“She wanted us to be made to drive round with her this afternoon to pay her farewell calls. Just when everything was working out beautifully. We’d sent the message with the arrow, and got out last night and hid the boat under the oak, and we’d told cook about your coming, and she’d made us enough grog to drown an admiral and crammed this basket full of grub and hung it up behind the back door so that we could swipe it without her having to know. Somehow or other the G.A. guessed that we were up to something. That’s why she asked us to come out with her this afternoon. And we were expecting your owl call any minute. We couldn’t tell her that, so we simply had to say we’d rather not, and she was very snuffy indeed and said that all the time she’d been here she’d never once heard us recite any poetry, and that as this was her last day we could learn a bit during the afternoon and let her hear it when she came back from leaving cards on people and giving them the good news that she was clearing out.”
“Things looked very black and beastly,” said Peggy.
“She said mother and Uncle Jim used to learn a poem every week, and we knew they did, because they’d told us how awful it was, and then, luckily, she asked Uncle Jim what would be a good bit of poetry for us to learn. And he saved us, and said ‘Casabianca’, and mother went out of the room in a hurry.”
“But how did that save you?” asked Titty. “It’s a pretty long poem.”
“Because we knew it already, and Uncle Jim knew that we knew it. We had to learn it at school.”
“The boy stood on the burning deck whence all but he had fled,” rattled Peggy.
“So her dark plot was jolly well dished,” said Nancy, “and here we are.”
CHAPTER XXV
UP RIVER
ABOVE the lagoon the current seemed to be faster, and John began to wish that the war canoe were not so deep in the water. He could see Nancy looking at the reeds at the side of the river, and he knew that she was thinking how slowly they were moving past. But presently Nancy said, “We’re not safe yet, you know. Let’s get the other pair of oars out and make her hum. The G.A.’ll be driving round to the head of the lake and crossing the river at Udal Bridge, and we’d better get above it and out of sight, or mother and Uncle Jim will be dished as well as all of us if the G.A. happens to see us with you while she’s driving round.” After that, with John and Nancy rowing and Peggy telling them which side to pull hardest, they went up the river at such a pace that there might have been no current at all.
“What are we going to do now?” asked Roger, and Peggy was just going to say something, when Nancy stopped her.
“Wait till we get to the first cataract,” she panted. “No talking about plans while we’re rowing. It isn’t fair.”
The war canoe swung upstream, past the great oak tree.
“We wouldn’t have found the boat if I hadn’t crawled in under the branches,” said Roger.
“It’s the best hiding-place on the river,” said Peggy. “Once when we were little and nurse was looking for us, we got into the river underneath it, and crouched there like hippopotamuses with the water up to our necks, and she passed close by the tree and never saw us. But you’ve no idea what a job it was getting the boat there last night, and tying it under the tree in the dark.”
“Did you do it at night?” said Roger.
“Of course,” said Peggy. “Pull right, pull right.”
Above the oak there was a bend in the river and then a straight stretch with little bushes on the banks and no reeds, and at the top of this stretch there was a wide-arched stone bridge carrying the road that went round to the head of the lake.
“Are we going through the bridge?” asked Titty.
“In the boat?” asked Roger.
Nancy took a quick look over her shoulder, and then, still rowing hard, spoke to John.
“We can’t quite shoot it against the stream,” she panted. “We go for it full tilt, ship our oars, and scrabble through with our hands. Then as soon as there’s room you get your oars out again and pull for all you’re worth. Peggy’ll sing out when to ship. She knows. We’ve done it again and again by ourselves. It’s easier with someone to sing out. Now then, put your back into it.”
She had been rowing a hard, fast stroke before, but now she rowed faster still. Luckily John had done this sort of thing before, and was able to keep time. There was a good deal of splash, but that hardly mattered. What did matter was speed.
Roger half stood up with excitement, but the next stroke of the two captains sent the boat forward with such a jerk that he sat down hard and there was really no need for Mate Susan to tell him to sit still.
