Captain John spat on his hands, and rubbed them. This does not help much in climbing a rough-barked tree like a pine, but it seems to, so it is always worth doing.
Then he started. It was really not so difficult as it looked. The higher he got the easier it was, because the trunk was not so thick, and it was easier to get a good grip of it with his legs each time he wanted to move his hands up.
“Don’t stand right underneath,” he called down, and Titty moved a yard or two away.
“Don’t stand on the rope, Roger,” she said. She had the coil of rope on the ground, and was paying it out as John climbed.
The difficult moments were those when he had to pass one of the places where once upon a time there had been a bough. There was nearly always a sharp piece sticking out where the branch had been. It was easy to pass these sticking-out pieces with his arms, but not so easy to get his legs over them. They were strong enough to be awkward, but not strong enough to be used as footholds.
At last he came to the big bough. He rested for a moment with his head on a level with it. Then he got a good grip of the bough, let go of the tree with his legs and swung there.
“Take care,” cried Titty.
But as she spoke John had done what he wanted. He pulled up with his arms and kicked, and got one leg cocked over the bough. A swing and a jerk, and he was sitting astride.
THE LIGHTHOUSE TREE
“It’s a fine place for a look-out,” said Captain John. “I ought to have come up here before. But it’s no good having the lantern as high as this. It would be half-hidden by the branches hanging down from above. It’ll be better further down. The bough itself is a splendid thing to hang the rope over. Let’s have more rope, Titty.”
He hauled up more and more of the rope, unfastened the end that was tied round his waist, and dropped it to the ground on the other side of the bough.
Titty grabbed it.
“Hang on to both ends,” called Captain John, “and keep them well away from the tree while I come down. Send Roger to get the big lantern.”
Roger ran off for the lantern. Titty carried both ends of the rope to the edge of the look-out place, so that the rope did not hang near the tree, where it might have bothered John in coming down. John, astraddle on the bough, shifted himself till he was close to the main trunk of the tree. Then he got both his legs on the same side of the bough, and took a firm grip round the trunk. Then he slipped off the bough, and got a grip round the trunk with his legs. After that it was easy enough. He knew better than to slide down, but let himself down bit by bit, first moving his arms, and then his legs.
Before he came to the bottom, Roger was back with the lantern. Captain John tied one end of the rope to the handle on the top of the lantern. He tied the other end round the oil box at the bottom of the lantern. Then he hoisted away until the lantern was about three-quarters of the way up to the big bough. Then he looked round. “Now,” he said, “if we make the downfall fast to this bush it won’t hang against the lantern, so there will be no danger of burning it. Now then, Able-seaman, you’re the lighthouse-keeper. Let’s see you bring the lantern down, light it, hoist it up again, and make it fast. Here’s a box of matches. You can steady the lantern with the other part of the rope.”
Titty took hold of both parts of the rope, and paying out one and hauling on the other, she brought the lantern down. The rope slid easily over the bough. Then she opened the lantern and lit it, and began hauling it up.
“Is that the place for it?” she asked.
“About a foot higher.”
“That right?”
“Couldn’t be better. Now let’s see you make fast.”
Titty made fast the part of the rope that went over the bough to a little bush at the side of the look-out place, so that it was well out of the way. The other part, from the bottom of the lantern, she fastened round the trunk of the tree, so that the lantern hung straight. The spare rope lay on the ground between the tree and the bush.
“Fine,” said Captain John. “Lower away, and put it out.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“That’s that,” said Captain John. “Light up the lantern for the lighthouse, and hoist it up just as soon as it begins to get dark. But it’s no good lighting the candle-lanterns on the harbour marks until we are close to. Besides, you’ll want them in the camp. You’d better not put them on the marks until you hear us give the owl call. Then you’ll know it’s us, and not an enemy. I say, Titty, do you think you really can manage by yourself?”
