“Now then, Titty,” said Susan, the moment the motor car was out of sight. “Your turn. Quick, before something else comes along.”
Titty slithered down out of the dark beech leaves.
“One minute,” she said. “The last patteran of all. Just so that we shall know where to get over on the way back. There may be lots of other trees like this one.”
She pulled a tuft of grass and stuffed it firmly in between two stones half-way up the wall.
“If we climb just there on the way back,” she said, “we’ll find a good step on the other side.”
“Buck up, Titty,” called John, and the able-seaman ran across the road, and was soon over the wall and in the wood beyond it where she found the boy, still a little shaken and out of breath.
“I wonder if they had scouts in that motor car,” he said.
“They didn’t see anything, anyhow,” said John from the wall just above. “Hi, Susan. This is much the easiest place.”
There was nothing to stop them now, and they hurried through the trees towards the river. They could see where it was by looking out across the meadows. “Two fields away,” said John, “and a stone barn, and then an oak.”
HIDDEN BOAT
“There’s the stone barn,” said Susan. “It’s straight ahead, at the corner of the field, almost touching the wood.”
The trees were already not so thick, and when they came to the barn there was but a strip of green grass between them and the rushes at the river’s edge.
“And there’s the oak,” said John. “Stop a minute while I scout.”
He crawled carefully out from among the trees, looking this way and that.
“All clear,” he said, and the four explorers rushed headlong towards the great tree with low, wide-spreading branches that grew at the very edge of the river.
“The Amazon,” said Titty solemnly. “We ought to lie full length beside it and dip water with our hands to cool our parching throats.”
“Why,” said Susan, “it’s no time since you had an apple.”
But Titty dipped some water for herself and got a little of it into her mouth.
“It’s fresh,” she said to Roger. “It really is the great river of the continent.”
“Is it?” said Roger. “Where’s the boat?”
John and Susan were looking for the war canoe in the rushes on either side of the big tree.
“Perhaps they weren’t able to get out to bring it,” said John.
“I see it,” shouted Roger.
He had crawled right in under the branches of the oak till he could touch its huge trunk. On the other side its branches hung out over the river, the tips of them sweeping the water, and there, under these branches and tied to one of them, hidden so that it could hardly be seen from the river or from the shore except by someone who had crept in under the tree, was a long, narrow, native rowing boat.
“Nobody can beat the Amazons at things like this,” said John.
“But it isn’t a war canoe,” said Roger. “It’s the same as Captain Flint’s boat, or the one at Holly Howe.”
“It’s probably the rowing boat we saw in the boathouse last year,” said John. “Anyhow, it’s beautifully hidden.”
He climbed out on a branch of the oak, untied the painter from it, climbed back, and hauled the boat ashore.
“It’s their boat all right,” he said. “There’s ‘Beckfoot’ painted on the stern. Tumble in. You go to the stern, Mister Mate. We’ll drift down with the current. I’ll take the oars in the bows.”
In another minute the four explorers were crouching in the boat and pulling her out by catching at the oak branches that brushed over them with rustling leaves.
“It’s lucky we don’t wear hats,” said Roger.
Inch by inch they worked her out from under the branches. As soon as they were clear, John put the bow oars out. He pulled a stroke now and then to keep her in the current, and they drifted silently downstream between the swaying walls of pale green reeds.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE NOON-TIDE OWL
THE able-seaman was afloat on the Amazon River for the first time. The other three had been there once before, last year, when they had rowed up to the lagoon in the dark while Nancy and Peggy were sailing down to Wild Cat Island where Titty had been left alone in charge. But you cannot see much of a river in the dark and they were glad to see it by daylight. Besides that, it was pleasant to be in a boat again, even if it was not a sailing boat, but only a war canoe that was very much like one of the ordinary rowing boats of the natives. They soon tired of drifting, and John pulled the boat round, shifted to the middle thwart, and began to row properly, while Roger went to his place in the bows, and Susan called “Pull right!” or “Pull left!” so that John could row without looking over his shoulder and yet without running the nose of the war canoe into the reeds.
“We haven’t been long, coming over the moor,” said John.
“The desert uplands,” said Titty, almost to herself, as she sat beside the mate in the stern, looking up to the ridge of moorland along which they had marched from Swallowdale, and seeing all she could of the scraps of meadow that showed through the gaps between the reed-beds.
“We’ve not been long, really,” said John. “But they want us to be as quick as we can.”
“Here’s the lagoon,” said Susan, and the boat shot out into a small lake almost covered by big patches of broad-leaved water-lilies. Even in daylight it was hard not to catch them with the oars.
“We were lucky ever to get out of this place that night,” said John.
They crossed the lagoon, keeping to the river channel that made a lane between the patches of water-lilies. Then the reed-beds on either side closed in on them again and once more they were in the narrow river. On the right bank, trees came down to the water’s edge.
“Steady,” said the mate. “We shall be in sight of the house in half a minute. I can see its roof already. This must be the wood they meant.”
