*
Yes. There was no doubt about it. Somewhere out there in the dark there was a rowing boat without a light, coming out to the Wild Cat. For one moment Peter Duck was for getting the lantern out of the deckhouse to show more of a light than came through the deckhouse windows. Then another thought came to him. That rifle shot? What if the two captains, John and Nancy, had gone ashore and been surprised there, and the boat coming off was full of the cut-throats from the Viper? Or could it be one of the Viper’s own boats? Well, they had boarded the Wild Cat last time easily enough, while her crew were lying asleep. But not again, anyhow, not unless they had more than one boat. Even children could use a belaying-pin on pirate knuckles as they showed along the rail. He hurried round the deckhouse and called down the companion, “All hands on deck!”
*
“All hands on deck!”
Peter Duck called down quietly enough, but there was something in his voice that stopped spoons full of tinned pear half-way between plate and mouth, and even cut a sentence of Roger’s off short in the middle. For one second, down in the saloon, there was a dead silence. In the next second, everybody was rushing for the companion.
Bill was on deck first, with Titty and Roger close after him. Susan and Peggy had been just a little more careful not to sweep things off the table as they got up. They were last, but even so they came tumbling up on deck almost on Roger’s heels.
“Boat coming off,” said Peter Duck. “Don’t know who’s in it, but we’re not going to be caught twice. Don’t go showing yourselves with the light behind you. Aye, that’s right. Close that galley door. Get hold of a belaying-pin apiece, from that rack by the starboard shrouds. And don’t think about the paint when you bring them pins down to pulp the first hand you see getting a grip of the rail … Where’s Bill?”
“He was here just now,” said Titty. “What is it? Not the pirates?”
“They ain’t coming aboard here if it is,” said Peter Duck. “Not twice in one day. They can’t, neither. Not without they’ve two boats. And I can’t hear but one out there. Listen!”
Just then the light from one of the deckhouse windows lit up Bill’s toothless grin, as he came aft trailing with him one of the capstan bars which he had gone forward to fetch.
“This’ll do proper for one of them,” he said.
“Less lip,” said Peter Duck. “Listen!”
“’Sh, ’sh,” whispered the others.
It was coming nearer now, and everybody could hear it, the sharp knock as the oars swung across the rowlocks at the end of each stroke, and the squeaking of a rowlock that needed oiling.
“It sounds awfully like Swallow,” said Peggy, speaking very low. “John said he meant to give some oil to the rowlocks, but I don’t believe he did.”
“Why don’t they show their lantern?” whispered Roger.
“Aye. It’s Swallow, all right,” said Peter Duck. “But who’s in her?”
“You don’t think anything’s gone wrong with John and Nancy?” said Titty. “… And Captain Flint?”
Peter Duck grunted. The crack of that rifle-shot was still in his ears, but he did not want to tell them of it if he could help it. “Best be ready for anything,” he said.
But just then, from close by the bows of the schooner, as she lay across the current, in the wind that was still coming light off the shore, there rose a loud, eager shout.
“Ahoy there, Wild Cat! Show us a light!”
Peter Duck straightened himself in the dark. He had been stooping to listen, a little, bent old man, bowed down perhaps by the weight of his fears. Now he threw up his head with a cheerful “Aye, aye, sir!” “It’s the skipper,” he said, bustling into the deckhouse for the lantern. He was back with it in a moment. “Throw the ladder over there, Bill. Now then, Miss Susan, have you got a cup of hot tea for him? Ladder’s over on the port side.” He was shouting now, swinging the lantern to and fro above the rail. Already it lit up the faces below, and everybody aboard the Wild Cat, peering eagerly down into the darkness, had seen that all three captains were there, two at the oars, and another in the stern. Bill dropped a rope over and carried it forward to the main shrouds, while somebody below there in Swallow made it fast. A moment later Captain Flint, ragged, bruised and scratched, was coming up the ladder one rung at a time. He flung a tired leg over the rail.
