‘A little farther,’ said Cully. ‘Move it that way a little.—No, no, you silly boy, the other way!’
Cully lay in the rock-pool under the west cliffs of the Hen, and William Button and Henry String were looking after him. He was a difficult patient, and kept them busy. His eight long arms had been so badly strained by his heroic determination to hold the severed cables together, that he had lost all power in them. The dreadful strain had pulled them out to twice their ordinary length, and they were quite limp and useless. He could not lift them, nor hold on with them, because there was no strength in them. But otherwise he seemed to be in fairly good health, and he had recovered his spirits.
He had thought of a very ingenious way in which to lie comfortably in his pool, and that was to fasten each of his arms to a large stone which would serve as an anchor. He had told William Button and Henry String to find eight suitable stones, and tie them to the tips of his arms, and now he was instructing them where to place the stones so that he could lie exactly in the position he wanted. He was very particular, and every stone had to be moved a dozen times at least before he was satisfied. But he decided at last that he was as comfortable as he could be, and after giving the Powder Monkeys a little good advice about things in general, he fell asleep.
William Button and Henry String sat down and talked about the great battle of the day before. William boasted of having led the rescue party to the wreck in North Bay, and then of seizing Inky Poops by the leg and very nearly taking him prisoner. Henry String, after an interesting ride on the handle-bars of Mrs. Matches’ bicycle, had had some difficulty in finding the patrol that lay near the skerries; but later on, he said, they had performed remarkable feats and captured seven pirates. They both agreed that, had it not been for them, the battle would not have been so successful.
Then Cully woke up and complained that the sun was in his eyes. The day, indeed, was very fine and warm, and the sun shone from a clear blue sky. There was no shade near the pool, and William Button offered to move the anchor-stones nearer to the edge of it, so that Cully could sink to the bottom. But that was not what Cully wanted. He wanted to float and he wanted a sunshade.
‘That’s it!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s what I need—a sunshade! And if you haven’t got such a thing with you, I can tell you where to find one. Go and look for Timothy or Hew. They’re both extremely nice boys, and they’re sure to have a sunshade in their house.’
The Powder Monkeys had been forbidden to leave the Hen, but rather than argue with Cully, William set off to see if the boys were down at the pier, and met them walking across the sand. Timothy had a basket of new-made scones and a pot of jam for Cully, and while Hew returned to look for a sunshade, he and William Button went on to the pool.
‘You never expected to see me like this, did you? ’ said Cully in his most mournful voice. ‘A poor old worn-out octopus, no good to anyone! Just a bit of wreckage on the sea of life. Ah me, ah me! — But what have you got in that basket, Timothy?’
‘Some scones that Mrs. Matches baked.’
‘Scones! Oh, I’m very fond of scones!’
‘And there’s some butter and a pot of jam.’
‘What sort of jam?’
‘Black currant,’ said Timothy.
‘Black currant!’ cried Cully. ‘Why that’s absolutely and completely and far-away my favourite jam of all!—Well, what are we waiting for, Timothy? Don’t waste time, you foolish boy.’
So Timothy began to spread the scones with butter and black-currant jam, and leaning over the pool placed them one by one in Cully’s beak. And while he was so engaged he told Cully how proud of him they were, and said they all owed him more than they could ever repay: ‘Sam Sturgeon says that to hold on like that, when you must have thought you were going to be torn apart, was the bravest thing he ever heard of.’
‘Duty, duty,’ said Cully with his mouth full. ‘All I did was done in the way of duty.—Another scone, please.—It was my job to hold on when required, and when the need arose—there wasn’t enough jam on that last one—I held on. It wasn’t pleasant, and I didn’t like it.—Another, please.—It was, as a matter of fact, extremely painful, but when you’ve been brought up to do your duty—they are good scones! And it’s so nice to get really fresh butter—well, you just do it. Though I must say that I hope I shan’t ever have to do it again.—Well, one more, if you insist.’
‘And I’ve got something else to give you,’ said Timothy. ‘When we were on our voyage to Davy Jones’s court, we met a friend of yours: Miss Dildery.’
