Missee Lee

by Arthur Ransome

  Everybody stirred uncomfortably. Roger had said what was in all their minds.

  Miss Lee flashed for a moment into anger. “You all velly pleased. Even Loger.”

  “We’ve loved being here,” said Nancy. “We’ll remember it all our lives.”

  “Short lives,” said Miss Lee. “Plobably velly short lives.”

  Suddenly they heard the shrill piercing whistling of the signaller. Miss Lee’s mood changed again.

  “You hear that?” she said. “I have agleed with my counsellor. I have told him he may tell the Taicoons I have agleed with them. He has sent the message now. I have plomised to make an end and have no more English plisoners after the Dlagon Feast.”

  “But that’s tomorrow,” said Susan.

  “But you’re not going to let them do any chopping?” exclaimed Roger from the garden door. “We wouldn’t really like it.”

  “They say they will be quite content if I chop heads for them.”

  “Miss Lee!” said Titty.

  “Jibbooms and bobstays,” said Nancy. “But it isn’t fair.”

  “Vale, domina,” said Roger sadly.

  Miss Lee laughed in spite of herself.

  “Loger’s Latin leally velly plomising,” she said. “And all have been good students. … Tlied hard. … Even Nansee is not so velly bad.” (Nancy opened her mouth to speak but changed her mind.) “No. Miss Lee will not chop the heads of her students.”

  “How are you going to get rid of us, ma’am?” asked Captain Flint. “Send us off to Hong Kong … or Singapore … or any treaty port? We’d be all right anywhere if we can get in touch with a consul.”

  Miss Lee flared up at him. “Yes,” she said. “That is what the counsellor told me. You will talk to a consul. The consul will send teleglams to the admilal. The admilal will send orders to gunboats and gunboats will come and smash up all Thlee Islands business.”

  “But we wouldn’t let them,” said Titty.

  “Not Chang, not Wu, not one of our captains would let you have a chance of talking to one of your consuls,” said Miss Lee. “They would take no lisk. Chop heads. Dlown and be safe.”

  “But if you tell them they’ve jolly well got to,” said Nancy.

  “What happened today?” said Miss Lee. “An accident. A sampan will upset taking plisoners ashore. Plisoners all dlowned. Velly solly. All a lie. But what can I do? I chop off the head of the captain. Velly good. But plisoners will still be dlowned. The same thing will happen if you stay here. A stone will fall down a cliff. Poison in food. A man shoots a pigeon and hits Loger by mistake. No. Better no more Camblidge, no more lessons, and my velly good students must tly to go away.”

  “But how?” asked Nancy.

  “If we could have Swallow and Amazon,” said John. “Our two boats.”

  “Too small,” said Miss Lee. “Too slow.” She looked narrowly at Captain Flint.

  “If Miss Lee tlusts you,” she said. “If I give you a junk, can you plomise to sail light away, not to go to Hong Kong, not to go to Macao, not to go to Hainan, not to go to any harbour till you leave all China seas?”

  “We all promise,” said Captain Flint. “We’ll touch nowhere before Singapore.”

  “Singapore harbourmaster will say ‘Hullo, you China junk, where are you flom?’ What will you say?”

  Captain Flint thought for a moment. “Awkward without papers,” he said. “Best tell them as much truth as we can. Tell them we lost our schooner at sea, got ashore somewhere, bought the junk from fishermen, put out again, lost our reckonings and glad to find out where we are.”

  “And not send gunboats?”

  “Of course we won’t,” said Nancy.

  “You plomise?” Again Miss Lee looked at Captain Flint.

  “They’ll chop us to pieces before we give you away, ma’am. But what about sending the junk back? Port officials might follow her.”

  “Who blings her back?” said Miss Lee scornfully. “If I send Thlee Island men with you, you will never get to Singapore. Door-nail dead before you are gone two days. They will not tlust you. Only I, Miss Lee, tlust you.” Another thought struck her. “Could you sail one of our junks without Chinese sailors?”

  “Seven of us,” said Captain Flint. “And we took a schooner half round the world before we burnt her. … I don’t know about a big junk, but we could manage a little one.”