“Right! Right! … As you are … Left … A wee bit more. You’re going straight for it …” Peggy shouted her orders. “Two more strokes … Ship your oars!”
As he heard the last word John was already in the shadow of the bridge. There was a rattle and crash as all four oars were lifted from the rowlocks and brought inboard.
“Quick! Quick!” shouted Nancy. “Keep her going.” She was standing in the boat, stooping a little and grabbing at one stone after another under the curved arch of the bridge.
John did the same.
“Heave her along,” shouted Nancy. “Don’t let her slip back.” Foot by foot the nose of the rowing boat came out above the bridge. John was through.
“Out with your oars the moment you can,” cried Nancy. “Quick! she’ll swing. Don’t let her. Never mind. (The blade of an oar hit the stonework.) Pull! Good! Oh, good! She’s through now.” Nancy had her oars out in half a second and watched for John’s blades going forward, brought her own after them and with the next stroke was pulling as well as he. “It’s pretty hard work with so much water coming down. That’s all that rain we had the other night.”
UP THE AMAZON RIVER
“You’ve got a lot of blood on your hand,” said Susan.
“So I have,” said Nancy. “I usually do. Some of these stones are pretty sharp. We’re nearly there, and then I’ll give it a wash. Can’t stop till we’re round that corner.”
Again the river twisted. The bridge was hidden by trees. There was a loud noise of splashing waters. Not very far ahead of them the smooth water ended in foam-covered rocks and a line of low waterfalls that marked the place where the mountain stream changed into the placid little river that wound through the meadows to the lake.
“First Cataract,” said Peggy.
“Nobody can row up that,” said Roger.
“Nobody’s going to try. We land there. By that splashing. There’s an eddy on this side.”
Nancy glanced over her shoulder.
“Safe now,” she said. “Ship your oars, Captain John. I know the place. You’d better let me take her in.”
John shipped his oars, while Nancy rowed on, nearer and nearer to the line of falling, splashing water above them. Suddenly she pulled two strokes as hard as she could and then lifted her blades high out of the water, as the boat shot forward between two rocks. Again Nancy pulled a couple of strokes, and a moment later, so close to the falls that John in the bows felt the cold spray blowing on his face, the boat slipped across a patch of dead water and came to rest beside a shelving rock on the left bank of the river.
“Hop out, Skipper,” called Nancy loudly, so as to be heard in spite of the noise of foaming waters. “Hop out. Make fast to that little rowan. Hang on to the rock, somebody in the stern, or she’ll swing round under the falls. She did once, and got swamped.”
John was already ashore with the painter. Susan grabbed the rock just in time and hung on to it till Nancy had followed John ashore, when Peggy flung her a rope and made it fast to a ring-bolt in the stern. In a few minutes the Beckfoot war canoe was moored alongside the rock, the painter tied to the little rowan, and the long warp from the stern fastened round a big stone.
“Now for the cargo,” called Nancy cheerfully, and Susan, Roger, Titty, and Peggy passed up the knapsacks of the Swallows and the big fishing-creel and bedroom jug that belonge
d to the Amazons.
John and Susan were very glad that this stage of the expedition was safely over. There was something about these Amazons hard for them to understand. It was clear that they had been forbidden to have anything to do with the Swallows, that they had been forbidden to touch their own boats, since the boathouse was out of bounds, that they were supposed at that very minute to be sitting somewhere solemnly learning poetry by heart. Yet, they had got into touch with the Swallows by sending that arrow with its message from the very launch in which their enemy was being taken for a picnic; they had visited the boathouse at dead of night, once just for bailing, and once more seriously, to bring the rowing boat up the river and hide it under the oak; and here they were, doing the very thing that it seemed the great-aunt was most determined that they should not do. Of course, there was this to be remembered, that it almost seemed as if Captain Flint and Mrs Blackett were privately on the same side as Nancy and Peggy. At the same time it was a very good thing that they had got through the bridge and out of sight round the bend above it before the great-aunt came driving by and saw the Allies all rowing up the river together. If she had seen them, the whole thing would have been very difficult to explain, and whatever Mrs Blackett might think about it, it was just the sort of trouble in which mother, away at Holly Howe, would not like them to be mixed. Susan almost wished they had not come. Why couldn’t Nancy have waited a day if the great-aunt was leaving? John, of course, knew that Nancy would not have been Nancy if she had. Titty did not consider this side of the affair. One thing was quite clear, and that was that the burning of the candle-grease, just as mother and Susan had said, had done no serious harm to the great-aunt. At the same time, the great-aunt had made up her mind to leave. Was it possible that candle-grease had something to do with it after all? She would very much have liked to ask whether the great-aunt was going to the seaside or just to some ordinary place. As for Roger, after the excitement of going down to Beckfoot and bringing the Amazons away, and shooting the bridge, and mooring close by the cataract, he was thinking that it must be long past dinner-time. He said so.