‘That lovely creature!’ exclaimed Cully. ‘Tell me how she is!’
‘She’s very well, I think. She came to see us when we were on our way home again, and sent you her portrait. Here it is.’
Timothy showed him the drawing that Dingy the Cabin Boy had made on a round piece of whalebone, and Cully exclaimed, ‘What a delightful picture! And so like her, isn’t it? Dear Dildery!’
‘She sent a message too,’ said Timothy. ‘She asked me to give you her love.’
Very sadly Cully shook his beak and said, ‘Too late, too late! That lovely young creature could not love a poor old cripple like me. There was a time—but not now. Oh no! No, no, no! Love comes too late. Ah me!’
He looked inexpressibly sad, and on the lower rim of his saucer-like eyes there hovered two large tears. Timothy felt very embarrassed and hardly knew what to say next; but Hew appeared, just at the proper time, with a yellow sunshade that had belonged to their mother, and gave Cully something else to think about.
‘What a handsome sunshade!’ he cried. ‘It’s exactly what I had hoped for. Thank you very much for bringing it! And now give it to William Button, please, and he’ll hold it over my head.—Hold it higher, William, and move a little to that side. No, the other side, you silly boy!—There, that’s better. That’s very comfortable. Now put Miss Dildery’s portrait on that little ledge of rock, Timothy, where I can see it. That’s right!’
Cully shone like a great buttercup under the yellow sunshade, and with his eight arms securely anchored, and four boys to attend to him, he looked very comfortable indeed.
‘There’s something to be said for not being able to work,’ he admitted. ‘For work is a great nuisance, the greatest nuisance in the world, and if you’re a cripple no one expects you to work, and you haven’t got to dodge it, so to speak. Hold the sunshade a little higher, William.’
But William Button had closed the sunshade and tucked it under his left arm. He and Henry String stood straightly at attention, and faced the sea. Knee-deep in the water stood Davy Jones himself, with Aaron Spens and Gunner Boles close behind him. Timothy and Hew ran to meet them, and Davy Jones came majestically ashore.
‘For more than three hundred years,’ he said, ‘I had never left the green sea and its deep caverns, to walk upon the land, till I set foot, two nights ago, on the little island of North Rona. And now already—so quick is the heart to find new moorings—I feel a kind of love for sun-warmed rock and the soft turf.’
‘I hope you’ll come ashore often,’ said Timothy politely.
‘Come and stay with us,’ said Hew.
Davy Jones laughed and said, ‘Your many-times-great-grandfather has a great longing to visit the house he built, and to please him, and please myself too, I have promised to bear him company and drink a pint of wine with you—or rum if you have not wine, or ale if you have not rum. But we must wait, I said, for your invitation.’
‘But of course you’re invited,’ said Timothy. ‘It will be a great honour for us.’
‘Come now,’ said Hew. ‘Come and have lunch.’
Davy Jones laughed again. ‘I must not be seen beyond the frontiers of my own kingdom, for we break the rules when we step ashore. But when it’s dark a broken rule’s not easy to be seen, so you can look for us at night.—Now take me to the octopus, for I have come to thank him for yesterday’s good deed.’
‘He’s lying there in the pool,’ said Timothy.
Davy Jones stood facing Cully, with Aaron Spens and Gunner Boles beside him, and the four boys stood behind Cully. The sun was shining brightly, and William Button put up the sunshade again. Cully, who was deeply embarrassed, said nothing, but floated on the water like a great buttercup, and blinked his big eyes.
Davy Jones made a little speech in which he praised Cully’s bravery, and on behalf of all the sailors in the sea thanked him for holding the cables together with such heroic determination and disregard of his own safety. Then he took a large silver medal, on a loop of blue ribbon, from his satchel; and kneeling down, hung it over Cully’s beak, for there was nowhere else to hang it.
Cully was so overcome by this honour that he could only murmur, ‘Too kind! Too kind!’
