Swallows and Amazons

by Arthur Ransome

  “I know we haven’t, but he has been telling them that we have. He is trying to set the natives against us. I don’t know why he hates us, but he does.”

  “Then he was shaking his fist at us yesterday,” said the mate.

  “I knew he was a retired pirate,” said Titty. “He has a secret. They all have. Either it’s dark deeds or else it’s treasure. Look at the way he fired at the pirate ship. He must have thought they were after his hoard.”

  “Yes, but why is he against us?” said John.

  “Perhaps this is his island,” said Titty. “You know someone had been here before us and made a fireplace.”

  “But if it was his island he would live on it instead of living in the houseboat.”

  “It would be much more comfortable for the parrot,” said Titty.

  “Anyway, it looks as if he wanted to get us turned off the island.”

  “We won’t go,” said Roger.

  “Of course we won’t,” said Captain John, “but the question is, just what ought we to do?”

  “Let’s go and sink the houseboat,” said Roger and Titty together.

  At that moment something hit the saucepan with a loud ping, and ashes flew up out of the fire. A long arrow with a green feather stuck, quivering, among the embers.

  The four explorers started to their feet.

  “It’s begun,” said Titty.

  Roger grabbed at the arrow and pulled it out of the fire.

  Titty took it from him at once. “It may be poisoned,” she said. “Don’t touch the point of it.”

  “Listen,” said Captain John.

  They listened. There was not a sound to be heard but the quiet lapping of the water against the western shore of the island.

  “It’s him,” said Titty. “He’s winged his arrow with a feather from his green parrot.”

  “Listen,” said Captain John again.

  “Shut up, just for a minute,” said Mate Susan.

  UNSEEN ENEMY

  There was the sharp crack of a dead stick breaking somewhere in the middle of the island.

  “We must scout,” said Captain John. “I’ll take one end of the line, the mate the other. Titty and Roger go in the middle. Spread out. As soon as one of us sees him, the others close in to help.”

  They spread out across the island, and began to move forward. But they had not gone ten yards when John gave a shout.

  “Swallow has gone,” he shouted. He was on the left of the line, and as soon as he came out of the camping ground he saw the landing-place where he had left Swallow when he came back with the milk. No Swallow was there. The others ran together to the landing-place. There was not a sign of Swallow. She had simply disappeared.

  “Spread out again. Spread out again,” said John. “We’ll comb the whole island. Keep a look-out, Mister Mate, from your shore. She can’t have drifted away. He’s taken her, but he’s still on the island. We heard him.”

  “Roger and I pulled her right up,” said Titty. “She couldn’t have drifted off.”

  “Spread out again,” said Captain John. “Then listen. Advance as soon as the mate blows her whistle. A hoot like an owl means all right. Three hoots means something’s up. Blow as soon as you’re ready, Mister Mate.”

  The mate crossed the island nearly to the western shore. She looked out through the trees. Not a sail was to be seen on the lake. Far away there was the smoke of the morning steamer, but that did not count. Roger and Titty, half a dozen yards apart, were in the middle of the island. Captain John moved a little way inland, but not so far that anyone could be between him and the shore without being seen. They listened. There was not a sound.

  Then, over on the western side of the island, the mate blew her whistle.

  The four began moving again through the trees and the undergrowth.

  “Roger,” called Titty, “have you got a weapon?”

  “No,” said Roger. “Have you?”

  “I’ve got two sticks, pikes, I mean. You’d better have one.”

  She threw one of her sticks to Roger.

  An owl hooted away to her left.

  “That must be the captain,” she said. She hooted back. Susan away on the right hooted in reply. And again they all listened. Then they moved forward again.

  “Hullo,” cried Roger, “someone’s been here.”

  Titty ran to him. There was a round place where the grass and ferns were pressed flat as if someone had been lying there.

  “He’s left his knife,” said Roger, holding up a big clasp knife that he had found in the grass.

  Titty hooted like an owl three times.

  The captain and the mate came running.

  “He must be quite close to,” said Titty.

  “We’ve got his knife, anyway,” said Roger.

