Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

Titty, on tiptoe, followed to look at him, but when she was almost near enough to touch the heather on which he had settled, she forgot all about him. When the butterfly fluttered away once more, she did not even see him go.

“Roger! Roger!” she cried. “It’s a cave!”

Roger heard her, in spite of the noise of the waterfall. He did not hear the words, but there was something urgent in her voice that was enough to put the trout out of his head. What had she found? He came, running, and found her looking under the clump of heather into a dark hole in the wall of grey rock. It was a hole, narrower at the top than at the bottom, big enough to let a stooping man use it as a doorway, and yet so well sheltered by the rock which, just here, leaned outward over it, and so deep in the shadow of the thick bushy heather that was growing out of cracks in the stone above it and on either side of it, that it would have been easy to think it was no more than a cleft in the rock, and easier still not to notice it at all. The two explorers crouched together, and tried to see into the black darkness inside.

“Fox,” said Roger, “or perhaps bear. It’s big enough for bear.”

“I wish I had my torch,” said Titty. “To-day I haven’t even got a box of matches.”

They picked up stones and threw them in. Nothing came out at them, though they almost thought that something might. Titty held the heather aside and reached in the full length of her arm, just for a moment.

“It gets bigger inside,” she said. “Higher too. I believe we could stand up in it. Shall we go in? It’s not much good in the dark. Or shall we?”

“Let’s go and get torches,” said Roger.

“Come on,” said Titty. “We’ll go and fetch the captain and the mate. We’ll leave Peter Duck to look after it till we come back. It’s his cave. I expect he’s known about it always. Come on.”

They ran down the valley, scrambled down the rocks by the lower waterfall, and raced along the sheep tracks through the heather and bracken. Just where the beck left the moorland to tumble headlong down through the steep woods, Titty pulled up.

“The Amazons are there too,” she said.

Roger looked at her, more than a little out of breath.

“They’ve discovered almost everything there is to discover,” she said, “but perhaps they don’t know about that. We’ll tell them about the valley, but keep the cave a secret, for us and Peter Duck.”

“We’ll tell John and Susan.”

“We’ll get them to come to see the valley and then have the cave for a surprise. A cave’s far too good a thing to waste, and it’s wasted if too many people know about it. Of course,” she added, “if they won’t come to see the valley, we’ll have to tell them about the cave.”

They dropped quickly down through the trees, tore off their shoes and splashed their way under the bridge. They put their shoes on again without waiting to do much drying, and came breathless altogether to the shores of Horseshoe Cove.

They found, like many explorers before them, that somehow, in their absence, they had got into trouble at home. Tea had been made and drunk, scouting parties had been out to look for them, the Amazons were in a terrible hurry to be starting back, and the mate wanted to know why they had been away so long. The tea that had been saved for the able-seaman and the boy was nearly cold, and they were quickly bundled aboard the Swallow and told to drink it on the voyage home, for unless they started at once the Amazons, who were late already, would have to go without seeing the new tents.

But while the Swallow and the Amazon were being launched, the able-seaman and the boy began pouring out their story. They both began talking at once, but the boy soon gave up. After all, Titty could do it better. And Titty told of the moor above the wood, of the waterfall, and of the little valley above the waterfall, a valley so secret that anybody could hide in it for ever.

“Honest pirate?” called Nancy, who was already paddling Amazon towards the mouth of the cove. “Honest pirate, or is it a Peter Duck story?”

“Peter Duck’s in it, of course,” said Titty, “but it’s all true.”

The two little ships got under way. Nancy and Peggy in the Amazon waited for the Swallow outside the cove, and they sailed for Wild Cat Island within comfortable talking distance.

“That’s the Pike Rock,” said Nancy, pointing out the rock opposite the southern of the two little headlands. “You wouldn’t be able to see it if the lake wasn’t so low.”

“We saw it when we were coming in,” said John.

“It’s awfully jagged,” said Peggy. “Uncle Jim saw a fisherman sink his boat by rowing into it.”

In Swallow Titty was still talking of the secret valley. “Nobody would find it,” she said, “if they didn’t know it was there.”

“She may be quite right,” said Nancy, from the Amazon. “We’ve never gone up to the moor from this side. Are you sure about it, Able-seaman? A real secret one?”

“You couldn’t tell it was there at all if you hadn’t gone right into it,” said Roger.

“It might be just the place to go to when the great-aunt says we mustn’t sail,” said Peggy.

“Do you think I haven’t thought of that?” said Captain Nancy.

“You’ll make me upset the mug,” said Roger, as Titty prodded him gently with her finger.

“They don’t know about it,” she whispered.

“What about going there to-morrow?” said Nancy across the water.

“Say yes, say yes,” said Roger and Titty together.

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t,” said Captain John.

John and Nancy sailed their ships past the harbour at the foot of the island, up the inner channel, and brought them in at the landing-place.

“Just for one second,” said Nancy. “We’re late already.”

“We always are,” said Peggy. “But the great-aunt makes being late seem much worse.”

They raced up from the landing-place and looked round the camp. Susan thanked them for the wood-pile. Titty dived into her tent and brought out the envelope with the eight green feathers she had saved for them. John brought the arrow from behind the boxes in the store tent. Both the Amazons said, “How do you do” and “Pieces of eight” to the parrot, but the parrot had seen the green feathers and so would do nothing but squawk at them, though Titty tried to make him show off. They looked, sadly, at the place where their own tent used to stand. They said how good were the new tents of the Swallows, and then they hurried down to the landing-place, tumbled into the Amazon and pushed off.

“What about to-morrow?” asked Susan at the last minute.

“We’ll go to see Titty’s valley,” called Nancy. “It might be very useful. Mother’s taking the great-aunt out to lunch, so we needn’t be in till tea. We’ll sail straight to Horseshoe Cove in the morning. Be there before you are. Bet you anything. So long, Swallows!”

The four Swallows went up to Look Out Point to watch the little white sail grow smaller and smaller as the Amazon sailed away towards the Peak of Darien.

“I don’t see why they shouldn’t have come here in the morning,” said Susan.

“It’s beastly for them not being able to camp on the island when we can,” said John. “After all they knew the island first.”

When the Amazon had sailed away so that the pirates could not hear shouts, let alone whispers, it was hard for the able-seaman and the boy to keep their secret. But keep it they did, though they came near giving it away.

“There’s something more we discovered,” said Titty.

“Something better than anything we’ve told you yet.”

“What is it?” said Susan. “Probably a caterpillar.”