Davy Jones sat down to talk to him, and the others moved away, except William Button who stayed to hold the sunshade. Gunner Boles was very cheerful, because Cully, though he would always be a cripple, was certainly not going to die; and because the knot was safe again. He and a score of sailors had worked all night, for Davy Jones’s supply-column had now arrived, bringing new cables, and these had been spliced into the old ones, instead of the pirates’ rope—which no one trusted—and the knot had been tied again in the old way.
It was well guarded, for not all the pirates had yet been captured, and Inky Poops and Dan Scumbril were still at large. But they would be taken before long, thought Gunner Boles, and Aaron Spens described how all the near-by sea was being searched for them. The sailors had entirely surrounded Popinsay, and search-parties were hunting everywhere within the ring they made. They were sure that Scumbril and Inky Poops were somewhere inside the circle, and Davy Jones would not leave Popinsay till he had found them.
‘My old ship,’ said Aaron Spens, ‘is again in service, and has become our prison. There’s a full cargo in her hold, and we have made her saloon the guard-room.’
‘We’ve been rather disappointed by your ship,’ said Timothy. ‘We hoped to find enough treasure in her to repair our house.’
‘It needs a lot of repair,’ said Hew. ‘The windows leak, the doors don’t fit, there’s dry rot in the floors, and bees in the roof, and the rain comes through it too, and the chimneys smoke, and it hasn’t been painted for years, and half the ceiling in our room fell on us last year when we were fast asleep.’
‘There’ll be a heavy bill to pay, if all that’s to be done,’ said Aaron Spens. ‘But there’s enough money in the ship to meet it, unless others have been there before you. How much have you found?’
‘Sam Sturgeon brought up eighteen money-boxes, and Father found one on the beach a long time ago,’ said Timothy. ‘Sam says that he made a thorough search before he was captured, and he doesn’t think there are any more. And none of the money-boxes had more than fifteen gold coins in it.’
‘And some of the coins were very small,’ said Hew.
‘And in any case,’ said Timothy, ‘the money isn’t ours any longer.—It’s yours, isn’t it?’
‘The money in the ship,’ said Aaron Spens, ‘belonged to me and to my crew. We had earned a little by hard work, and more by hard fighting. We had, moreover, all the same intention: to spend our money in Popinsay, to build and beautify our houses, plant gardens, fence fields, buy sheep and cattle, and give presents to our wives and children. That was our purpose, and that is how the money should be used. And perhaps there is more in the ship than Sam Sturgeon found.’
Now Davy Jones came to them and said it was time to go back to sea; but he and Aaron Spens would visit them at night.
‘And Gunner Boles too,’ said Timothy. ‘Sam Sturgeon would be very disappointed if Gunner Boles didn’t come, and so should we.
‘Gunner Boles will be our guide,’ said Davy Jones, and having told the two Powder Monkeys to take good care of Cully, he stalked majestically into the sea, and quickly disappeared.
‘Until to-night,’ said Aaron Spens, and followed him.
‘Give my regards to Sam,’ said Gunner Boles, and he went in too.
Then Timothy and Hew said good-bye to William Button and Henry String, and promised to bring some more scones to Cully, and went home.
Mrs. Matches was unusually quiet and subdued, for Sam had been talking to her very seriously, and she knew now that Timothy and Hew had been taking part in affairs of great importance. Previously, of course, she had supposed that they were only getting into mischief, and what had upset her most of all was that she could not imagine what sort of mischief it was. But now, having learnt that they had been helping to defeat a great plot against the government of the sea, she did not want to know any more about it; because keeping house for Captain Spens gave her quite enough worry, and she did not want to worry about plots as well. So she asked the boys no difficult questions, but only such simple things as whether they had had enough to eat, and if they had got their feet wet. They answered ‘Yes,’ and Mrs. Matches said they ought to be thankful to be safe at home again.
After supper Sam told her, very politely but quite firmly, that he hoped she would go to bed early and sleep soundly; and if she heard any strange noises during the night, she wasn’t to be alarmed, he said, and on no account was she to get up to see what was the matter. Mrs. Matches, being determined to have nothing to do with plots, said she knew how to mind her own business and didn’t need Sam to tell her; and went to bed at half-past nine.
‘That means we shan’t be disturbed when Davy Jones is here,’ said Sam, and busily began to mix an enormous bowl of rum-punch.