  “I will give you Shining Moon,” said Miss Lee.

  “Miss Lee!” exclaimed Nancy.

  “Gosh!” said Roger.

  “I’d take that little ship anywhere,” said Captain Flint.

  “We’ll take awful care of her,” said John.

  “But what will you do without her?” said Titty.

  “Building another … better,” said Miss Lee. “But Shining Moon is a good boat. She will take you to England. She will show what a Chinese junk can do. And I will stay here on Dlagon Island and fo’get Camblidge altogether.”

  “Come with us,” said Titty.

  “Chuck this piracy business,” said Captain Flint. “You come back to England with us, go back to Cambridge, take one degree after another and end up head of a college.”

  Miss Lee’s eyes sparkled for a moment. Then the light in them went out. “I must stay in the Thlee Islands,” she said.

  “Will the others ever let us get away?” asked Susan.

  “No,” said Miss Lee.

  “Then it’s all no good,” said Roger.

  “Sail at night,” said Miss Lee, “and they will not see you go. In the morning, if there are no plisoners, there will be no heads to be chopped.”

  “Those big junks are pretty fast,” said Nancy.

  “Our captains do not make long voyages. If you are gone clear out of sight they will not catch you.”

  “When can we start?” said Susan.

  “Tomollow,” said Miss Lee. “Dlagon Day. The Taicoons come here to feast in my yamen. The Tiger Island men will bling their dlagon. The Turtle men will bling their dlagon. They will see you all day. They will see your dlagon dance at night. They know I have agleed to have no English plisoners. They will think, ‘All light. Chop off heads in morning’. No shooting, no chopping on Dlagon Feast Day. Sunlise to sunlise evellybody fliends. That night you go. Evellybody feast and sleep. When they wake you will be gone.”

  “How do we get out of here without being seen?” said John.

  Miss Lee looked from face to face in the dusk. “Better I talk with your captain alone. Better you should not know. You can go out. Too dark for shooting now.”

  “Out,” said Captain Flint.

  There was no waiting. The six of them went out into the garden, leaving Captain Flint and Miss Lee to talk secrets alone in the swiftly darkening room.

  In the dusk outside, Susan looked up at the tops of the trees that showed here and there shadowy against the sky above the garden wall. “Roger, you come here,” she said. “Don’t go out on the terraces. We’ll keep under the orange-trees where we can’t be seen.”

  “Giminy,” said Nancy. “I wish we hadn’t really got to go.”

  “You don’t want to stay and have your head cut off?” said John. “We’re jolly lucky it hasn’t happened already.”

  “How long will it take us to get to Singapore?” said Susan. “We shan’t be able to let Mother know we’re all right until we get there.”

  “Depends on the wind,” said John. “But she’s a grand little ship.”

  “I say,” said Titty. “We shan’t be going home in a liner after all. We’ll be sailing in our own ship.”

  “Chinese junk,” said Roger. “Gosh, it’s really almost a good thing Gibber set fire to the Wild Cat.”

  “It isn’t,” said Titty.

  “Well, of course Wild Cat did have an engine,” said Roger. “There’ll be nothing for me to do.”

  “Won’t there?” said Nancy.

  “We’ll have to get a tow through the Red Sea,” said John, thinking far ahead. “North wind there all the time. Captain
Flint was counting on the engine to push Wild Cat through to the Mediterranean.”

  “It’s the getting away that’s going to be difficult,” said Susan. “Sentinels everywhere. And it’ll be worse if we try and they catch us.”

  “Galoot!” said Nancy. “Even you, Susan. We get our heads chopped off if we stay. They can’t chop them off more than once even if they catch us trying to bolt. And of course we’ll get away. No more beastly Latin. That’s one thing. No more listening to a ship’s boy cockily spouting Latin. …”

  “Able seaman,” said Roger.

  “Jibbooms and bobstays! Won’t we mates and captains make you work,” said Nancy, who, even if she was sorry to be leaving a pirate island, had not much enjoyed being bottom of a class in which Roger was top. “Latin!” she added scornfully. “Polishing brass work’ll do you good.”

  “There isn’t much brass to polish on Shining Moon” said Roger.

