Magic by the Lake

by Edward Eager

  Chauncey Cutlass looked at him, and smiled a dangerous smile. "I have heard," he said, "of a captain who buried a man alive with his treasure to guard it. Are you so fond of this chest, Simon Sparhatch, that you would care to stay with it? Or are any of you other gallows-fodder anxious to take his place?" And he drew a pistol from his belt.

  Simon Sparhatch retreated, a scowl on his ugly face. The men growled in their throats but made no reply.

  "Well, all right, then," said Chauncey Cutlass. "Dig."

  The men dug again.

  Katharine, like many a more classic heroine before her, chose this moment to sneeze.

  The pirates jumped. So did the four children.

  "Hark!" said Chauncey Cutlass. "What was that?"

  There was a pause. Then Mark proved what a hero he could be, if necessary. He stepped out from behind his palm tree.

  "It was me," he started to say. But he suppressed the words in time. For Chauncey Cutlass and his men were looking straight at him, and yet they seemed to be looking straight through him at the horizon beyond.

  " 'Twas nothing," said Cutlass, after a moment. "Mayhap a sea gull flying over."

  "A black-tailed godwit, I'd say," said a learned pirate, "or a booby."

  "Or a seal barking," said another.

  "Can't they see us?" hissed Jane, from behind her tree.

  "I guess not," Mark hissed back. "Kathie wished grown-ups wouldn't notice, and I guess they're grown-ups, the same as any."

  "But they're magic," Katharine joined in the whispering. "They ought to notice everything. You'd think."

  "I guess they kind of notice, but not much," whispered Mark.

  "How the wind whispers in the trees," said Chauncey Cutlass, just to prove it.

  "This is dandy," said Jane. "Now we can plague them and prey on them and bamboozle them to our heart's content, and they'll never know who. What could be sweeter?"

  "What'll we do?" said Katharine.

  "Let's not do anything," said Martha.

  "Hurry up with that digging," said Chauncey Cutlass to his men, "and back to the ship. I like not this shore. The very trees seem to be staring at me, and the air seems full of voices. Spirits, I suppose. Still, all the better to guard the treasure with. Now. In with the box."

  The digging men stopped digging and heaved the treasure chest down and into the hole. Then they started to shovel the earth in on top of it.

  "Heel it down firmly," said Chauncey Cutlass, and they did, with a flat stone on top to mark the spot. Then the elegant pirate ordered one of the men to spread a cloak on the ground so he wouldn't soil his own velvet knees. And he knelt down and carved his initials on the stone with a diamond from one of his rich rings.

  The four children meanwhile had repaired to the longboat, and the others were soothing the faltering Martha, who wanted to steal the boat now while all backs were turned and row away with it. And she wasn't interested in staying to play tricks on the pirates, either.

  "It wouldn't be right," she said. "What did they ever do to us?"

  "Honestly!" said Jane. "Imagine bringing up a thing like that at a time like this! Pointing morals when you're really just scared! They'repirates! They ought to be preyed on! It's the Golden Rule!"

  "Yes, I suppose there is that," said Martha.

  "Don't worry," said Mark. "We've had lots fear-fuller adventures than this and lived to tell the tale."

  "That's true," said Martha. She wrestled with her fears for a minute, then set her jaw grimly. "All right," she said. "It's war to the teeth."

  "Good," said Jane.

  And now Chauncey Cutlass had finished his carving and strode to the shore, and his men clambered after him. The four children barely had time to jump into the longboat before it was pushed off.

  Inside the boat it was rather crowded, what with four extra passengers. "Stop shoving," said Captain Cutlass to Simon Sparhatch.

  "I ain't," said Sparhatch.

  "This is lovely," said Katharine, who was squashed between them. "Like being invisible, only better!" And she nudged the captain in the ribs with her elbow.

  "Don't be so familiar," said the captain, glaring at Sparhatch haughtily.

  "I bain't," said Sparhatch.

  "Careful," said Mark to Katharine. "Don't do anything rash till we get on the ship. Once aboard the lugger and the world is ours."

