Swallows and Amazons. Arthur Ransome

floats bobbed together. There was soon a pile of perch in the bottom of the boat.

      Roger was counting them “Twelve, thirteen, fourteen . . .”

      “Where’s your float, Roger?” said the mate.

      “And look at your rod,” said Titty.

      Roger jumped up and caught hold of his jerking rod, which he had put down while he was counting the catch. He felt a fish at the end of his line. Just as he was bringing it to the top there was a great swirl in the water, and his rod suddenly pulled down again. Roger hung on as hard as he could, and his rod was bent almost into a circle.

      “It’s a shark! It’s a shark!” he shouted.

      Something huge was moving about in the water, deep down, pulling the rod this way and that.

      “Let him have line off the reel,” said John, but Roger held on.

      Suddenly a mottled green fish, a yard long, with a dark back and white underneath, came to the top. It lifted an enormous head right out of the water, and opened a great white mouth, and shook itself. A little perch flew high into the air. Roger’s rod straightened. For a moment the great fish lay close to the top of the water, looking wickedly at the crew of the Swallow as they looked at it. Then, with a twist of its tail that made a great twirling splash in the water, it was gone. Roger brought in the little perch. It was dead, and its sides were marked with deep gashes from the great teeth of the pike.

      “I say,” said Roger, “do you think it’s really safe to bathe in this place?”

      “IT’S A SHARK!”

      After that nobody caught any more perch. The pike had frightened them away. And when the perch were not biting, nobody but John wanted to go on fishing. At last Susan said that they had enough perch anyway, and if they were going to eat them they would all have to be cleaned. So they hauled up the stone and the anchor, and rowed back to the island.

      The cleaning was a dreadful business. The mate did it, slitting up the perch with a sharp knife, and taking out their insides. The insides were burnt in the fire, and Roger took the perch down one by one to the landing-place to wash them in the lake. The mate tried to scrape the scales off the first of them, but soon gave it up. She fried them in butter in their scales, first putting a lot of salt in them. When they were cooked the skin with the scales came off quite easily, and there was the perch ready to be eaten. The mate said it was rather a waste of good butter, but the captain and the crew said it was worth it.

      In the afternoon they careened Swallow. They took the ballast out of her, and pulled her high on the beach, and laid her over first on one side and then on the other while they scrubbed her bottom, though she did not need it. But you never know. She might have been covered with barnacles, or draped with long green weed. Anyhow, ships ought to be careened. So Swallow was. Then they launched her, and put the ballast in her again, and stepped the mast and took her round to the harbour.

      After that the mate called for more firewood, and the whole ship’s company set to work and brought all the really good driftwood from the island shores, and piled it in the camp, close by the other pile that had been left there. After that they were tired, and went up to the look-out place to watch the shipping on the lake, and to agree about the names for all the places on the island. There was Look-Out Point, of course, under the tall tree. Then there were the Landing-Place, the Harbour, the Western Shore, and the Camp. Then there were the places that could be seen from the island. There was Darien, Houseboat Bay, Dixon’s Bay (this name was given up, and it was called Shark Bay instead after Roger’s great fish), and Cormorant Island. Far away to the south there was the Antarctic. Far away to the north beyond Rio was the Arctic. As for their own island, they could not agree on a name for it. They thought of Swallow Island, Walker Island, Big Tree Island, but were bothered by the thought of the fireplace which they had found there, and were using, and the neat pile of wood which, somehow, they did not like to use. Perhaps the island had a splendid name already. That did not matter for places like Darien or Rio, but for the island itself, they felt that it did.

      Meanwhile they took turns with the telescope to watch the shipping on the lake. There were the big steamers going up and down. A steamer would pass, and they would watch the spreading waves of her wash and listen for them to break along the shores. Then there were the motor launches. Then there were people fishing in rowing boats. There were also sailing yachts, but not many. But all of these vessels, steamers, launches, yachts, and even rowing boats, were much bigger than Swallow, and were put down as native craft. It was not until the third day of their life on the island that they saw another vessel of their own size, tacking out from beyond Darien, and disappearing into Houseboat Bay.

      CHAPTER VIII

      SKULL AND CROSS-BONES

      IT MUST HAVE BEEN about eleven o’clock in the morning of that third day when all four of the ship’s company were at the lookout place at the northern end of the island. The mate was sewing a button on the boy’s shirt, and as the boy was inside it, she was finding it difficult. The captain was busy with some string, trying some of the knots in The Seaman’s Handybook.

      Able-seaman Titty was lying on her stomach in the heather, now and then looking through the telescope at the woody point that hid Houseboat Bay and the houseboat of the retired pirate.

      “It’s still in there,” she said.

      There was a loud bang and a puff of smoke showed above the woody point. Everybody jumped up.

      “It must be fighting the pirate,” said Titty.

      “I told you he had a cannon,” said Roger, squirming in the hands of the mate.

      “Let’s go and help,” said Titty.

      Just then a small sailing boat, with one sail, shot out from behind the point. She was about the same size as Swallow, only with a white sail instead of a tanned one. She was sailing close-hauled against a south-westerly wind.

      The little boat sailed right across the lake on the port tack, and then came about and headed almost directly for the island.

      “There are two boys in her,” said Titty.

      “Girls,” said John, who had the telescope.

      When the little boat was on the other side of the lake, the crew of the Swallow could be sure of nothing, but they watched her as closely as they could, and took turns with the telescope. She was a little varnished sailing dinghy with a centre-board. They could see the centre-board case in the middle of the boat.

      “That’s why she sails closer to the wind than we do,” said John; “though Swallow sails very close,” he added, out of loyalty to his ship.

      In the little boat were two girls, one steering, the other sitting on the middle thwart. The two were almost exactly alike. Both had red knitted caps, brown shirts, blue knickerbockers, and no stockings. They were steering straight for the island.

      “Lie down everybody,” said Captain John. “We don’t know whether they are friends or enemies.”

      Roger, the button now fixed to his shirt, dropped flat. So did Titty. So did Susan. Captain John rested the telescope on the edge of the rock so that he could see through it while his head was hidden by a clump of heather.

      “I can read her name,” he said. “AM am, AZ az, O . . . N . . . Amazon.”

      The others, hiding in the heather, looked out as much as they dared. The little boat came nearer and nearer. The girl who was steering (they could see now that she was the bigger of the two) pulled something from under the stern sheets. The other reached aft to take it, and then went forward, and was busy with something about the mast.

      Suddenly