  Captain John bent down and felt the flattened grass with his hand.

  “It’s not warm,” he said.

  “Well, it wouldn’t stay warm very long,” said the mate.

  “Spread out again and go on,” said Captain John. “We mustn’t let him get away with Swallow. He can’t be far away, because we heard him. If he had taken Swallow to sea we should have seen her. He must have her here, somewhere, close along the shore.”

  At that moment there was a wild yell, “Hurrah, Hurrah.” But the yelling did not come from in front of them. It came from behind them, from the direction of the camp.

  “Come on,” said Captain John, “keep together. Charge!”

  The whole party rushed back through the trees towards the camp.

  Just as they came to the edge of the clearing there was a shout, but they could see no one.

  “Hands up! Halt!”

  The voice came from immediately in front of them.

  “Hands up!” it came again.

  “Flat on your faces,” cried Captain John, throwing himself on the ground.

  Susan, Titty, and Roger were full length on the ground in a moment. An arrow passed harmlessly over their heads.

  They looked at their own camp, and did not at first see what Captain John had seen. In the middle of the camp a tall stick was stuck in the ground with a black pirate flag blowing from the top of it. But there seemed to be nobody there. Then, inside their own tents, they saw two figures, kneeling, one with a bow ready to shoot, the other fitting an arrow.

  CHAPTER X

  THE PARLEY

  “IT’S NOT THE houseboat man,” said Titty. “It’s the pirates from the pirate ship.”

  “And in our tents,” said Susan.

  “Let’s take them prisoners,” said Roger.

  “Hands up,” said the pirate girl from the Amazon, who was in the captain’s tent.

  “Hands up yourselves,” cried Captain John, and made as if to leap to his feet. Both the pirates shot off their arrows.

  “Now,” shouted John, “before they load again. Swallows for ever!”

  The four Swallows were up and half-way across the open space in a moment.

  The red-capped Amazons leapt up out of the tents to meet them.

  But they pointed their bows to the ground.

  “A parley,” shouted the one who seemed to be the leader.

  “Halt!” called Captain John.

  The four explorers of the Swallow stood facing the two pirate girls from the Amazon. The Amazons were bigger than most of the Swallows. One of them was bigger than Captain John. The other was about the same size. If it had come to a fight, it might have been a very near thing.

  But it did not come to a fight.

  “Let’s parley first and fight afterwards,” said the leader of the Amazons.

  “It’s no good our parleying with you if the houseboat man has got Swallow,” said John.

  “The man from the houseboat?” said the younger Amazon. “But he’s got nothing to do with it. He’s a native, and very unfriendly.”

  “Well, he’s unfriendly to us too,” said John.

  Susan pulled John by the sleeve. “If the houseboat man isn’t with
them,” she whispered, “they must have taken Swallow themselves, and the only place they could put her is the harbour. Their own ship must be there too. So if they have got our tents we can take both ships.”

  “If he’s unfriendly to you too, we had better parley at once,” said the elder Amazon.

  “Where is Swallow?”

  “She is a prize, and we have taken her into our harbour.”

  “It’s our harbour,” said John. “And anyhow that’s not much good to you. You can’t get out from this end of the island against the four of us. The harbour end of the island is in our hands, so that really it’s the Amazon that’s a prize, and we’ve got both ships. You’ve only got our tents.”

  Titty spoke. “Why have your arrows got green feathers? The pirate on the houseboat must have given them to you. You must be on his side.”

  The younger Amazon exclaimed, “But the green feathers are our trophies. We took them ourselves. He was keeping them to clean his pipes and we boarded his ship and took them.”

  The elder Amazon said, “We are all on the same side, and I don’t see the good of fighting.”

  John said, “But why did you come to our island …?”

  “Our island,” said the Amazons together.

  “How can it be your island? This is our camp.”

  “It’s been our island for years and years,” said the Amazons. “Who built the fireplace? Who marked the harbour?”

  “How marked the harbour?” said John. “You mean putting a cross on a tree there. Anyone could put a cross on a tree.”