  “Plenty of teak to keep holystoned,” said Nancy.

  “Probably no holystone,” said Roger. “Anyway, who cares?”

  “We’ll be at sea again,” said Titty.

  “I wonder how they reef those sails,” said John.

  “Easy with all those battens, I should think,” said Nancy, and the two captains went off into a debate as to how best to do it.

  They walked up and down among the orange-trees, sailors ashore only in passing, happy in the thought that very soon they would have a swaying deck under their feet once more. In the noise of the cicadas among the leaves they were hearing the creaking of the blocks. Up and down they walked in the dusk, keeping an eye on the door from the garden into their house, watching for Miss Lee or Captain Flint to call them in.

  At last, when it was almost dark they saw a shadow flit to and fro carrying bundles from their house to Miss Lee’s. Then they saw Miss Lee herself going home. They waited a little longer and saw a flicker of light in their rooms. The amah had lit the lanterns. They saw her flit away for the last time.

  They went back to the house and found it empty. Captain Flint had gone.

  “Locked up for the night,” said Nancy.

  “Better make sure,” said John.

  “I say,” said Susan. “All our things from Swallow have disappeared.”

  “That’s what the old amah was carrying,” said Roger.

  They went out in the courtyard to the bars of Captain Flint’s cage, all but Roger, who went to have a word with Gibber through the bars of the next cage but one. They could see a glimmer of light through the door of Captain Flint’s sleeping-box.

  “Hey!” called Titty quietly. “Captain Flint!”

  The prisoner, with a bowl of rice in his hand, came out to the front of his cage.

  “Go home,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “We wanted to be sure everything was all right.”

  Captain Flint spoke low. “I’ve got our sailing directions, if that’s what you mean.”

  “All our things have gone,” said Susan.

  “I know,” said Captain Flint.

  “What about the dragon?” said Susan. “We shan’t want it after all.”

  “More than ever,” said Captain Flint. “Go home and make the best job of it that ever you did in your life. And get it done before you go to sleep. Good night!” He turned round, went back into his sleeping-box and closed the door behind him.

  They went home and found their supper just coming in. They hurried through it. It was hard working by lantern-light, but when they went to bed the little dragon was all but ready for his twelve legs.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE DRAGON FEAST

  THERE was no Cambridge breakfast on the day of the Dragon Feast. Captain Flint was let out of his cage earlier than usual and was brought in to share a chopstick breakfast of rice and chicken with the rest of the students. Even in their house at the high end of the courtyard they could hear the buzz of holidaymakers in the pirate town. Their own dragon lay in shining folds on the floor. After hurrying through her breakfast, Susan was stitching on the last of the extra scales to cover the join in the body when Miss Lee came in through the door from the garden.

  She looked round. “You are velly happy,” she said sadly. “No more lessons. No more Latin. You are all glad to leave Miss Lee.”

  “It’s not that,” said Titty.

  “You’ve been very good to us, ma’am,” said Captain Flint. “But, you know, people do like to be sure of keeping their heads on their shoulders.”

  “And we’ve got to get home some time,” said Susan.

  “Schools,” said Miss Lee.

  “Mother and Daddy,” said John. “And schools too, of course.”

  “Camblidge,” said Miss Lee. It was as if Cambridge and the lessons that had come to an end were all one in her mind.

  “We’d love you to come with us,” said Titty.

  Miss Lee shook her head.

  “Good-bye,” she said. “And happy voyage. I shall not be able to talk to you again. Captain Flint knows what to do. …”

  Just then the great gong began to sound.

  “What’s that for?” asked Roger.

  “Taicoon Chang,” said Miss Lee. “Or Taicoon Wu. I must go to meet them.”

  “Just half a minute, ma’am,” said Captain Flint. “Let me be sure I’ve got my sailing directions right. …”

  Roger slipped out into the courtyard. He was back again before Captain Flint and Miss Lee had finished talking.

  “It’s Chang,” he said, “but he hasn’t brought a dragon. Miss Lee, why hasn’t Chang brought a dragon?”

  “The dlagon dance does not begin till later,” said Miss Lee. “Tiger Island dlagon on the way plobably. … You had better go out to see them coming. No more lessons. …”

  “Is it safe for them to go out?” said Captain Flint.

