Missee Lee: The Swallows and Amazons in the China Seas

by Arthur Ransome

  “But he’s our uncle,” said Nancy.

  “He’s our friend,” said John.

  And then Titty said something which, almost as soon as it was out of her mouth, she wished she had not said.

  “It’s the same as if it was Daddy,” she burst out. “Think. Think. You couldn’t learn Latin if you knew your father was a prisoner. …”

  Miss Lee’s tiny fingers stiffened. She stared at Titty, and suddenly her manner changed.

  “Pelhaps not,” she said gently. “I will talk to Chang. You may go now.”

  And five minutes later, they heard Miss Lee’s whistler shrilling a message into the air.

  “We’ve done it. We’ve done it,” cried Nancy, as they listened and heard an answering whistler repeat the message faint and far away.

  “It was what Titty said about Daddy that did it,” said Roger.

  “Jolly good thing you thought of it, Titty,” said Nancy.

  But Titty was feeding sunflower seeds to the ship’s parrot and did not turn round.

  CHAPTER XV

  MISS LEE BUYS CAPTAIN FLINT

  THERE was no lesson next day. “Chang is coming,” said Miss Lee at the end of an almost silent breakfast. “I must talk with my counsellor. John and Loger can go on pleparing tlanslation and if Nansee, Su-san and Peggee know the first declension they can join Tittee in learning the second and third.”

  “Will he bring Captain Flint with him?” asked Titty.

  “No,” said Miss Lee.

  *

  “Bother the declensions,” said Nancy when they were back in their own house. “Why should we learn the beastly things? Let’s stick to what we said. No Captain Flint, no Latin.”

  “She sent off that message pretty quick,” said John.

  “He said we were to keep on the right side of her,” said Susan.

  “Come on,” said Roger. “Nansee. … Let me hear the plural of mensa …”

  He dodged just in time, but Titty agreed with John and so did Susan, and after Titty had fed the parrot and Roger had seen that there was plenty of food in the monkey’s cage after taking him for a short run in the courtyard (when, as Roger put it, Gibber and the guards, chattering at each other, talked two foreign languages at once), Miss Lee’s students did indeed try to work in the cool of the big room on the garden side of their house. But it was hard to think of dominus, domine, dominum when every minute they were listening for something else.

  Most of the morning had gone and nobody had learnt much when the great gong set the air throbbing about them.

  “Chang!” cried Nancy.

  “It’s the Taicoon!” said Titty.

  “Come on,” said Roger.

  They ran through the house and out into the courtyard in time to see the Taicoon, Chang, carried in through the gateway, sitting in his chair with a lacquered bird-cage on his knee.

  He saw the prisoners at once and, the moment he got out of his chair, beckoned to Titty.

  “Velly good bud,” he said, pointing to the bird, a lark this time instead of a canary. “Sing all way.”

  “He’s a beauty,” said Titty.

  “How pallot?” asked the Taicoon.

  “Very well,” said Titty. “And thank you for his food. But where is Captain Flint?”

  The Taicoon scowled. “Captain James Flint,” he said. “San Flancisco. Him numpa one velly bad man.”

  He said no more. The old counsellor was coming down the steps from the council room. They greeted each other and went in together, the old counsellor talking, and the Taicoon listening, nodding his dark blue skull-cap with its scarlet button, his bird-cage dangling from his hand.

  “I like that,” said Nancy. “We know the Taicoon means to get money for Uncle Jim and then cut off his head, and now he calls Captain Flint a number one bad man just because he’s beginning to think that perhaps there won’t be any money.”

  “What’ll Miss Lee say to him?” said Peggy.

  “If she wants to give us lessons she’s jolly well got to do something,” said Roger.

  “Chang looked pretty wild,” said John.

  “Couldn’t we get some grasshoppers for his bird?” said Titty.

  “There’s something like them chirping in the garden,” said Roger.

  “How long’s he going to be in there talking?” said Susan.

  “Good long time,” said Nancy, pointing towards the gateway. The Taicoon’s bearers had left his chair in the courtyard and were already settling down to play cards. “They wouldn’t be doing that if they thought he was coming out in a hurry. Come on. Getting grasshoppers is better than waiting about not knowing what’s going to happen.”