  The elder Amazon laughed. “That just shows it’s our island,” she said. “You don’t even know how the harbour is marked.”

  “We do,” said Roger.

  John was silent. He knew that they did not.

  At last he said, “Right, we’ll parley. But you must put down your weapons, and so will we. You must take down your flag, because ours is in Swallow, so that we can’t put it up beside it.”

  The elder Amazon said, “It seems a pity to take down the flag when there is such a good wind blowing it out. It isn’t as if it was just hanging. One of you go to the harbour to get your flag from your ship, and then we can have both flags flying during the parley and everything will be proper.”

  “No fighting while one of us is going for it?”

  “No. Peace. We’ll put our weapons down now.”

  The Amazons put their bows on the ground. Roger and Titty put down their pikes. John and Susan had no weapons to put down.

  “Mister Mate,” said John, “will you send one of your men to the harbour to bring our flag from Swallow?”

  “Skip along, Roger,” said Mate Susan, and then, turning to the Amazons, “You swear the houseboat man is not there to take him prisoner?”

  “Of course,” said the Amazons. “But will you swear he does not do anything to our ship? We were very careful with yours, and we haven’t done anything to your tents. We could have burnt them easily or razed them to the ground.”

  “We swear,” said Captain John.

  “Why not scuttle their ship and keep them prisoners?” said Titty.

  “Until the parley is over it is peace,” said Captain John. “Skip along, Roger, and get the Swallow’s flag, but don’t touch anything else.”

  Roger ran off. “I’ve got their knife anyway,” he shouted.

  The elder Amazon turned to the other.

  “Peggy, you donkey,” she said. “Where’s the ship’s knife?”

  Peggy, the younger Amazon, felt in the pocket of her breeches.

  “Gone,” she said. “We must have left it when we were in hiding in the bush.”

  “We don’t want to take their knife,” whispered Susan to John.

  “We’ll give you back your knife,” said John to the Amazons. “As soon as our man comes back from the harbour he shall put it with the other weapons. We don’t really want your knife. We have three knives on our ship.”

  “Besides the knives for cutting pemmican and bread and butter,” said Susan.

  “This knife was given us by Uncle Jim last year for polishing the cannon on the houseboat,” said the elder Amazon.

  “Is the man on the houseboat your uncle?” asked Titty. “I thought you said he was your enemy too.”

  “He is only our uncle sometimes,” said the younger Amazon. “He was last year, but this year he is in league with the natives, and the natives are very unfriendly.”

  “Our natives are friendly,” said Titty. “Everybody is friendly except the houseboat man … and you,” she added. “And if he’s your uncle you must be in league with him.”

  “We jolly well aren’t,” said the elder Amazon.

  “Shut up, Titty, and wait for the parley,” said Captain John.

  Roger came back with Titty’s flag from the Swallow.

  “They’ve got a lovely boat,” he whispered to Mate Susan.

  “Hand over that knife,” said John.

  Roger handed it over and John cut a tall sapling from a hazel on the edge of the clearing. He made a sharp point at one end of it to stick in the ground. Then he fastened Titty’s flag to the top of it, found a soft place, and planted his flagstaff firmly beside the pirate flag of the Amazons. Then he wiped the knife on the grass, shut it up, and put it with the bows and the pikes.

  “Now for the parley,” said he. He walked towards the Amazons and held out his hand.

  “My name is John Walker,” he said, “master of the ship Swallow. This is Susan Walker, mate of the Swallow. This is Titty, able-seaman. This is Roger, ship’s boy. Who are you?”

  The elder Amazon shook hands with him.

  “I am Nancy Blackett, master and part owner of the Amazon, the terror of the seas. This is Peggy Blackett, mate and part owner of the same.”

  “Her real name isn’t Nancy,” said Peggy. “Her name is Ruth, but Uncle Jim said that Amazons were ruthless, and as our ship is the Amazon, and we are Amazon pirates from the Amazon River, we had to change her name. Uncle Jim gave us the ship last year. We only had a rowing boat before that.”

  Nancy Blackett scowled ferociously. “I’ll shiver your timbers for you if you don’t stop chattering, Peggy.”