“Well, that’s that,” he said. “And better luck than I deserve after getting you all into this mess.”
The others were not in a hurry to come aboard.
“Hi! Mr Duck,” called Nancy, “do just pass us down that lantern.”
“Where’s your own?” asked Peggy.
“We’d be using it if we had it,” said Nancy. “Thanks. Are you sure you’ve found it, John?”
“I can feel it all right. Have you got the lantern?”
The next moment the two of them, down there in the boat, made sure, with the lantern to help them, and the little group on deck heard Nancy’s delighted yell. “So she has. Do you hear? Swallow’s got a bullet in her. John’s found it. We’ll never take it out.”
“But how?” said Roger.
“The bullet that smashed the lantern,” said John.
“When?”
“We never heard any shooting.”
“Didn’t we?” said Peter Duck. “Well, better the lantern than what I thought it might have been. Come along with you now, and let’s have that lantern. We’re in the dark up here.”
Nancy passed up the lantern. Then she and John climbed aboard, and John took the rope from Bill, and carried it aft and made fast there, to let the Swallow lie astern.
“Have you told Captain Flint about the treasure?” asked Titty, following Nancy into the deckhouse.
But Captain Flint would not look at the treasure at that moment. He just glanced across the deckhouse at it, where it lay in his bunk. “A box,” he said. “I thought it would be. Did you find the bag?” And then, before they had time to tell him about it, while Roger was still feeling in his pocket for one of those old greenish metal eyelet rings, Captain Flint had turned away, almost as if he were ashamed. He would not look toward his bunk again. “No, no!” he said. “We must get out of this first. A dozen times today I’ve wished that treasure at the bottom of the sea. What anchor have you got down, Mr Duck?”
“Only the kedge,” said Mr Duck. “I thought to slip it if the wind changed sudden.”
“That’s good,” said Captain Flint. “Let’s have it up and be off. If we can we’ll put Crab Island hull down before dawn. I never want to see the place again.”
“My way of thinking,” said Peter Duck.
And so, while everybody was bursting to hear something or to tell something, while the story of the taking of the Wild Cat by the pirates from the Viper, and the story of the rescue, and of the finding of the treasure, and of Captain Flint’s crossing of the island, and of Swallow’s wait at Duckhaven in the dark, and of the rifle shot that had smashed the lantern and left a bullet in the gunwale, were still waiting to be told, the whole ship’s company turned to. Capstan bars were fitted, sails were set, mainsail and staysail, an old spare jib instead of the one that had been blown away, a trysail instead of the foresail that had been split from top to bottom in the storm, the anchor was raised, and the Wild Cat, in the light wind that was still coming fitfully out of the west, sailed away from Crab Island in the dark.
“There’s very little wind,” said Captain Flint. “I’ll have a go at starting the motor.”
“You’ll never do that by lantern light, sir,” said Peter Duck. “And you may make him worse. Leave the little donkey to sleep and maybe you’ll have him running in the morning. But it’s a donkeyman’s job and not a sailor’s to be working them things.”
Susan had a fresh lot of tea going in the saloon, and Captain Flint, John, and Nancy sat in there hungrily eating and drinking. The others finished their own supper, and then leaned on the table, watching them. There was so much to say that they could have
talked all night, or rather they thought they could. But Roger’s head fell slowly forward, and Susan got up and hauled him off to bed. When she got back to the saloon she found a strange scene. The whole lot of them were sleeping, some pillowing their heads on their arms among the supper things, others hunched down where they sat. Captain Flint sat up with a start, stared at Susan, tried to take a drink from his empty mug, and staggered across the saloon to the companion ladder.
“Well, I don’t know what to do,” said Susan to herself. “Perhaps I’d better not wake them.”
She left the others sleeping as they were and went quietly up the companion ladder.
“North-east it is,” Peter Duck was saying. “We’ll not do better than that. If we want a quick passage we must work up north till we get into the westerlies. There’s no sense butting into a trade wind. No, Cap’n, there’s nothing wrong with me. Knocked out I was, and maybe I was lucky. No, no. I can carry on till dawn, and then we’ll see better what’s coming to us.”