  They went through their house into the garden. At the other side of the orange-trees they stopped short. There, on the topmost terrace, were Miss Lee, the counsellor and the Taicoon, Chang, sitting in chairs, with little tables beside them, each with a tiny bowl of tea and a plate of sweetmeats.

  “Gosh!” whispered Roger. “I thought they’d be in the big room.”

  “Come on,” said Nancy. “They’ve seen us, anyway.” The six prisoners went on down the terraces into the lower garden.

  “He looks furious,” said Titty.

  “Titty,” said Nancy, “hop back and bring out Polly. He’ll see and it may put him in a good temper.”

  “Shall I get Gibber?” said Roger hopefully.

  “No,” said John. “Gibber’s more likely to send him raving mad. But Polly’s worth trying.”

  It was pretty awful going up the paths alone in full view of the three sitting there on the topmost terrace, but John had agreed with Nancy and Titty obeyed as she would have obeyed an order aboard ship. She waited a moment in the house, and put a fresh handful of parrot food into the feeding-box. “Come on, Polly,” she said, “you’ve got to help.” Then she picked up the cage and carried it out under the orange-trees. With one eye on Miss Lee, the Taicoon and the old counsellor, she crossed the terrace where they were sitting. The Taicoon was talking angrily and did not see her.

  And then the parrot, stirred by this sudden journey, sang out “Pieces of eight” at the very top of its harsh voice. The Taicoon turned sharply. Just for a moment a smile showed on his face. Then he went on with what he had been saying to Miss Lee.

  “Well,” said Nancy, as Titty joined the others. “Did he see?”

  “He heard,” said Titty. “And he grinned.”

  “Good,” said John.

  “We all heard,” said Roger. “It was what old Polly said. I bet he grinned because Polly talked about money. Probably made things worse. If only I’d had Gibber. …”

  “You’d have had Miss Lee and the Taicoon and the old man all raging mad together,” said Susan.

  Roger chuckled. “He might have copied the counsellor combing his beard.” His own hand strayed to his chin as he spoke.

  “Look out,” hissed Nancy. “The counsellor’ll think you’re as bad as Gibber.”

  “I’ve got one grasshopper,” said John. “Let’s have something to put it in. Matchbox, Susan.”

  “I threw the box away when I used the last match,” said Susan. “All our others are on the island with the iron rations.”

  “Shall I make a paper box?” said Peggy.

  “Can you?”

  “She’s jolly good at it,” said Nancy.

  “All the paper’s in the house,” said Susan. “No. Stay here, Roger.”

  But Roger was off up the terraces at full tilt, glad of the excuse, because he wanted to get a nearer look at the Taicoon. Presently they saw him coming slowly back.

  “Squabbling,” he said as he gave a sheet of rice paper to Peggy.

  “That means Miss Lee’s really trying,” said John.

  Peggy folded the paper and cut it square with her scout-knife. Then she folded in the corners so that it became a smaller square. Then she folded again. It turned into a hat, a double-ended boat, a salt cellar.

  “Bother,” said Peggy. “I’ve forgotten how.”<
br />
  “No, you haven’t,” said Nancy. “Go on. You fold and fold and then unfold and cut bits out.”

  “It’s not a very good one,” said Peggy a few minutes later.

  “It’ll do,” said Nancy. “Giminy, how those beasts can hop.”

  “Got one,” said Roger. “Not very big.”

  “He was always picking out little ones the other day,” said Titty. “They’re the ones his birds like best.”

  They had half a dozen small grasshoppers in the paper box when they heard Miss Lee call “Nansee!”

  “Coming,” called Nancy and looked round at the others.

  “We’ll all come,” said John.

  “They can’t exactly eat us,” said Nancy, but they knew that she was glad she was not going up there alone.

  “Better bring Polly,” said Roger.

  They stood in a row in front of the three Chinese. The Taicoon, Chang was scowling, though his eye softened a little as it fell on the parrot. The counsellor, looking far beyond them at the distant hills, was combing his wispy beard with finger-nails that, as Roger had said, were as long as his fingers. Miss Lee looked straight at Nancy. She spoke very slowly, word by word, so that, though she spoke in English, Chang should know what she was saying.