“Of course I can. But do hurry up, or they might slip past you in the islands, and I couldn’t manage both the Amazons by myself.”
“They won’t have had time with the wind against them,” said John, “but we ought to get away at once.”
“Come along,” said the boy.
They went back into the camp.
“Rations all ready, sir,” said Mate Susan. “I’m taking a big bottle of milk for us. We’ll put it in the bilge to keep cool. And I’m leaving a small bottle for the able-seaman. She’ll be making tea for herself. Mind you don’t let the fire go out, Titty,” she added. “If you want to go to sleep, you cover it up with earth, like the charcoal-burners. It’ll be cold at night.”
“I’m not going to sleep,” said Titty. “I shall watch by the camp fire, shrouded in my cloak.”
“Roger,” said Mate Susan, “go into your tent and put on two pairs of everything.”
“Everything?” said Roger.
“Everything,” said the mate. “Two vests, two pairs of drawers, two shirts, two pairs of knickerbockers, two pairs of stockings.”
“I can’t put on two pairs of shoes,” said Roger.
“You won’t have to. March. Put on two of everything else. Pretend you’re going to the North Pole.”
“Two ties?” said Roger, going into the tent.
“And jolly well buck up,” said the captain. “There’s no time to lose.” He went off with Titty to step the mast, and get the sail ready. Susan came down to the landing-place with the stores.
“Isn’t it a good thing we haven’t got a centreboard, like the Amazon,” she said, as she pushed the biscuit tin under the thwart.
“A centreboard’s all right when you’re sailing against the wind in a narrow place,” said the captain, “but Swallow does very well without, and centreboards do take up a lot of room.”
Susan went back for the milk. She brought both bottles, the big and the little.
“Look here, Titty,” she said, “I’m putting your bottle in the water here, to keep it cool. Don’t go and forget where it is.”
Just then the boy Roger strutted down to the landing-place. He was as round as a football, and his arms stuck out stiffly at each side.
The captain and the able-seaman laughed. But the mate looked at him critically.
“He ought to be warm enough like that,” she said, “but we’ll take a lot of blankets as well, in case.”
She ran up to the tents for the last time, and came back laden with blankets.
“Have we got everything?” asked Captain John. “I’ve got the compass. What about your torches? I’ve got mine.”
“Mine’s in my pocket,” said Susan.
“I’ve got mine,” said the boy, “but I can’t get at it. It’s in the pocket of my underneath shirt.”
“Never mind,” said Captain John. “We’ll get it out when we want it. Then there’s the telescope.”
“Oughtn’t I to have the telescope, keeping watch?” said Titty.
John thought for a moment.
“Yes,” he said, “I think you ought.” He handed it over. He took a last look over the ship. “All aboard,” he said, and the mate and the boy climbed in and went to the stern. The captain pushed, and as the Swallow floated off he set a knee on her bows and a moment later was busy with the sail. “You won’t forget about the lights, Titty,” he called. “Everything may depend on them if it’s very dark. Lighthouse soon after dusk, and then whe
n you hear us make owl calls, light the candle-lanterns on the harbour marks.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Titty. “Swallows for ever.”
In another minute John hoisted up the sail and made fast. He hauled down the boom till the crinkle ran up the sail instead of across it. He made that fast too. They drifted out of the lee of the island. Then the wind caught them. With this fair wind the whole crew of the Swallow sat together in the stern. The mate was steering. The boom was well out on the starboard side, and the little ship with her brown sail slipped swiftly away in the sunshine.
“Hurrah,” shouted Titty, running up to the look-out place, and standing under the tree that was now a lighthouse.
“Hurrah, hurrah,” came back over the water from the Swallow.
The able-seaman watched them with the telescope until the brown sail disappeared behind the Peak of Darien. She then became Robinson Crusoe, and went down into the camp to take command of her island.