They had to wait until after midnight, however, before Davy Jones and his companions arrived, and Sam and the boys were all asleep—Timothy and Hew on the sofa and Sam in the big chair in their father’s study—when Gunner Boles tapped on the window. Tap, tap, they heard in their dreams, and half-woke up. Tap, tap, again; and then a hoarse whisper, ‘Ahoy, there, Sam! Show a leg, will you? The Admiral’s coming aboard!’
‘They’re here!’ cried Timothy, and ran to the door while Hew straightened the cushions and Sam put a kettle on the fire, and drew the curtains close.
The mighty figure of Davy Jones stood in the hall, and though he had looked great and majestic in the ocean and on the seashore, he now seemed larger and more kingly than ever. Aaron Spens stood at his side, and Gunner Boles came in behind them and softly shut the front door, which had been left open for their arrival. Timothy bowed politely.
‘Not for three and a half centuries,’ said Davy Jones, ‘have I entered a house built upon dry land—but I was born in a house, and I feel as if I were coming home!’
‘I wish you were,’ said Timothy. ‘It would be very nice if you decided to live in Popinsay.’
‘That’s prettily said!’ exclaimed Aaron Spens. ‘It makes me very happy to see such good manners in my great-great-grandchild!’
‘It wasn’t good manners,’ said Timothy. ‘I was speaking the truth.’
‘And that, Aaron, should make you happier still,’ said Davy Jones; and seeing that Sam was holding the door of the study open, went in. Hew, who was standing in front of the fire, bowed as politely as Timothy had done, and said, ‘Won’t you sit down, sir?’
But Davy Jones wanted to look at the painting of a ship-of-the-line that hung over the chimney-piece; and then at photographs of cruisers and destroyers; and at Captain Spens’s books, some of which were very old; and at the globe of the world, which stood in a corner of the study; and at two old-fashioned swords which lay on a table; and at the Captain’s medals in a glass-case; and at the model of a frigate carved in bone by a French prisoner in Napoleon’s time; and then at the bowl of rum-punch which Sam Sturgeon was mixing. For it was so long since he had been in a house that everything he saw was full of interest.
To Aaron Spens, of course, the whole house was interesting, because he had built it; and presently he asked Timothy to let him see over it. So Timothy took a lamp from a table in the hall, and led his great-great-very-great-grandfather from room to room; and Aaron Spens said that he remembered them all, and agreed with Timothy that they would all be the better of being plastered and painted and papered. Then they came to Mrs. Spens’s room, which had not been used for a long time, because Mrs. Spens had been away from home for several years; and Aaron Spens said that he would like to be left alone there for a little while, because it had been his own wife’s room when the house was newly built and he had lived in Popinsay for a few years between his voyages to the South Sea.
Timothy waited for him, and after about five minutes Aaron Spens came out looking very sad; and he wanted to see no more of the house. So they went back to the study, and Aaron Spens had a glass of rum-punch and grew quite cheerful again. But Gunner Boles was saying that he had enjoyed himself far more on his previous visit when, because it was his birthday, he had been invited to lie in the softest, handsomest, and most commodious bed he had ever seen. A big four-poster bed, he explained, and the pillows were stuffed with little clouds, and the sheets were as smooth as the Indian Ocean, and the mattress as soft as cream and as firm as jelly. Now when Davy Jones heard about the Captain’s bed, nothing would satisfy him but to spend the rest of the night in the comfort that Gunner Boles had enjoyed—and to cap it all, said the Gunner, he had worn a suit of pyjamas the colour of an oriental sunset.
‘I’ll wear them too!’ cried Davy Jones. ‘It’s three and a half centuries since I slept in a mortal bed, and never yet have I slept in the colours of a sunset. What riches they enjoy who live ashore!’
‘It was my father’s bed,’ said Aaron Spens. ‘He had it built of Spanish mahogany that he took from a ship wrecked on the skerries off Fishing Hope.’
‘Then you have the better right to it,’ said Davy Jones. ‘You will go first to bed, and I shall humbly follow.’
