Swallowdale. Arthur Ransome

this tack Swallow headed across to the western shore of the lake towards a low island of loose stones and rocks, with two dead trees on it, one a roosting place for cormorants, and the other long ago fallen down, its naked roots waving in the air, over the place where, once upon a time, Titty and Roger had found Captain Flint’s treasure.

      There go the birds, shouted the look-out when, as Swallow slipped across the lake towards them, four big black, long-necked birds got up off the dead tree and flew away over the water.

      The able-seaman was looking not so much at Cormorant Island itself as at the water not far from it. Was it possible that she had ever been anchored out there, in someone else’s boat, alone, in the middle of a pitch-dark night?

      Mate Susan hardly looked at Cormorant Island. The voyage would soon be over and there would be tents to pitch and cooking to think about. She was looking through the telescope at the larger, wooded island on the other side of the lake.

      “It’s a very funny thing there’s no smoke,” she said.

      “They must be there,” said Titty. “May I have the telescope now?”

      Captain John glanced over his shoulder.

      “Ready about,” he called. Round swung the little Swallow, and this time headed for Wild Cat Island, of which the whole ship’s company had been dreaming ever since they sailed away from it last year. It certainly was a funny thing that, if Nancy and Peggy Blackett were waiting there to meet them, no smoke should be blowing from the trees. Nancy Blackett was always one for making most tremendous fires.

      “Nancy would have hoisted a flag, anyway,” said Captain John.

      “Perhaps she couldn’t get up Lighthouse Tree,” said Titty.

      “Nancy’d get up anything,” said Captain John.

      “Hullo,” shouted Roger, looking above the island at an old white farm-house high on the farther shore of the lake. “There’s Dixon’s farm. There’s Mrs. Dixon. Feeding geese. Look at those white spots.”

      “They may be hens,” said Susan.

      “Her hens are all brown,” said Roger. “Of course they might be only ducks.”

      “Where are you going to land?” Susan asked the captain.

      “I can make either end of the island on this tack.”

      “The old landing-place is nearer the camp.”

      “Oh, let’s look into the harbour first,” said Titty.

      The harbour was at the southern end of the island. It was sheltered by high rocks, and there were marks on shore to show the way in through the dangerous shoals outside. The landing-place was on the eastern side of the island, the side nearest to the mainland. It was a little bay with a shingle beach, close to the place that they had used for a camp. It was always best to bring boats to the landing-place instead of to the harbour when there was much cargo to be put ashore.

      John steered for the southern end of the island, and, keeping well clear of the outer rocks, passed outside the entrance to the harbour.

      “Amazon’s not in the harbour,” said the look-out.

      Secretly everybody had thought she would be. There might be no smoke and no flag, but that would be natural if Captain Nancy, making sure that they would come straight to the landing-place, had hidden Amazon in the harbour and was waiting in ambush somewhere on the island. It was just the sort of thing she might do.

      “There’s the stump with the white cross on it,” said Titty. “There’s the high mark, the forked tree. There’s the rock where I saw my dipper. Oh, isn’t it jolly to be back!”

      “They’ve painted the cross again on the low mark,” said John. “It jolly well needed it, too.”

      “They must be here,” said Titty. “No one else would have bothered to do it. No one else knows about it.”

      The moment they had sailed past the entrance there was nothing to be seen but grey rocks. No one who did not know would have guessed that a snug harbour was hidden among them. For its size the harbour on Wild Cat Island was certainly one of the finest harbours in the world.

      John put up the helm, hauled in his mainsheet, jibed the boom carefully over, met his vessel with the helm, and let the mainsheet out again steadily and not all in a rush. Swallow, with a following wind, was running up the channel between the island and the mainland.

      “There’s the landing-place,” shouted Roger, as soon as he could see it. “But Amazon isn’t there either.”

      John sailed on and then hauled in the sheet for a moment while he headed Swallow for the little strip of smooth beach.

      “She’ll do it now,” he said to himself, and let the sheet out again until the sail flapped idly in the wind while the Swallow slid more and more slowly into smoother and smoother water. She was moving at last so slowly that the crew hardly felt her as she stopped with her nose on the beach. The ship’s boy, painter in hand, jumped ashore.

      “Lower away now, Mister Mate,” said the captain.

      Susan had already scrambled forward over the cargo. She loosed the halyard and paid it out hand over hand. Down came the yard and was unhooked by the able-seaman, while the captain gathered boom and sail into the boat.

      The parrot was the next man ashore, handed out in his cage to the ship’s boy. The able-seaman followed the parrot. Then came the mate and the captain. They waited just long enough to pull Swallow well up before hurrying to the old camping-place on the open ground among the trees. Roger, Titty and the parrot got there first.

      There was no one waiting for them. But, not far from the fireplace, left from last year, there was a large stack of driftwood all ready for burning, and on the top of it was a big white envelope, pegged in its place by an arrow with a green feather.

      “The Amazons,” shouted Roger. “It’s one of their arrows.”

      “One of your old feathers, Polly,” said Titty, putting down the cage, and the parrot, seeing his green feather in the arrow, twanged his beak on the bars and let out a long angry scream.

      Susan pulled out the arrow.

      On the envelope was written in blue pencil: “To the Swallows.”

      “Open it,” said Captain John.

      Inside it was a sheet of paper on which was written in red pencil:

      TO THE SWALLOWS FROM THE AMAZON PIRATES. WELCOME TO WILD CAT ISLAND. WE’LL COME AS SOON AS EVER WE CAN. NATIVE TROUBLE. CAPTAIN FLINT IS STUCK TOO. HAS TITTY REMEMBERED THE GREEN FEATHERS? THESE ARE OUR LAST. SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS FOR EVER!

      NANCY BLACKETT, THE TERROR OF THE SEAS,

      CAPTAIN OF THE AMAZON.

      PEGGY BLACKETT, MATE

      P.S. — WE’LL BE WATCHING FOR YOUR SMOKE.

      Opposite the two signatures, a skull and cross-bones had been drawn in pencil and then blacked in heavily with ink.

      “Have you got the feathers for them, Titty?” said John.

      “Of course I have,” said the able-seaman. “They’re in an envelope rolled up in my sleeping-bag. I haven’t lost a single one.”

      CHAPTER II

      WILD CAT ISLAND

      “I WONDER WHAT they mean by ‘native trouble,’” said Able-seaman Titty, when she had read the letter carefully through to herself.

      “That’s just Nancy,” said Mate Susan. “She always thinks there’s no fun without trouble, so she’d put it in anyhow.”

      “But