CHAPTER XVIII
ROBINSON CRUSOE AND MAN FRIDAY
SHE LOOKED ROUND the camp, and felt at once that there was something wrong. There were two tents, and a shipwrecked mariner on a desert island ought only to have one. For a moment she thought of taking down the captain’s tent, but then she remembered that for part of the time she would not be a shipwrecked mariner, but would be in charge of an explorers’ camp, while the main body had sailed away on a desperate expedition. During that part of the time the more tents there were the better. So she decided not to take down the captain’s tent. “It’s Man Friday’s tent,” she said to herself. “Of course I haven’t discovered him yet. But it’s ready for him when the time comes.”
Then she went into the tent that belonged to her and to the mate. It was still a very Susanish tent. Susan had taken her blankets, but she had left her haybag. It was quite clear that it was a tent belonging to two people and not a tent belonging to a lonely shipwrecked sailor. So the able-seaman took Susan’s haybag, and put it on the top of her own, and spread her blankets over the two of them. At once the tent became hers and hers alone, and it would be easy enough to put the mate’s haybag back in its place when it was time to be on guard over a whole camp.
She lay down on the two haybags. The sun glowed through the white canvas of the tent, and through the doorway she could see smoke rising from the smouldering fire. She began to feel that she was really alone. Even the buzzing of the bees in the heather just behind the tent helped to make her feel that there was no one else on the island. She listened for other noises. Birds were not singing much, but a sandpiper was whistling somewhere near. There was the lapping of water against the western shore, and now and again the faint rustling of wind in the leaves. But there were no human noises at all. Nobody was clattering tins. Nobody was washing up plates. Roger was not there to be looked after. Susan was not there to be looking after both of them. John was not at the look-out place, or splicing ropes in Swallow at the other end of the island. Nothing was being done by anybody on the island. Nothing would be done if she did not do it herself. It was like being the only person in the world.
Suddenly she heard the chug, chug, chug of a steamer on its way down the lake. On ordinary days nobody bothered much about steamers except Roger, but today, on hearing it, Able-seaman Titty jumped up and ran out of the tent into the sunlight. Through the trees on the western shore she could see the steamer passing the island a long way off. She looked at it through the telescope. There were a lot of people on deck, and she could see one of the sailors at the wheel. Perhaps the people on the steamer were looking at the island. They did not know that there was nobody on the island except one able-seaman who had been wrecked there five-and-twenty years before. Of course, that was because she had not waved a flag to show that she was there, and waiting to be rescued. But who would wave a flag to be rescued if they had a desert island of their own? That was the thing that spoilt Robinson Crusoe. In the end he came home. There never ought to be an end.
The steamer hurried on down the lake, and Titty followed it through the trees on the high western shore of the island. The path to the harbour was turning into a regular beaten track. “It really looks as if I’d been here for years and years,” said Titty, “but it’s a pity I’ve got no goats. Goats would soon have nibbled off all these branches that hang across the path, and catch your hair if you try to run along it in a hurry.” She took out her knife and began pruning the branches to make the path better. Every branch that hung across the path and was low enough to be in the way she broke or cut off until by working hard she had cleared the track the whole way to the harbour. Then she ran along it both ways, to the camp and back to the harbour again. Now it really was a path. What a funny thing it was that no one had thought of clearing it sooner. Somehow there was always more time to do things when you were alone.
At the harbour she reached up to the nail on the forked tree to make sure that she would be able to hang the lantern on it. She could not quite reach it, but that would be all right because she would be holding the lantern by the bottom part of it, and the ring that had to be hooked on the nail was at the top. The nail on the stump with the white cross on it was quite low. There would be no sort of difficulty about that.