  "Maybe we can scuttle it with all hands," said Martha, her eyes glowing. That was always the way with Martha. Once she stopped being a baby she could be the terror of the block and the fiercest of any of them. Mark only hoped she wouldn't go too far, now she was roused.

  They drew nearer to the ship, and the children could read its chilling name, The Scourge of Cuba.

  "Yo ho," said Jane, "for the Spanish Main."

  "Pieces of eight," muttered Martha.

  The pirates climbed the rope ladder to the deck, but the four children lolled luxuriously in the longboat and waited for the pirates to hoist them aboard.

  "Summat be ailing with this here boat," said one of the pirates who were doing the hoisting. "It be heavy as a old scow."

  "'Tis bewitched," said Simon Sparhatch, who was helping him. " 'Tis them island spirits still a-following of us. Sure 'tis a cursed voyage. There be a Jonah aboard, and scrape my barnacles if it be not the captain hisself, the great strutting popinjay!"

  "Stow it, Sparhatch," said the other pirate. "That be mutinous talk."

  "Then let it be," said Sparhatch, making the boat fast.

  This gave Mark an idea. Maybe if they could stir the men up enough, then maybe they would have a mutiny as well as a pirate ship, and who could ask for anything more? As they scrambled out of the longboat onto the deck, he called the others around him in a whispering huddle.

  They made a few quick plans and then separated, Mark hurrying forward to the captain's cabin, while the three others ran to the mainmast. Coming from inland and being mere girls besides, they knew little of nautical matters, but Katharine untied all the knots she could see, and Jane found a jackknife and cut a few ropes here and there, and the sails were soon sagging and flopping and tangling with each other like wet sheets that you try to hang out on the line on a windy washday.

  "Sink me!" cried one of the pirates, looking up. "What devil's wind is this, fouling our rigging while the sea be all calm as glass and nary a breeze stirring?"

  "Sure the ship be haunted!" cried another.

  Katharine located the line that controlled the skull-and-crossbones flag and started to let it down, and a moan went up from the deck.

  "Wurra wurra!" cried all the pirates. "We be all doomed! See the flag standing at half-mast for the whole crew of us!"

  As for Martha, she knew no bounds. "Pinch them, fairies, black and blue!" she cried. And running among the pirates, she suited the action to the words. The pirates began howling with fear and swatting at the air, and one or two even climbed the rail, ready to plunge overboard and escape the ghostly pinches.

  "Belay!" cried Simon Sparhatch, taking command of the panicking men. "The doom need be for only one of us! And who but that great fop of a captain who landed us on that cursed island and catched us this swarm of spirits in the first place? Over the side with him and rid us of these pinching pests!" And he snatched up a belaying pin and started for the captain's cabin.

  All the pirates ran along after him, with cries of "Mutiny! Keelhaul him! Down among the dead men!" And Jane and Katharine and Martha ran with the others.

  Meanwhile, Mark had stealthily entered the captain's cabin and looked around. The captain was standing before a mirror curling his black whiskers with an iron and admiring his reflection. Mark stole up behind him, removed the brace of pistols from his belt, gave them a good dousing with the captain's own Eau de Cologne, and replaced them. The captain didn't seem to notice, exactly, but an uneasy expression crossed his countenance.

  "Am I alone?" he said to the air. "I thought I was alone."

  Mark closed the door behind him. "Now we can
have a really good talk," he said.

  The captain didn't seem to hear the words, exactly, but he saw the door closing, and his proud face blanched.

  "Whose ghost are you?" he said. "Are you Horrible Herbert that I fed to the sharks in Biscay Bay or Newgate Ned that I marooned and left to die on Rumtoddy Reef?"

  "Beware!" said Mark in a hollow voice. And whether or not the word was heard, the sense of it got across. Chauncey Cutlass trembled.

  "Your ship is adrift, and your men have mutinied," said Mark. "You are as good as shark-bait, yourself, already!" And the shouts of the mutinying crew were heard outside the door to prove it.