“We’ve had ours,” said Peggy.
“We haven’t,” said Roger.
“We didn’t eat much,” said Peggy. “We meant to start again.”
There was not much talk while Nancy was unpacking the big fishing-basket. The Swallows had had an early breakfast. They had marched from Swallowdale to the Amazon River and had eaten on the way only an apple apiece and some chocolate. Instead of stopping to eat by the big oak tree, they had pushed off and gone down to Beckfoot at once, for fear there might be some urgent reason for hurry. The moment they began to think about food and to see food unpacked, they wanted it badly, and for a time could think of little else.
Mate Susan wanted to open one of the two pemmican tins, but Nancy would not let her.
“You’ll want it to-night, where you’re going to sleep,” she said. “And you’ll want the other for the top of Kanchenjunga.”
“Besides,” said Peggy, “it’s no good taking things back to cook. She doesn’t like it and she only gives you less next time. And she’s fairly stuffed the old fishing-basket.”
She certainly had. John and Susan saw at once that one person at least at Beckfoot had nothing against the goings-on of Captain Nancy and her mate. Cook had given them a fat beef roll, like a bigger and better kind of sausage. There were enough apple dumplings to go round. There were lettuces and radishes and salt in a little tin box. There was a lot of cut brown bread and butter. There was a hunk, the sort of hunk that really is a hunk, a hunk big enough for twelve indoor people and just right for six sailors, of the blackest and juiciest and stickiest fruit cake. And then to wash these good things down, there was the bedroom jug full of pirate grog, which some people might have thought was lemonade. Lemonade or grog, whatever it was, it suited thirsty throats. Altogether this dinner among the rocks, close to the leaping splashing water of the First Cataract, was one of those after which everybody feels a little sleepy but ready for anything when the sleepiness has worn off.
“Where did you say we were going to sleep?” said Susan at last.
“Half-way up the mountain,” said Nancy, tipping the last dregs of her lemonade down her throat. (She and Peggy shared one of the two glasses cook had put in their basket. John and Susan shared the other. Titty and Roger shared the mug that the expedition had brought with it from Swallowdale.)
“Half-way up?” said Titty, looking up at the woods that hid the mountain from them.
“Half-way up,” said Nancy. “It’s a fine place for a camp, just above the tree level. You see the whole thing is this. The great-aunt is going to-morrow, so we can come and join the camp at Swallowdale …”
“Good,” said John.
“Wait a minute,” said Nancy. “There’s something else. Swallow is nearly finished. Uncle Jim said nothing left to do but a lick of paint.”
“Not really,” said Titty, jumping to her feet.
“That’s why he sent the message for me to hurry up with the mast,” said John.
“Well, the thing is that as soon as you’ve got Swallow again, you’ll be moving back to Wild Cat Island.”
“Rather,” said John.
“And you’re coming too, and we’ll make a cave there, like Peter Duck’s,” said Titty.
“Anyway,” said Nancy, “we’ll all be wanting to sail. And you can’t both sail and climb Kanchenjunga. And we can’t camp in Swallowdale and Wild Cat Island at the same time. So we’re coming to Swallowdale to-morrow night. And we’ll climb Kanchenjunga first. That’s why it was so important to get the message to you. We’ve saved a whole day.”