She began to think that it was going to be a very long time till dark would come, and still longer till the Swallow and her crew would come sailing back. But it would be worth it if only they brought the Amazon with them as a prize. That would show the pirates. And then tomorrow the Swallows would sail up to the Amazon River to tell the pirates that they had lost the war, and to bring Nancy and Peggy back to Wild Cat Island as humble and respectful prisoners. For a moment Titty wished that she was with the others in the Swallow. Now they must be searching the islands by Rio, keeping a good look-out, waiting for dusk before going on to the mouth of the river. She wondered what the river was like. All the same you cannot have everything, and if she had not chosen to stay at home, and light the lighthouse lantern and the leading lights, she would never have had a chance of having a whole island to herself.
She took her shoes off, and paddled across to the big rock on one side of the harbour. She climbed to the top of it, and lay there, looking down to the foot of the lake and watching the steamer swing in towards the distant pier. And just then she saw the dipper. A round, stumpy little bird, with a short tail like a wren’s, a brown back and a broad white waistcoat, was standing on a stone that showed above the water not a dozen feet away. It bobbed, as if it were making a bow, or a quick, careless kind of curtsey.
“What manners,” said Titty to herself. She lay perfectly still, while the little brown and white bird bobbed on its stone.
Suddenly the dipper jumped feet first into the water. It did not dive like a cormorant, but dropped in, like someone who does not know how to dive jumping in at the deep end of a swimming-bath. A few moments later it flew up again out of the water, and perched on its stone, and bobbed again as if it were saying thank you for applause.
Again it flung itself from the stone, and dropped into the water. This time it dropped into quite smooth water sheltered by the big rock on which Titty was lying. Looking down she could see it under water, flying with its wings, as if it were in the air, fast along the bottom of the lake close under the rock. When it came up, it did not come up like a duck after a dive to rest on the surface, but simply went on flying with no difference at all when it left the water and came into the air, except that in the air its wings moved faster.
“Well, I’ve never seen a bird do that before,” said Titty as the dipper perched on its stone and made two or three bobs. “It’s the cleverest bird I’ve ever seen, as well as the most polite. I wish it would do it again.” She lifted herself on her elbow to bow to the dipper when the dipper bowed to her. It’s very hard not to bob to a dipper when a dipper bobs to you. But the dipper did not seem to like it, and flew away out of sight behind the other rocks, fast and low over the water.
For a long time Titty waited for it to come back. But
it did not come. Perhaps it had gone back to the beck where it lived. Suddenly Titty remembered that she was guarding the island against all attack. She ought to be at the look-out place with the telescope, not here. So she climbed down the rock, paddled ashore, and put on her shoes. Instead of going back by the path she had cleared, she thought she would go by the other path, that was hardly a path at all, the track they had sometimes used between the harbour and the landing-place. Here the undergrowth was thick, and the bushes were tangled with honeysuckle. It was like forcing your way through a jungle. Titty once more became Robinson Crusoe on his desert island.
She came out close by the landing-place, and stopped short. Something had happened while she was looking at the steamer and the polite dipper. She was no longer alone on the island. There was a rowing boat with its nose pulled up on the beach. A moment later she knew what boat it was. It was the rowing boat from Holly Howe. She ran up to the camp, and there was Mother looking at the empty tents.
“Hullo, Man Friday,” said Titty joyfully.
“Hullo, Robinson Crusoe,” said Mother. That was the best of Mother. She was different from other natives. You could always count on her to know things like that.
Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday then kissed each other as if they were pretending to be Titty and Mother.
“You didn’t expect to see me so soon after yesterday,” said Mother, “but I came to say something to John. I suppose he’s with the rest of the crew in that secret harbour of yours that poor natives are not allowed to see.”
“No. He isn’t on the island just at present,” said Titty. “No one is except me … and now you too.”
“So you really are Robinson Crusoe,” said Mother, “and I am Man Friday in earnest. If I’d known that I’d have made a good big footprint on the beach. But where are the others?”
“They’re all right,” said Titty. “They’re coming back again. They’ve gone in Swallow on a cutting-out expedition.” More than that she could not well say, because, after all, Man Friday might be Mother, but she was also a native, even if she was the best native in the world.