Then Sam took the lamp from the study, and Gunner Boles carried the punch-bowl, and they all went upstairs to Captain Spens’s bedroom. Sam found the Captain’s red silk pyjamas, which Davy Jones put on over his bathing-suit, and another pair of sea-green silk for Aaron Spens. They lay back against the pillows with a look of perfect happiness on their faces, and Gunner Boles refilled their glasses. Timothy and Hew sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed, and Sam closed the window; for the wind was rising and the rain was coming in. The wind, indeed, was blowing half a gale and getting worse. It howled in the chimney and the rain beat upon the window-panes, but no one paid much attention for everyone was listening to Davy Jones, who was telling the story of his last voyage with Drake. Then Aaron Spens told them a tale of the Prince of Bantam and the great island of Java, and when he had finished Gunner Boles began to talk about the battle of Trafalgar. Sam Sturgeon said that he knew some good stories too, but the best he had ever heard was what the Shell had told him when Gunner Boles was preparing him for service under the sea.
‘I wish I could listen to the Shell again,’ said Timothy.
‘So do I,’ said Hew. ‘Have you got it with you?’
Gunner Boles looked inquiringly at Davy Jones, who nodded and said, ‘Let them hear it and remember if they can.’
Gunner Boles took the Shell from his satchel and gave it to Timothy, who held it close to his ear. For a little while no one spoke, and while Timothy listened to the story of the sea the others listened to the wild song of the wind as it beat upon the roof. Then Gunner Boles, sitting comfortably in an armchair, gave a little jump and looked up at the ceiling. A drop of water had fallen on his bald head, and another drop was about to follow. It fell before he could avoid it, and Sam got up to give him an umbrella that stood in a corner of the room.
‘On a bad day,’ he said, ‘when it’s raining hard, I’ve always got to hold it over the Captain while he’s dressing himself.’
‘Our house,’ said Hew, ‘does need repairing, doesn’t it? And we didn’t find nearly enough treasure in the wreck to do everything that should be done.’
‘How much did you recover?’ asked Aaron Spens.
‘Eighteen skulls in all,’ said Sam, ‘and the most that any of them held was fifteen gold coins, some of them small.’
‘You would have done better if you had looked in the proper place,’ said Aaron Spens; and then asked Gunner Boles, ‘Where did you leave them?’
‘Downstairs,’ said the Gunner. ‘Shall I bring ’em up?’
‘If you please,’ said Aaron Spens; and explained that he himself had visited the wreck after hearing of their ill-success, and found what Sam had failed to find. Gunner Boles came back with a canvas bag out of which he took three skulls, as green in colour as the others, but much heavier. He gave one of them to Sam and one to Hew, and the third to Timothy, who had laid the Shell on the bed.
‘Now lift the tops,’ said Aaron Spens, ‘and look inside.’
The top of each skull had been neatly cut—as if it were the top of an egg—and cleverly fitted again with a small hinge at the back, so that it could be lifted like a lid; and inside lay a little parcel wrapped in thin lead.
‘Lead is soft,’ said Aaron Spens. ‘If you have a knife you can cut it.’
Sam Sturgeon took out his pocket-knife, and slitting the three lead parcels, poured on to the quilt three little streams of marvellously coloured jewels that winked and sparkled in the lamplight. There were diamonds and sapphires and rubies and emeralds, white and green and blue and crimson, and they lay on the Captain’s bed in a glittering pool while the rain made another pool on the faded carpet beside it.
‘Is that enough to repair your house?’ asked Aaron Spens.
‘There’s enough to build a palace,’ said Timothy.
‘Hardly, hardly,’ said Aaron Spens. ‘It would be a very small palace, I fear, and not all that’s there belongs to your father. Each of my crew kept his own money-box, some of which you have found, and I kept for them as well a certain share in the profits of the voyage. Now there upon the bed are all the profits, and here in your island there must be descendants of my crew. Before I go I shall tell Sam Sturgeon the names of those who sailed with me, and the shares they were entitled to. Then when your father returns he can divide that little treasure as I should have divided it, had I, more than two hundred years ago, come safely home—and his own share, I think, will be more than enough to mend his roof and paint his walls.’