  Chauncey Cutlass showed that, whatever else he was, he had courage. He flung the door open and fired point-blank at Simon Sparhatch, who was in the lead. But a damp and perfumy puff of smoke was all that issued from the pistol.

  "Ha!" said Sparhatch, sniffing the air. "His powder be like himself, a great fizzle! A fitting ammunition for a mincing jackanapes! Up with him to the deck and toss the dainty dancing-master over the rail, then away to Hispaniola to make our fortune!"

  The captain was trundled up the companionway, and villain though he was, the four children could not help feeling sorry for him, a victim of that merciless crew of cutthroats.

  But they reckoned without the craft and courage of Chauncey Cutlass.

  "Avast!" he cried, as the sailors lifted him to the rail. "If you drop me, I swear by the Great Horn Spoon I'll come back and haunt you worse than these others! A plague on you for a bunch of mollycoddles, letting some old ghosts ruin our whole cruise! If you do as I say, we'll be free of the pesky things sooner than you can box the compass! If we can feel their pinches, surely we can feel to catch them, or I'm a swab and a landlubber!"

  The crew fell back and hesitated before him.

  "Quick!" he went on, jumping lightly down from the rail. "Batten down all hatches so none may escape from the deck. Then form two parties, and all in each party join hands. Stretch out the width of the deck. Start at the stern and let one party stalk them to starboard and the other to port. When the two parties meet, you should have them trapped between you!"

  Cowed by his fierce glance, the men obeyed, though Simon Sparhatch sulked and muttered.

  And a horrible sort of game followed, as the pirates stalked the deck, feeling before them and hunting down the spirit-like children, who fled vainly from one line only to encounter the other.

  "Here's one," cried a pirate, laying hold of Jane. "A fierce female ghost, to judge by the hair and teeth."

  "And here be another," said a second pirate, poking at Martha experimentally. "A small fat one."

  "Why, you!" said Martha, outraged.

  Katharine was caught after that, and Mark last of all.

  "Beware!" Mark cried balefully, as before, but this time Chauncey Cutlass was beyond frightening.

  "I don't care whose ghosts you are!" he said. "I'll teach you to come haunting mel Fetch a plank and let them walk it. Then we'll see whether ghosts can swim!"

  A plank was fetched, and the four children pushed onto it by the feel-and-grab method. Though invisible to the pirates, they were all too evident to each other, and none took comfort from the pale cheeks of the others.

  "Will we drown, do you suppose?" said Jane. "We didn't before."

  "Then we had a personally conducted mermaid," Katharine reminded her.

  "Now, if ever," said Mark, "is time to call the turtle. It said not unless it was absolutely necessary, and it is."

  "Here, turtle," said Martha.

  "That's no way," said Mark. "It's not just some old pet. You want to be respectful, and flatter it. O turtle," he began. But at that moment Chauncey Cutlass signaled to the men to tilt the plank, and his words ended in wetness.

  There was a moment of doubt, and struggling, and lashing out, and courage sinking to its lowest ebb. Then a familiar voice sounded in Mark's ear.

  "Well?" it said. "Pirates were what you asked for. I hope you're satisfied."

  Mark opened his eyes. A familiar figure was swimming beside him. But there seemed to be three more figures just like it, only smaller, swimming there, too. And suddenly Mark realized that he felt very peculiar and stiff in the middle and small in the arms and legs.

  "What happened?" he said.

  "Didn't you ever hear of turning turtle?" said the turtle. "It was the only thing I could think of at the time."

  Mark looked down at himself. It was true. Plated shells encased him on top and below, and little fat arms and legs protruded from the corners and were paddling him along through the water.

  "Now," said the turtle, "you can see how the other half lives."

  "Thanks," said Mark.

  They went on swimming. They went on swimming for what seemed like forever, for turtles are not the quickest of creatures, but at last they came into shallow water and up over the familiar sand and pebbles and snail shells of their own beach.

  "There," said the turtle. And it swam away, leaving the other four turtles on the shore, confidently waiting to change back to their real selves.

  But they didn't.

  Not a thing happened except that their mother looked up from her book and said, "Well, did you have a good swim? Come on inside; it's time for lunch."