  “I have asked the Taicoon, Chang, to let me have his plisoner. The Taicoon, Chang, says that he will keep him because unless he is a liar the people of San Flancisco will pay much money to save their Lord Mayor. …”

  At this moment, Chang, who had been nodding as she spoke, held out a piece of paper towards Miss Lee and said something in Chinese.

  Miss Lee took the paper and gave it to Nancy. “The Taicoon’s plisoner has litten this,” she said. “Lead it.”

  “All of us?” said Nancy.

  “Yes,” said Miss Lee.

  The Taicoon and Miss Lee watched them while they read it. The old counsellor seemed interested only in the far-away hills.

  The paper was a letter in Captain Flint’s handwriting.

  “To my faithful people of San Francisco: Greeting!

  I, your Lord Mayor, lie in chains cheek by jowl with a vile ape. [‘Gibber isn’t a vile ape. He’s got a tail,’ Roger murmured as he read.] My only hope of freedom is in you. Do you value your Lord Mayor? If you think I am worthless, send nothing. But if you think that I, Captain James Flint, Lord Mayor of San Francisco, am worth half a million dollars, send that half million pronto by the trusted bearer of this. Say nothing to the police or the United States Navy or you will have to find a new Lord Mayor for this one will have lost his head.

  (Signed.) JAMES FLINT, Lord Mayor.”

  They looked at each other uncomfortably. In his message to them he had spoken of writing a snorter. He had certainly spread himself.

  Miss Lee spoke again. “The Taicoon Chang asks me if his plisoner is fooling him or not. Now, Nansee, you will tell the tluth. Is the Taicoon’s plisoner Amelican or English? Is he Lord Mayor? Will the velly lich city of San Flancisco pay anything … for … him … at … all?”

  BARGAINING FOR CAPTAIN FLINT

  Nancy swallowed, looked wildly round and, for a moment, said nothing. It was one thing to tell the truth to Miss Lee on Captain Flint’s own orders. But ought she to tell the truth to Chang?

  “Tell the tluth,” said Miss Lee. “The Taicoon will find out, anyway.”

  Nancy made up her mind to trust Miss Lee. “He is English, not American. He is not a Lord Mayor. I don’t think San Francisco would pay a penny for him.” She said it slowly, and firmly, word by word.

  “I chop him head,” said the Taicoon leaping to his feet.

  They gasped. In trying to save Captain Flint, they had made things worse instead of better.

  “But you simply can’t,” said Titty.

  Miss Lee was speaking again, very quietly. Her tiny hand touched the rim of an untasted bowl of tea. The Taicoon, Chang, towering above her, sat down again as if unwillingly. Miss Lee had not seemed to notice that he had stood up. She was not looking at him, but, like the counsellor, far away. She did not seem to know that her prisoners were waiting there before her. She was talking as if she were stating a number of facts in none of which was she particularly interested.

  Chang listened till she had stopped, and then he too began talking in the same queer way, not as if he were arguing but as if he, too, had a set of facts to state.

  “Nansee,” said Miss Lee. “Is your Captain a lich man in England.”

  “No,” said Nancy. “He spent all his money on buying the Wild Cat and fitting her out, and Gibber set fire to her and now she is at the bottom of the sea.”

  Miss Lee spoke in Chinese, perhaps translating in case Chang had not understood. Chang grunted angrily.

  For some time Titty had been making up her mind. Now she put the parrot’s cage in front of Chang’s chair. After all, she had told herself, she never would have had the parrot if it had not been for Captain Flint.

  “If you will let him go,” she said, “I will give you Polly.”

  For a moment the Taicoon seemed not to understand. Suddenly the scowl left his face. He smiled. “You numpa one good missee,” he said. “Numpa one good bud belong stay with him missee. I no take him.”

  After that for a long time the talk was in Chinese and they had no idea what was being said. Miss Lee signed to her prisoners to go away.”

  “Would you really have given him the parrot?” said Roger.