John glanced over his shoulder, shipped his right oar, and backwatered gently with his left. The war canoe swung round and slid with a low swishing noise into the reeds, on and on, until even Susan and Titty, sitting in the stern, had reeds all round them. It lost way. John stood up and used an oar as a pole. Another yard through the reeds, another foot, and “Can you jump it, Roger?”
There was a jerk astern as the ship’s boy jumped. Then with another jerk the painter drew taut, and he hauled the boat’s nose up against the soft shelving bank.
For the last time Captain John read carefully through the message from the Amazons. Then he gave it to the mate.
“I might be captured,” he said, “and it would be a pity to have to swallow it.”
He stepped ashore.
“Be ready to cast off in a moment,” he said. “And if you’re attacked pull across to the other side of the river. Don’t leave the boat. Stay in it or close to it. You’ll hear the owl calls, I should think. But whatever other noises there are, don’t come. That’s right, Roger, don’t make the painter fast. Be ready to slip and bolt for it.”
He was gone.
*
Mate Susan laid the oars ready, but inside the boat, so that if she had to shove off in a hurry they would not catch in the reeds. She went ashore to see if the ship’s boy was in a dry place or getting his feet wet, for the reeds were so thick that she could see nothing from the boat. She listened for the noise of breaking twigs or the rustle of last year’s leaves that would show where the captain was. But there was not a sound. The trees in the wood were close together and very thick. It would be possible for natives to creep through them until they were so near the bank that they could dash out and seize the boat. The mate thought it better to have everybody aboard. Roger found that the painter was just long enough to go round a tussock of grass and back into the bows of the boat, so that he could sit in the boat and hold the end of it and be ready to let go in a second. A ration of chocolate was served o
ut.
“He’s been gone ten minutes at least,” said the mate.
“Nearly an hour,” said Roger.
Then came the owl hoot. “Tu whoooooooooooo. Tu whoooooooooooo.” It sounded a long way from the river.
“He’s done it beautifully,” said the mate. “I’ve never heard him do it so well.”
“Anybody might think it was a real one,” said Titty.
“Some real ones aren’t half so good,” said Roger.
There was silence for about a minute. Then again they heard the owl call, far away, but not, they thought, in quite the same place. Then silence for a very long time.
“Perhaps he’s fallen into an ambush,” said Titty. “Hadn’t we better go and help?”
“He said we were to stick to the boat. He may have had to go a long way round to get back.”
They sat still, listening, hardly breathing. For a long time there was no noise at all. Then they heard a branch creak and steps on the bank, and a moment later the reeds parted and there was John.
“Hullo!” he said. “Aren’t they here?”
“No,” said Roger.
“They’re coming. At least I think they are.”
“Did you see them?” asked Susan.
“Were they behind bars?” asked Titty. “Or had they already got out? Were they in disguise? And, oh, John, did you see anybody else?”
“Sh!” said John. “Listen!”
They listened but could hear nothing.
“It was awful. The first thing I saw on the lawn in front of the house, just the other side of the wood, was Captain Flint and Mrs Blackett and the great-aunt herself …”
“Did she look all right?” asked Titty.
“Of course she did. She was walking about with a stick pointing at things on the lawn. I couldn’t see what she was pointing at. So I slunk on in the wood till I had got right round behind the house. Then I gave the owl call.”
“We heard it,” said Roger.
“Nancy Blackett was at one of the upstairs windows at once. She put her hand to her lips as if she meant me to shut up. Then I saw Nancy and Peggy creeping out of a back door and going off the wrong way. So I had to do the owl call again, just to show them where I was. But it only made them bolt like anything.”
“If they’ve seen you and heard the owl call, we needn’t do anything more,” said the mate. “They know where we are, because we’ve done just what they told us to do.”
“Well, I hope it’s all right,” said John. “Everybody else must have heard the owl calls too.”
“They were both beauties,” said Roger.
“What’s that?” said John, sharply.
Steps were coming nearer through the wood.
“Here they are.”
Suddenly there was the noise of heavier steps. Someone was running hard, and then close to them, behind the screen of pale reeds and dark green leaves, they heard a sort of squeak cut off short.
“Sh! You tame galoot.” This was Nancy’s voice and it went on in an altogether different tone. “Friends or enemies, Uncle Jim?”
“Betwixt and between,” came the answer of Captain Flint.
“Lurk, lurk,” whispered John, and the four explorers crouched in the boat. The voices were only a yard or two away.
“Betwixt and between,” Captain Flint was saying. “I don’t know what you’re up to, and I won’t ask. But you’re up to something, and all I want to say is that it won’t be fair on your mother and me if you don’t get back by five thirty. Remember it’s the last day. I’ll hold the fort for you till then, driving her round. But if you fail to show up when we come back, it’ll be more than I can manage to put things straight.”
“Honest pirate! We’ll be back.”
“That’s all right,” said Captain Flint. “Now then, I haven’t seen your allies and I’d rather not, but just you tell them from me, if you should happen to meet them, that if they want to give a signal right bang in the middle of the day, it wouldn’t be so hard on their friends if they’d choose blackbirds or jays instead of owls. Your Aunt Maria wants to write to the Natural History Museum about it. She says she’s never heard one at midday before. You tell them to be jays next time. Easier for me.”
