “I forgot, but you could have read the signals, anyway, couldn’t you?”

  “I could,” said Miss Lee. She read through the message again and gave it back to John. She thought for a minute. Then she said. “It is his own fault. He lied to Chang and he lied to me.”

  “But if he hadn’t we’d have been killed already, Peggy and me and Captain Flint.”

  “What then?” said Miss Lee. “You are not velly good students.”

  “But they will be,” said Titty.

  Miss Lee smiled. “Keep on the right side of Miss Lee,” she repeated slowly.

  “We’ll try to,” said Susan.

  “Is this how you tly?” said Miss Lee, holding up the ultimatum. “No. I can do nothing. That man has cheated Chang. If I take him now I shall have cheated Chang myself. You are my students but that man is Chang’s. If he has lied and Chang cuts his head off it is his own fault.”