  “Quite safe,” said Miss Lee. “Dlagon Feast. Nobody will shoot today. Evellybody fliends with evellybody till sun lise tomollow. Better go out so evellybody see you are not aflaid.” The gong had begun to sound again, another ten strokes.

  “Wu,” said Miss Lee and hurried out into the garden to be ready to receive the two Taicoons.

  “We’ve never said good-bye to her properly,” said Susan.

  “We’ll never see her again,” said Titty.

  “We’ll see her all right,” said Nancy. “We’ll see her, but she can’t very well talk to us with the other Taicoons scowling round. Jibbooms and bobstays, I suppose we’ve got to go, but it won’t be much fun at school after living with Chinese pirates.”

  “You won’t have to work so hard at school,” said Captain Flint. “And anyway, we aren’t out of this yet. I wish we were.”

  “Come on,” said Roger, twiddling his hat with a finger through the bullet-hole. “Let’s go out and meet the other dragons.”

  *

  They went out into the courtyard where they saw the tiger and the turtle banners propped against a wall, and knew that two of their enemies were talking with Miss Lee. They went out through the gateway. In spite of what Miss Lee had said about the feast they half expected, after what had happened yesterday, to meet hostile faces and to see people making signs of chopping heads. But everybody had a cheerful smile. In all the town nobody was doing any work unless it was cooking, for from house after house came good kitchen smells, mostly that of roasting pork. People were just hanging about in the streets, smoking, talking, laughing, like people waiting to see a circus march through. They took the road towards the southern gateway in the town wall, thinking to meet Wu’s dragon coming from Turtle Island and, from the high ground, to be able to see Chang’s dragon as well on the road to the ferry on the other side of the river. They saw the Dragon Island’s dragon almost at once, but not in a very lively state. It lay, flopped and empty, along one of the streets, a trailing carpet of shining scales and bright red silk, with here and there one of the bamboo poles sticking out from under it by which, when it was time for it to wake, one of its many pairs o
f legs would hold it up. The legs were squatting on the ground beside it, drinking stuff out of little bowls. Some of the legs called a greeting to them as they passed.

  “What are they saying?” asked Roger.

  “I don’t know,” said Captain Flint. “Happy Dragon, I suppose, or something like that.”

  “They’re all jolly friendly,” said Nancy.

  “Yes,” said Captain Flint. ‘“Happy Dragon!’ today and ‘Off with your head!’ tomorrow. Well, by this time tomorrow, if all goes well, we’ll be hull down and out of reach of them.”

  “Everything will go well, won’t it?” said Roger.

  “If Miss Lee plays the game,” said Captain Flint.

  “She will,” said Titty.

  “And if our dragon’s up to his job.”

  “What’s he got to do with it?” asked Roger, but got no answer out of Captain Flint.

  Again at the gate in the outer wall, nobody stopped them. Everybody was looking out over the rice-fields towards the high ground as if at any moment something for which they were waiting might come in sight.

  “We’d better not go too far,” said Susan.

  “We’ve got to see those dragons,” said Roger.

  “Of course we have,” said Nancy. “We’ve got to see just what they do so that we can do it better. Jibbooms and bobstays! Swallows and Amazons for ever! Our dragon’s got to beat the lot of them.”

  THE GORGE

  “River’s still rising,” said Captain Flint, looking back towards the ferry as they were crossing the rice-fields outside the wall. “That ferry-boat’s nearly level with the jetty on the other side.”

  “Look at the people coming ashore from the junks,” said Roger.

  “We’ll have to get past those junks,” said John, who was trying to get the whole shape of the river in his mind. Somehow or other, they would have to sail that river in the dark. “Which way do you think the wind’ll be?”

  “Land breeze at night with luck,” said Captain Flint. “We won’t stand much of a chance if we have to tack. Take us too long getting out.” And then, as John and Nancy began talking about the ropes of the junk and wishing they had had a chance of feeling for themselves how she steered, he swept the subject away. “We’re not aboard yet,” he said. “One thing at a time. What we’ve got to think about now is dragons.”