“Come on and see them.” This was Nancy’s voice again. “They must be close here.”
“I don’t care where they are. I haven’t seen them and I’d rather not know anything about them. The midday owl’s put a weight on my conscience already, to say nothing of ‘Casabianca’!”
There was a laugh, quiet for Nancy’s, and the noise of Captain Flint’s footsteps going away.
*
John jumped ashore again, through the rushes. The boughs parted, and Captain Nancy, with a big fishing-creel slung on her back, and Mate Peggy, carrying a big white bedroom jug, pushed their way out from among the trees.
“Well done, Skipper,” cried Nancy, on seeing John. “You’ve hit the very place. Others all here? Hullo, Mister Mate. Did you hear my mate squeak just now? A galoot she is, a tame galoot. Anybody might have heard her. Hullo, Roger. How are you, Able-seaman? Let’s get aboard. There isn’t a minute to lose. You heard what Captain Flint said?”
“What was it he said about ‘Casabianca’?” asked Titty.
“Not that. I mean about our having to be back by half-past five. We really must, and there’s only just time to show you the way. Come on, Peggy. Easy there with the grog.”
“Well, you take it,” said Peggy. “It’s an awful weight. And you needn’t talk about my squeaking. Anybody would have squeaked just then. I thought we were done for.”
“All the more reason for not squeaking,” said Nancy. “The trouble with you is, you never know when not to squeak.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t. You very nearly went and squeaked over the ‘Casabianca’ business, and then you’d have got Uncle Jim and mother into trouble too.”
“Well, who’s making a noise now?”
“True for you,” said Nancy under her breath. “Let’s be moving, Captain John. It would be too awful if the G.A. found out you were here.”
“Sit down everybody,” said John quietly.
Susan, Titty, Roger, Nancy, and Peggy, sat down, where they were, in the stern and amidships. John pushed off with an oar over the bows. The war canoe, now heavily laden and more like a rowing boat than ever, brushed out through the reeds and, the moment it was clear of them, began to drift downstream. It was now Nancy’s turn to squeak.
“Shiver my timbers,” she said. “Out with those oars. Quick! Quick! Another ten yards and we’ll be below the wood and in full view of the lawn.”
There was a desperate scrabble to get the oars out, and one of them hit the water with a splash. That very instant Peggy quacked like a duck, indeed, so very like a duck that Roger looked about him expecting to see a duck rise out of the reeds.
“Well done,” said Captain Nancy. “She really is good at ducks. And they often come in handy.”
John had the oars in the bow rowlocks by now and had pulled a hard stroke or two. The war canoe moved upstream again along the wooded bank.
“That was a narrow shave,” said Nancy. “They’d have been bound to see us from the lawn.”
“What are they doing on the lawn?” asked John. “The great-aunt was poking at things and showing them to Mrs Blackett.”
“Daisies, probably,” said Nancy. “Ragging mother about them. She says there never used to be any on the lawn and now there are lots, and every time she gets mother into the garden she tells her about the daisies all over again.”
“Daisies?” said Roger, with wide open eyes.
“She’s never missed a day,” said Peggy. “It’s always the same. As if mother could help it.”
“Straight up the river, Captain John,” said Nancy. “Keep her moving.”
“But what was it Captain Flint said about ‘Casabianca’?” asked Titty again.
“It was very sporting of him,” said Nan
cy. “If it hadn’t been for him we shouldn’t be here now, and you would have made your march for nothing, and everything would have gone wrong. You don’t know what it’s been like the last few days …”
“Was it very bad when you got back that night after watching those hounds?” asked Susan.
“Dreadful,” said Nancy. “All leave stopped. Boathouse out of bounds …”
“We wanted to bail out Amazon, and had to get out of bed and creep out and do it in the middle of the night,” said Peggy.
“We weren’t allowed to come and see you any more,” said Nancy. “That’s why the message had to be so secret …”
“And on the way back from the boathouse there was an awful moment,” said Peggy. “We were pretending she was a heathen goddess, and she looked out when we thought she was asleep and saw us bowing our heads to the ground in the moonlight under her bedroom window.”
Titty interrupted them both.
“Was the great-aunt ill when you came back that night after being in Swallowdale?”
“Ill?” said Nancy. “Ill? Never in better form. She made the worst row that night she’s made ever since she came to stay. What are you looking so pleased about?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Titty. “But do go on about ‘Casabianca.’”
“Coming to that,” said Nancy. “Do shut up, Peggy, just for a minute. You see, the whole thing is, she’s going away to-morrow …”
“Not really?” said John, suddenly resting on his oars.
“Yes. But do keep on rowing. We’ve got a long way to go before we’re safe. She’s going to-morrow. We shan’t see her again till next year. Perhaps not then, if only she comes in term-time.”
“Hurrah!” shouted Roger.
“Sh!” said Susan.