Susan heard the faint slop slop of the water on the bows of Swallow, towing astern. The Wild Cat was sailing. She slipped quietly down below once more, in time to see Titty moving, more than half asleep, across the saloon and into her cabin. The others were still sprawling about the table. Titty, groping in the dark, found her berth and fell into it. Susan listened to Titty’s even breathing. She then climbed as quietly as she could into the upper berth, and a moment later was as fast asleep as Titty.
CHAPTER XXXIV
WATERSPOUT
THE SLEEPERS ROUND the saloon table were roused by the noise of tinkering with the engine. It was broad daylight. They stretched stiff arms, yawned, and rubbed eyes that did not seem inclined to stay open. They got up and wandered aft, like sleepwalkers, to find Captain Flint crouched below the deckhouse in the hole that served as an engine-room, trying to free the choked engine from some of the oil that Gibber and Roger had lavished upon it. There were smudges of grease now, as well as the scratches on his face, and his torn shirt, as Peggy said afterwards, might just as well have been an overall, it was in such a state. He did say “Good morning” to them, but that was all, and he went on at once with what he was doing to the engine.
“He’s jolly bothered about something,” said Nancy, as they went sleepily up the companion steps. As soon as they came out on deck they knew why.
There had been hardly any wind during the night. Crab Island was still in sight on the horizon. But that was not all. Soon after dawn Captain Flint and Peter Duck had seen a tall black schooner creeping round the northern headland. There she was, with topsails set on both her masts. The Viper was after them again.
That, in itself, was enough to set Captain Flint tinkering at the engine. But it was not the thought of Black Jake alone that kept Peter Duck, who was at the wheel, looking uneasily about him. Anybody could see that there was still something altogether wrong about the weather. Where was the steady trade wind of the last few weeks? What did they mean, these little cat’s-paws that ran across the water, now from this side, now from that, under this heavy metallic sky, orange and purple in the east, black and thunderous in the west? There was something wrong with the sea, too. With the ordinary trade wind of these parts there should have been a steady swell rolling down from the north-east. There was nothing of the sort, but tossing, aimless waves.
But on that morning, not even the sight of the Viper, or the look of the weather, or the grim faces of Captain Flint and Peter Duck could cloud the happiness of the crew. There they were, all together again in the Wild Cat, homeward bound, with the treasure, whatever it was, safely aboard. Nothing else seemed to matter. They hurried below again to get into their bathing things for washing decks, as on the old, happy mornings of the outward voyage. Susan, Titty, and Roger were on deck and ready when the two captains, followed by Peggy and Bill, clambered up through the forehatch. They soused each other with bucketfuls of salt water, and took turns in driving the water along the deck with the long-handled mops. They crowded round to look at the purple spreading bruises on both sides of Bill’s right shoulder where Black Jake’s fingers had held him in that cruel grip. Tenderly they felt his swollen face. Bill wished the bruises would last for ever, like tattoo-marks, because John, and Roger, and Nancy seemed to admire them so much. But at least he would always have the teeth to show. They would last as long as he would. And then, while the others swabbed the water into the scuppers, Peggy and Susan hurried into the galley to make breakfast. It was a pity, said Peggy, that nobody had thought of bringing aboard a really large stock of bananas. They dressed while the kettle was coming on the boil. Titty brought the parrot up on deck. Roger let loose the monkey. Everybody, except Captain Flint and Peter Duck, was in the highest spirits.
“Come along here, one of you cap’ns, or you, Bill, when you’ve done washing down the decks, and take the wheel,” Peter Duck called out at last. “Just you come here and do the best you can with her. I want to see what canvas we’ve got in the locker, and the skipper’s busy with the little donkey down below.”
But just at that moment Captain Flint came up the ladder into the deckhouse and put his head out of the door.
