Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“They’ll tell him right enough,” said Young Billy. “You tell them to tell their Uncle Jim that Young Billy, that’s me, sent him word to put a good padlock on that houseboat of his if he leaves it at nights. Down in the pub at Bigland yonder there was a deal too much talk going about that houseboat and what he has in it. Nobody in these parts would touch it, but when talk gets going as far as Bigland, you never know who hears it. There’s more than plenty of wild young lads that are up to anything without thinking twice.”

“Maybe nowt’ll come of it,” he went on, “but if anything did happen, I wouldn’t like to think we hadn’t told him. I was going down to see him myself, but I can’t leave the fire for a day or two yet, and if you’ll tell the lasses, that’s as good.”

“We’ll tell them,” said John.

“You won’t forget?” said Young Billy.

“No,” said Susan, pulling out her handkerchief. “Not with this.” She tied a big knot in one corner of it.

“I can’t see the boat with the man in it any more, because of the trees,” said Roger.

John took the telescope. “We ought to be going down, anyway,” he said.

Susan turned politely to the old men. “Thank you very much for letting us come to see you. We have enjoyed ourselves very much.”

“And thank you for showing us the serpent,” said Titty.

They said “Good-bye,” and the Billies, the two old men, one very old and the other older still, said, “Good-bye to you all.”

The Swallows started on their way back into the steep woods.

“Don’t forget to tell them lasses about their Uncle Jim,” Young Billy called after them.

“We won’t forget,” shouted Susan, and waved her handkerchief with the knot on the end of it.

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The Swallows were back in real life, almost before they were out of sight of the charcoal-burners.

“They’re the finest savages we ever met,” said Titty. “I expect the serpent is for witchcraft. Medicine men, I should think they are. They’re so old. Medicine men from a wandering tribe from beyond the ranges.”

For a minute or two she was silent. Then suddenly she exclaimed, “Bother the Amazons!”

“Why?” asked Susan.

“Because the Amazons discovered them too. They discovered our island. There’s nothing left for us to discover for ourselves.”

“Well, we did discover them,” said Susan, “and they showed us their adder.”

Titty was cheered by this. “Perhaps they never let the Amazons into their tribal secrets. Perhaps the Amazons have never seen their serpent. Perhaps it’s all right and we really are the proper discoverers. Just seeing a person is nothing.”

“Let’s galumph,” said Roger.

“Come on,” said Titty.

Galumphing, which is partly jumping and partly galloping, is a quick way of going down-hill.

It was such a quick way that Able-seaman Titty and the boy Roger passed the patteran and the bent and tied hazel branches without seeing them. Captain John passed them too. He was wondering what he ought to do about warning the retired pirate about putting a padlock on his houseboat. What would the Amazons say about it? If Captain Nancy wanted to seize the houseboat by a surprise attack when the pirate was somewhere ashore, she would certainly rather it were not locked up. Captain John galumphed half-heartedly. Ought he to have told the two Billies that they were talking not to friends but to enemies of the houseboat man, who, for the present at least, was not the Blackett lasses’ Uncle Jim, but Captain Flint, against whom Amazons and Swallows had concluded a solemn alliance. He galumphed half-heartedly. But even though he was not galumphing with heart and soul, when it is easy to get so giddy that you can see nothing at all and to go so fast down hill that you can hardly stop yourself, he never noticed his own patteran. Susan, however, saw it. She had begun looking out for it as soon as she was in the path through the trees, and on that account her galumphing could hardly be called galumphing at all.

She came last down the track and found that the galumphing feet of the others had kicked the patteran aside. She would not have been sure of it herself if she had not seen the two hazel branches bent into hoops and then Titty’s blaze in the side of the hazel tree.

“John!” she called.

There was no answer but the sound of galumphing feet far away down the winding path.

She took out her whistle and blew it as loud as she could.

The noise of galumphing stopped. She blew it again.

She heard John shout, “Hi! Titty! Roger!”

She blew it again, three times.

John came slowly back up the path and after him the able-seaman and the boy, all three of them out of breath.

“You passed your own patteran,” said Susan. “It’s here.”

“So I did,” said Captain John. “I was thinking of something else. It’s a good thing you saw it.”

“That path might have taken us anywhere,” said Titty.

“Where is the patteran?” said Roger. “Somebody has kicked it away. Perhaps it was me. Let’s put it right again.”

“No, of course not,” said Captain John. “We put it there for ourselves to find our own way back. If we were to leave it now it would show the savages the way we had gone. We must unfasten these boughs too.” He cut the strings and the boughs sprang up again. “Now there’s nothing but the blaze, and it’s a very little one. No one will know where we left the path.”

“If they were good trackers,” said Titty, “they could follow our footprints.”

“It’s a good thing really that we went further than the patteran,” said Susan. “Our footprints will throw them off the scent. They’ll go on and on down the path.”

“On and on,” said Roger.

“To the end of the world,” said Titty.

“We mustn’t make any marks when we turn off the path,” said Susan, “that might show them.”

“The proper way is to jump,” said John. He took a flying leap off the path and into the wood. “Now, you three, all jump off the path at different places.”

They all jumped and, having thus thrown off the pursuit of all possible enemies, they came together again and began climbing down through the steep wood. They slipped and stumbled and saved themselves from falling by holding to the stems of the trees.

Roger spoke privately to Titty.

“But were the charcoal-burners enemies?” he said.

“No. Not just then,” said Titty, “but, of course, they might be.”

“I liked them,” said Roger.

“So did I,” said Titty, “especially the serpent. But they were savages all the same. The serpent showed it. Besides they’re no good if they aren’t savages.”

“But they don’t really eat people,” said Roger.

“They may have eaten hundreds of thousands,” said Titty.

They came to the road and crossed it.

“I see water,” said John.

“The sea,” shouted Titty.

A moment later they came out of the trees on the shore of the great lake. They looked round for Swallow and saw her where they had left her, about a hundred yards away.

“Properly,” said Captain John, “we ought to have made marks all the way up, so that we could have come out exactly at the same place. But we’ve done it near enough.”

“Hullo,” said Susan, “there’s one of the native boats close to our island.”

John pulled out the telescope and looked through it.