  And she went into the cottage, and the four turtles looked at each other, and shrugged, which is hard to do when you are a turtle, and plodded after her.

  Carrie the cat took one look at them, hissed, spat, and leaped onto the mantel. But their mother went on not noticing a thing, except to scold them for tracking water into the house and tell them to go back outside and dry themselves.

  Handling a Turkish towel is even harder for a turtle than shrugging, and sitting at the table to eat lunch was harder yet, particularly as it was turtle soup.

  "I feel like a cannibal," said Katharine.

  "Cheer up. Maybe it's just mock," said Mark.

  "What do turtles eat usually?" said Martha.

  "Fish eggs, don't they?" said Jane. "Do we have any caviar?"

  "Certainly not," said their mother. "What in the world are you talking about?"

  After lunch she took them for a walk to Cold Springs to buy a few necessaries of life, and the four turtles caused quite a stir among the lakeside children as they stood in the grocery-store cashier's line carrying their parcels. But of course none of the grown-ups noticed anything unusual, and scolded all their children roundly when they got home for telling such horrid pointless fibs. Several were sent to bed without any supper.

  As for Jane and Mark and Katharine and Martha's mother, she didn't seem to see the other children crying out and pointing, but got quite cross at her own offspring for the way they were dilly-dallying and walking so slowly today. The four turtles grew wearier and wearier and more and more footsore as they plodded homeward, trying to keep up with her.

  It was with feelings of utter exhaustion that they finally flopped on the cool grass under the hammock late that afternoon. Martha went so far as to withdraw into her shell and announce that she wasn't coming out until conditions improved.

  "How long will it last, do you suppose?" said Katharine.

  "Till sundown, I guess, if it's like all the books," said Mark, "though this isn't like any book I ever read."

  "The shell part's the worst," said Jane. "My middle keeps itching, and I can't get at it to scratch."

  At that moment the sun sank redly behind the silver birches, and a few seconds later Katharine smiled with relief at the ordinary, but welcome, face of her older sister. Martha uncurled her head and arms and legs from a very peculiar and uncomfortable-looking position.

  "After this," said Mark, "I'm going to feel lots closer to that turtle. Think what it goes through."

  "I shouldn't think it would put up with it," said Jane. "I should think it'd go on strike."

  "We must be specially kind to it," said Katharine, "when we see it again."

  "I wonder when we will," said Martha.

 
"Dinner," said their mother, from the doorway.

  And they went inside.

  3. The Canoe

  "The thing is," said Mark, after their morning swim next day, "how often does every so often come? We said not every day; so at least today'll be time out."

  "That doesn't signify," said Katharine. "We asked it to give us time to rest up, in between, and I'm all rested now."

  "Who isn't?" said Jane.

  "Me," said Martha, but of course nobody paid any attention to her.

  "The turtle said when we feel like magic we should touch the lake and wish, and if the time is ripe, we'll get it," Mark reminded them.

  "Well?" said Jane. "What are we waiting for? Lake, here we come. What does everybody want to wish? Now I think," she started to go on.

  "If you ask me," said Katharine at the same time.

  "My idea is," said Mark.

  A period of utter confusion and rude interrupting followed. But at last Jane and Katharine and Mark decided that being in on the burning of Rome was what would make this morning just about perfect.

  Martha said she didn't feel like going anywhere or seeing anything right now, let alone a burning, and anyway their mother had said never to play with fire, and anyway she wasn't going to come. And she started burying herself in the sand, all but her head, "like an ostrich, only backwards," as Katharine said.

  "Never mind her. Come on," said Jane. So she and Mark and Katharine went down to the water's edge and touched the lake and wished. They waited, but nothing happened.

  "I guess the time's still green," said Katharine.

  "Yes," said Mark. "I kind of figured it might be. It stands to reason. We don't want to be greedy."

  "We ought to have sort of a timetable, though," said Jane. "Like every third day or something. Something we can depend on. This way's too risky. It'd be just like that magic to sneak up behind us when we least want it."

  "Let's find the turtle and ask," said Katharine.