“It’s a donkey that won’t go, Mr Duck. I’ll take the wheel for a bit, while you see what you can do in the way of more sail.”
“She’d carry all we could put on her,” said Mr Duck, “but we’ve nothing to put. Now if only I’d the foresail mended, or a bit of topsail to set over her main …”
“Uncle Jim,” said Nancy. “You’d feel a lot better if you went and had a go with that bucket, and got some of the dirt off.”
Captain Flint looked round over his shoulder at the far-away schooner. Then he laughed, in spite of his worries. “You’ve been taking lessons from Susan, Nancy,” he said. “But I believe you’re right. You can take over, you three, just for a minute.” And he went forward up to the capstan, and pulled his ragged shirt off, and poured bucket after bucket over his head. He came aft again, looking cleaner and much more cheerful, just as Peggy began hammering at the breakfast bell.
Neither he nor Peter Duck would come down to the saloon for breakfast. They had theirs brought to them on deck by Titty and Bill. Captain Flint was steering, and Peter Duck was already desperately stitching at a sail. He did not believe in engines, anyway.
After breakfast it was clear to everybody that the Viper was gaining on them, very slowly, because of the fitfulness of the wind, but gaining all the time.
“Why not let me start the engine?” said Roger.
“Didn’t you hear me trying to start it?” said Captain Flint. “That wretched monkey of yours has fairly choked it with oil and grease. There’s nothing to be done with it until we take it to pieces and put it together again.”
“It’s not really Gibber’s fault,” said Roger. “He did his best, and he worked very hard.”
“Yes, I know that,” said Captain Flint, “but laziness, in monkeys, is a virtue.”
All the same, when John, Nancy, and Bill were all free to look after the steering, Captain Flint took Roger down with him under the deckhouse, and they spent the morning in taking the engine to pieces. Gibber would have liked to join them, but Roger had to agree that just now the monkey would be better in his cabin.
Once or twice during the morning Captain Flint came up to glance astern from the door of the deckhouse.
“The little donkey’ll not help us,” said Peter Duck.
“It’s something to do,” said Captain Flint. “I’m no good with a needle.”
When Nancy struck eight bells, one two, one two, one two, one two, on the ship’s bell at noon, Crab Island was just disappearing below the horizon.
“Goodbye,” cried Titty suddenly, and waved her hand.
“Who are you waving to?” asked Bill. “Black Jake? We’re not leaving him, seems to me.”
The island was disappearing, but the Wild Cat was not alone. There was the black schooner sailing after her, and it was easy to see that she was drawing
nearer.
It was dreadfully hot. There was no sun. A black cloud spread from one side of the sky to the other.
“There’s trouble coming for both of us,” said Mr Duck. “We’re not through with that storm yet. Now a capful of wind’d be welcome. She’s faster’n us, is the Viper, in light winds, but in a bit of a blow we’d be showing her our heels while they’d be dowsing her sails. But there’s something more’n a capful coming.”
Everybody had dinner on deck.
Nobody felt much like talking.
Roger did open his mouth to speak, but even he, when he saw Captain Flint’s face, knew without being told that this was not the time to remind him of the treasure box in the deckhouse.
All afternoon the Viper crept up. The little wind there was blew this way and that under the heavy sky, and sometimes died altogether and left both schooners idly drifting, rolling, rolling, and swinging their heavy gaffs and booms from side to side in the uneven sea.
“There’s not a chance of getting that engine going before dark,” said Captain Flint at last, coming up on deck.
“If it would only come on to blow now, so that the Viper couldn’t carry her topsails, we’d slip away from them yet,” said Peter Duck, stitching away as hard as he could, to get one topsail ready to set on the Wild Cat. Both of her topsails had been torn to shreds in the squalls that had come after the earthquake, while Captain Flint was hurrying to get back to the island, not knowing what might have happened in Diggers’ Camp during that terrible night. “There’s something pretty bad coming,” said the old seaman, “but it’ll have to be bad indeed for us to mind it now.”
Peter Duck Page 33