Timothy and Hew were admiring the jewels and letting them trickle through their fingers. But Sam spoke sharply, after watching them for a little while, and said, ‘Now take care what you’re doing, or before you know what’s happened you’ll have lost half of them. You give them to me and I’ll put them in a safe place till the Captain comes back.’
He took from a drawer the round leather box in which the Captain kept his collars, and gathering up the diamonds and the rubies, the emeralds and the sapphires, dropped them in and put the box in its proper place between the Captain’s neckties and a pile of handkerchiefs. Then he set the three skulls on the chimney-piece, and tidily dropped the lead wrappings into a waste-paper basket.
‘Thank you very much indeed, sir,’ he said to Aaron Spens. ‘The Captain will be most grateful, I’m sure, and I only wish he was here himself to say so.’
Gunner Boles stirred the rum-punch, and having filled everyone’s glass again said in a husky voice, ‘About this time O’ night, being in good company among cheerful friends and with a glass in my hand, I’ve always felt much inclined to raise my voice in song. It would be an honour, sir’—he bowed to Davy Jones—‘and a pleasure too, if you would give us a lead, and we’ll bring in the chorus.’
‘I know two hundred songs,’ said Davy Jones. ‘Which one do you want?’
‘It comes into my mind, sir, seeing how snug you are, that you couldn’t do better than to start off with The Big Four-Poster Bed.’
‘As you will,’ said Davy Jones, and having cleared his throat with a noise like a clap of thunder, began to sing in a voice like the rolling sea:
‘To Cadiz in a galleon,
To Yarmouth in a smack,
To Galway Bay with a load of hay
And donkeys coming back—
I’ve sailed the Arctic ocean
Where the sun is white as lead,
But the finest ship for a midnight trip
Is a Big Four-poster Bed!’
Aaron Spens sang the next verse:
‘In a sloop to St. Helena,
To Java by canoe,
I’ve fished for skate in the Denmark Strait
To sell in Timbuctoo;
I’ve sailed from the Roaring Forties
By the Cape to Beachy Head,
But the finest ship for a midnight trip
Is a Big Four-poster Bed!’
Then it was Gunner Boles’s turn:
‘To Ushant in a frigate,
Bermuda in a brig,
At Trinidad when quite a lad
I didn’t care a fig!
With butter and eggs and bread,
But the finest ship for a midnight trip
Is a Big Four-poster Bed!’
Sam Sturgeon stood up and shut his eyes, for that was always the way he sang:
‘To Rio in a cruiser,
Manila in a junk,
I caught a seal at gay Deauville
And kept it in my bunk.
The sea’s bright blue at Chios,
At Mocha it is Red,
And the very best ship for a midnight trip
Is a Big Four-poster Bed!’
Then, all together, as loud as a gale of wind, they sang the chorus:
‘Oh, haul your night-shirt down, sir!
The sheet is trimly spread,
The King’s took off his crown, sir,
And he’s called the Queen to bed—
Hear ’em snore!
Hear ’em snore!
Hear ’em snoring like the roaring
Of the waves upon the shore!’
‘Thank you kindly, sir,’ said Gunner Boles, bowing again to Davy Jones. ‘You’re in very good voice, if I may say so. And what shall we have next?’
‘Before we have anything next,’ said Sam, ‘I’m going to take the boys to bed. They’re dropping off to sleep already.’
‘We’re wide awake!’ said Hew.
‘You won’t be so wide awake at breakfast-time,’ said Sam, ‘and that’s what I’m thinking of. So just you say good-night to the Admiral and your great-granddad, and come along with me and let’s have no argument about it.’
Davy Jones, in his most solemn voice, assured them that when he was their age he had never been allowed to stay up late, and Timothy and Hew, after saying good-night all round, went off unwillingly to their own room. They were very tired, and in the morning, when Mrs. Matches came in to wake them, they still felt tired; for they had been dreaming of gales and storms and hurricanes.
Mrs. Matches herself looked tired, for she had slept badly too. Davy Jones and his companions had sung a lot of songs, and they believed in singing loudly.