  “Don’t you understand?” said Titty almost fiercely. “Polly was a present from Captain Flint.”

  They hung about wretchedly on the lower terraces, wondering if there was nothing they could do to help. At last they heard Miss Lee clap her hands. They looked up. They saw the old amah for a moment by Miss Lee’s chair. Then they saw a signaller, with one of those queer bamboo flutes. Miss Lee was talking to him. A few moments later they heard shrill whistling on two notes, like a bar of very simple music repeated again and again. From far, far away, there came a whistling answer. The nearby whistling began again, a long uneven trilling. From far away, thin as a bat’s song, came the echo. A man appeared with a small bag. He gave it to Miss Lee and went back under the orange-trees. They saw that Miss Lee was beckoning.

  “I have bought him,” she said as they ran up.

  “Well done, Miss Lee,” said Nancy.

  “Everything’ll be all right now,” said John.

  “You didn’t pay too much?” said Roger.

  “She couldn’t,” said Peggy indignantly.

  Neither Susan nor Titty could say a word.

  The Taicoon was pushing something away into one of his wide sleeves.

  “Him tell lie,” he said to the prisoners. “Him fool Taicoon. Moa betta I chop him head. But I sell him. I sell him velly cheap.” Suddenly he tossed off his tea and, with a look of great cunning, got up to go. Miss Lee glanced silently at her own bowl. She had not touched it. Chang, with unwilling politeness, again sat down. Presently a new bowl of tea was brought and placed on the little table beside him.

  Susan held out the paper box. The Taicoon looked at it. Susan shook the box close to her ear. The Taicoon took it and listened. He knew at once what was in it, gingerly opened the flaps that closed it, caught a grasshopper as it crawled out, twitched the cover from the cage beside him, and gave the insect to his lark. The bird gobbled up the grasshopper and broke into loud song. The Taicoon laughed with pleasure, forgot Captain Flint, and looked for applause to the counsellor, who nodded gravely, to Miss Lee, who smiled, and to the prisoners.

  “Numpa one velly good bud,” he said.

  Time went on. Men brought out a tray with good things for the Taicoon to eat. He ate, while the counsellor and Miss Lee just nibbled a little to keep him company. Another tray was brought, with tea and sweetmeats for the prisoners. “I thought they’d forgotten us,” whispered Roger. The Taicoon asked Titty to let the parrot out of its cage, and asked Miss Lee to see how when Titty called the parrot it would come to her. He fed grasshoppers to his lar
k. The prisoners went off for more, and brought him caterpillars, which the lark seemed to like even better. From time to time, the Taicoon glanced at the shadows to see how the day was passing. Again and again he made as if to go, but every time he saw that Miss Lee had not touched her tea.

  At last there was a noise of shouting, and then, above the shouting, they heard Captain Flint in song:

  “We’ll rant and we’ll roar, like true British sailors,

  We’ll range and we’ll roam over all the salt seas.

  Until we strike soundings in the channel of old England,

  From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues.”

  Miss Lee looked up, smiled at Chang and drank her tea at last, stone cold now for several hours. Chang, scowling again, stood up to go. Miss Lee nodded to the prisoners and they ran through the house to the courtyard just in time to see the bearers come in with Captain Flint in his travelling hen-coop of a cage, singing lustily above their heads.

  “Three million cheers,” cried Nancy, and, as the cage was lowered to the ground, some frantic handshaking was done through the bars.

  The Taicoon’s bearers were waiting with his chair. He had said “Good-bye” to Miss Lee and, with the counsellor, came down the steps into the courtyard. He walked straight across to speak to Captain Flint.

  “Numpa one liar,” he said. “Numpa one bad man. Numpa one cheat. I sell you. I sell velly cheap. I think moa betta I chop head.”

  He stalked off to his chair. Captain Flint was let out of his hen-coop, but, under the eye of the old counsellor, was immediately shut up in one of the barred cages in the courtyard, next door but one to Gibber.

  “Moa betta I chop head,” the Taicoon called out again as his bearers lifted his chair. Ten solemn strokes of the gong sounded from the gateway tower. The Taicoon was carried out, followed by the empty travelling cage that had once held Captain Flint.