Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome Swallows And Amazons

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carefully. “When they begin to flake, you have to keep scraping them off the bottom of the pan. I saw Mrs. Jackson do it.”

      “They’re flaking now,” said Susan. “Come on and scrape away.”

      She put the frying-pan on the ground, and gave every one a spoon. The captain, mate, and the crew of the Swallow squatted round the frying-pan, and began eating as soon as the scrambled eggs, which were very hot, would let them. Mate Susan had already cut four huge slices of brown bread and butter to eat with the eggs. Then she poured out four mugs of tea, and filled them up with milk from a bottle. “There’ll be enough milk in the bottle for to-day,” mother had said, “but for to-morrow we must try to find you milk from a farm a little nearer than Holly Howe.” Then there was a big rice pudding, which had been brought with them on the top of the things in one of the big biscuit tins. It too became a common dish, like the frying-pan. Then there were four big slabs of seed cake. Then there were apples all round.

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      CHAPTER V

      FIRST NIGHT ON THE ISLAND

      AFTER THEY HAD finished the eggs and the rice pudding and the brown bread and butter and the seed cake and the apples, the mate and the able-seaman did some washing up. The spoons had to be cleaned and the frying-pan scraped, and the mugs and pudding-basin swilled in the lake. The captain and the boy took the telescope, and found a good place on the high ground above the camp at the northern end of the island, where they could lie in a hollow of the rocks and look out between tufts of heather without being seen by anyone. Close behind them was the tall pine tree that they had seen when they looked at the island from the Peak in Darien.

      Captain John lay on his back in the heather, and looked up into the tree.

      “Properly,” he said, “we ought to have a flagstaff on the top of it.”

      “What for?” said Roger.

      “So that we could hoist a flag there as a signal. Supposing Susan and Titty were here alone, while you and I had gone fishing. . .”

      “We’ve forgotten our fishing rods,” said Roger.

      “We’ll get them to-morrow,” said John. “But supposing we were away fishing, and the natives came back, the ones that made the fireplace, then if we saw the flag hoisted we should know something was the matter, and come back to help. And it would make a fine lighthouse too. If any of us were sailing home after dark, whoever was left on the island could hoist the lantern, and make the tree into a lighthouse, so that we could find the island however dark it was.”

      “But Susan and Titty and I could never climb the tree. It’s got no sticky-out branches.”

      Like most pines, the tree was bare of branches for the first fifteen or twenty feet of its height.

      “If I can swarm up it as far as the bottom branch I could hang a rope over it so that both ends came to the ground. Then no one would have to climb it again. Anybody could tie the lantern to the rope and pull it up. One end would have to be tied to the ring on the top of the lantern, and the other to the bottom so that we could pull it either up or down, and keep it from swinging about.”

      “Have we got enough rope?” said Roger.

      “We haven’t any small enough. The anchor rope is much too thick, and the spare rope isn’t long enough. I’ll have to get some small rope to-morrow. It’s a good thing I had a birthday just before we came here. We can get plenty of rope with five shillings.”

      Just then Mate Susan and Able-seaman Titty joined them, and threw themselves down in the heather.

      “Everything’s ready for the night,” said Susan, “except the beds, and we can’t make them till the native brings the haybags.”

      Titty jumped up. “There’s a boat coming now,” she said. “Roger, you must be sleepy, or you’d have seen it.”

      “I’m not sleepy,” said Roger. “I wasn’t looking. You can be wide awake, and not see a thing when you aren’t looking.”

      Captain John sat up, and put the telescope to his eye.

      “It is the native,” he said, “and he’s got mother with him.”

      “Do let me have the telescope,” said Titty. John gave it her, and she stared through it.

      “Mother is a native too,” she said at last.

      “Let me have it,” said Roger.

      He fixed the telescope to his eye, and pointed it the right way.

      “I can’t see anything at all,” he said. “It’s all black.”

      “You’ve got the cover over the eye-place,” said Titty, who knew all about telescopes. “Twist it round, and it’ll come open again.”

      “I can see them now,” said Roger.

      The native, who was Mr. Jackson from the Holly Howe Farm, was rowing his boat with long steady strokes. It looked like a water spider far away. But through the telescope it was easy to see that it was a boat, and to see the big lumps of the haybags and to see that mother was sitting in the stern.

      Roger and Titty took turns with the telescope as the boat came nearer. The captain and the mate went down to the camp to make sure that everything was ready to show the visitors. The captain put his tin box, the big one, against the back of his tent in the middle. He took the little barometer out of it and hung it on the fastener in front of the box. There was nothing else in the tent, so that it was very neat indeed. Titty and the mate had made their tent much more home-like. In the middle of it were the biscuit tins, with the food in them. These tins made two seats. Then at each side of the tent, where their beds were going to be, they had spread out their blankets and folded in the tops of them. The cooking things were neatly arranged in one corner, just inside the tent. Outside the tent, on the rope on which the tent was hung, two towels were drying. Captain John looked in and then went back to his own tent and spread his and Roger’s blankets in the same way. They certainly made the tent look more as if it had been lived in. And, after all, it would be no bother to put the haybags under them when they came. Mate Susan put a few more sticks on the fire, to make a cheerful blaze. Then they went back to the others.

      “The natives will soon be here,” said Titty. “Shall we show them the harbour?”

      “No,” said Captain John, “you never know with natives, even friendly ones. We’ll keep Swallow hid. It isn’t as if mother were by herself.”

      “Besides,” said Susan, “they are bringing the haybags, and the landing-place is close to the camp. It’ll be much easier to carry them from there than through the thicket at the low end of the island.”

      All the crew of the Swallow stood up and pointed to the east. Mother, the female native in the stern of the rowing boat, pointed between the island and the mainland on the eastern side, to show that she knew what they meant. She said something to the native at the oars, and he glanced over his shoulder, and, pulling strongly with his left for a stroke or two, altered his course.

      They were passing the head of the island. Roger had already run to the landing-place. The others of the Swallow were close behind him and when the native ran his boat ashore, the whole ship’s company were on the beach, ready to help him to pull the boat up.

      “But what have you done with your Ship?” asked mother. “Where is the Swallow?”

      “Allawallacallacacuklacaowlacaculla,” said Titty. “That means that we can’t possibly tell you because you’re a native . . . a nice native, of course.”

      “Burroborromjeeboomding,” said mother. “That means that I don’t care where she is so long as she is all right.”

      “She’s in a splendid place,” said Captain

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