  “They must be in league with the houseboat pirate,” said Titty. “Didn’t you hear how she said he gave them their ship?”

  “That was last year,” said Nancy. “He was friendly last year. This year he’s worse than the natives.”

  “Hadn’t we better sit down?” said Susan. “Shall I put a stick or two on our fire and warm up the kettle? It’s still got some tea in it.”

  “We don’t want any tea, thank you,” said Nancy. “But use our fireplace if you want to.”

  “It’s our camp,” said Roger.

  “Let’s sit down,” said Mate Susan.

  The two parties sat on the ground by the fireplace where the fire was still smouldering. Susan was right. It is much more difficult to be fierce sitting down than standing up.

  “First of all,” said Nancy Blackett. “When did you come to these seas?”

  “We discovered this ocean nearly a month ago.”

  “When did you first come to this island?”

  “We have been on the island for days and days.”

  “Well,” said Nancy Blackett. “We were born on the shores of the Amazon River, which flows into this ocean. We have been coming to this island for years and years.”

  “We used to come in a rowing galley until Uncle Jim gave us the Amazon,” said Peggy. “We used to land at the place where we found your ship, until we discovered the harbour. We have made our camp here every year.”

  “Look here,” said Nancy Blackett. “What is the name of the island?”

  “We haven’t yet given it a name,” said John.

  “It is called Wild Cat Island. Uncle Jim called it that, because it belonged to us. That shows you whose island it is.”

  “But it’s our island now,” said John. “It was uninhabited when we came and we put our ten
ts up here, and you can’t turn us out.”

  Titty broke in.

  “Is your Uncle Jim a retired pirate?” she asked. “I said he was as soon as we saw him.”

  Nancy Blackett thought for a moment. “It’s quite a good thing for him to be,” she said at last.

  “But,” said Titty, “you are pirates too.”

  “That’s why he hates us. He must be Captain Flint. He knows what pirates are. He knows the day will come when he will walk the plank off the deck of his own ship when we have captured it.”

  “We’ll help,” said Roger.

  “He hates us,” said Captain John. “He has been stirring up the natives against us.”

  “Let’s be allies,” said Nancy Blackett, “then it won’t matter who the island belongs to. We will be allies against Captain Flint and all the natives in the world.”

  “Except our friendlies,” said Titty.

  “Let’s be allies,” said Peggy. “Really we wanted to be allies as soon as we saw your smoke on the island yesterday. We are sick of natives. And we wanted to be allies at once, if only we hadn’t promised to be home for lunch. That was why we just sailed round the island and defied you with our flag. There wasn’t time for anything else. Then we went home.”

  “We watched you from beyond the big islands by Rio,” said Susan.

  “Rio?” said Nancy. “Rio? Oh, well, if you’ll agree to let the island go on being called Wild Cat Island, we’ll agree to Rio. It’s a good name.”

  “Wild Cat Island’s a good name too,” said John politely.

  “But how could you see us beyond the islands by Rio when we left you here,” asked Peggy.

  “We manned the Swallow and gave chase,” said John.

  “Thunder and lightning,” said Nancy Blackett, “what a chance we missed. If we’d only known we’d have given you broadside for broadside till one of us sank, even if it had made us late for lunch.”

  Peggy Blackett went on. “We came here today to look at you again. We got up at sunrise and sailed close by the island, and there was no smoke and we thought you had gone. Probably you were all asleep. Then we saw your ship at the landing-place. We sailed on to Tea Bay and had our second breakfast there, a real one with tea. The first was only cold porridge and sandwiches we got from Cook last night. Then we crawled along the shore and saw one of you coming back from somewhere in your ship. The others were bathing. Then we saw you all disappear, and we crawled back to our ship and sailed straight into the harbour. There was nobody there. Then we came through the bush on the island, scouting, and saw you round your camp fire. We took away your ship and put her in the harbour. Then we came back and made a surprise attack. When you found your ship was gone and you all ran down to the landing-place we slipped past and took the camp, and Nancy was saying that somehow it was going to be difficult to be allies.…”