“But you can’t climb Kanchenjunga now,” said Susan. “You’ve got to be back by half-past five.”
“That’s why you’re going to sleep half-way up the mountain. It’s proper to have a half-way camp, anyway. You see, the G.A. goes at eight o’clock to-morrow morning.”
“Five minutes to eight,” said Peggy. “I heard them making up their minds how long it would take to get to Rio and then up to the station, and they said they must start at five minutes to, if there wasn’t to be a rush at the last minute.”
“They don’t want her to miss the train,” said Nancy. “Anyway, two minutes after they’ve gone (it’ll take us that long to get into pirate rig), we’ll row up the river like smoke, leave the boat here, climb up the way we’ll show you, and join you at the Half Way Camp. By nine we’ll be with you, bringing the rope, and then, all together, we’ll make the last dash for the peak.”
“You’ll have to go back to Beckfoot again to get your tent and things.”
“We’ll get the tent all stowed in Amazon to-morrow morning early. Then, when we’ve conquered Kanchenjunga, we can all sail down to Horseshoe Cove together.”
“Don’t forget about the race,” said Peggy.
“Oh, yes. Uncle Jim says Swallow’s going to be as good as ever, and he wants us to race to see how much Amazon can beat her by. And mother’s agreed about our going to Swallowdale, and she wants you to come to Beckfoot. She wanted you to come before, but she couldn’t ask you because of the G.A. And Mrs Walker is coming too, and Vicky…”
“Bridgie,” said Titty.
“and that’s to be as soon as ever Swallow comes back. We’ll race you right up the lake. Uncle Jim says he’ll start us. Finish at Beckfoot for the feast.”
“Right,” said John. “Fair sailing. No oars to be used.”
“Shall we give you some start?” said Roger.
“Humph!” said Captain Nancy. “If you were in my crew…”
“Lucky for you, you aren’t,” said Mate Peggy.
“Look here,” said Nancy, “there really isn’t much time. We’ve got to show you the way. Don’t bother about the jug and the basket. We’ll pick them up on the way back. Let’s have that knapsack of yours, A.B., and my mate’ll carry the boy’s. You’ve had a fair day’s march already.”
“Our knapsacks were
heavier when we started,” said Roger. “Full of pine-cones.”
“Whatever for?” said Peggy.
“Patterans,” said Titty. “Good ones. We laid a trail of them across the moor for finding our way back.”
“Well, you won’t want them to-morrow,” said Nancy. “When we come down from Kanchenjunga, we’ll all sail down in Amazon so there won’t be any marching.”
“Roger and I are going back over our trail,” said Titty. “That’s what we put the pine-cones for.”
“Yes,” said Roger, rather doubtfully, and then, with more firmness, “There’s no room for anyone before the mast in Amazon. I looked last year, and I’m bigger now.”
“Oughtn’t we to get some milk before we start up?” said Susan.
“We’ll get milk at Watersmeet. That’s where Peggy and I’ll have to turn back.”
They hurried along the rocky bank between the woods and the river, a little river now so noisy that it was hard to believe it was the same quiet stream that flowed under the great oak and through the meadows of the lower valley. Here there was no room for a boat, and even a small canoe would have been battered to bits among the stones. There were woods on both banks, though here and there, through the trees, the explorers saw green fields and feeding cattle. Sometimes, at bends of the river, they caught just a glimpse of the mountain they had come to climb.
“Is it true there are wild goats up there?” asked Roger.
“Not lots,” said Peggy, “but there are some.”
Nancy, who led the way at such a pace that nobody had much breath to spare, stopped at last where a stream, too wide to cross without paddling, poured down out of the woods to join the little river, which, as the Swallows now saw, flowed down the valley between Kanchenjunga and the great ridge of moorland along the top of which they had walked from Swallowdale.
“The farm’s just through these trees,” said Nancy, dumping the able-seaman’s knapsack on the ground. “Let’s have that milk-can of yours, Captain John. Come too, if you like.”