The Pirate of the Round Pond

I’ve been reading a lot about great men lately; having to read about them; Julius Caesar, William the Conqueror, Nelson and Mr. Gladstone. But there’s a thing I’ve noticed about grown-ups, and I imagine it applies jolly well to all of them, great and small: they don’t keep at it. They may be great just when they’re having a battle, or whatever it is, but at other times they’ll sit in a chair and read a paper, or talk about the taxes being all wrong, or go out for a walk along a road, when they might be ratting or climbing a tree, or doing anything sensible. Now, Bob Tipling is great the whole time. I should think he is the greatest chap in the world. Any way he is the greatest chap in our school, by a long way. And he’s not only the cleverest, but he’s best at cricket and football too. Once he made a hundred runs. And he’s a fast bowler too. Well, I can’t tell you all about that: there just wouldn’t be time. We beat Blikton by an innings and 70 runs, and all because of Bob Tipling. But what I am going to tell you about is about Bob as a pirate, because lots of people have seen him playing cricket, but I and one other boy are the only people in the world besides Bob who know all about him being a pirate. So, if I don’t tell about it, probably nobody will, and that would be a pity. Not that I like writing, I’d sooner be out-of-doors. Well, Bob was talking to me once, and I was saying what I’d like to be when I grew up, if I could get the job; and of course that isn’t always so easy. What I’d like best of all would be to capture cities, like Alexander and those people; but of course you can’t always do that. And then Bob said that he didn’t want to be anything when he grew up, because grown-ups were always dull and didn’t seem able to enjoy themselves properly, or even to want to: he wanted to be it now. And I asked him what he wanted to be, and he said a pirate. And I asked him what sea he was going to. Now, Bob Tipling always knew all about what he was talking of; more than anybody else; so I can tell you I was pretty surprised when I heard his answer. And yet I knew that Bob wasn’t talking nonsense. He never does. He said, “The Round Pond.”⁷ Well, I knew the Round Pond quite well; used to go there most Sundays; but I didn’t see how you could be a pirate on the Round Pond. And so I asked Bob. Well, he said he’d had the idea for something like a year, and he’d hung about Kensington Gardens, which was quite near where he lived (both of us for that matter), until he found a boy whose father had lots of money, and he had told the idea to him and he had liked it very much. The idea was to put a pirate ship on the Round Pond, and to fit it out with torpedo-tubes.

“How would you do that?” I asked.

“It’s already been done,” he said. “They’re miniature torpedoes, just as it’s a miniature ship. There’s two of them, one on each side, and we’ve had a dozen torpedoes made. They are shot out by compressed air, like little air-guns, and there’s a good big explosive in them, which goes off when the nose hits anything. They cost a lot to make, but this boy has got lots.”

“Does your ship put to sea?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” he said.

“Then how do you fire them?” I said.

“That cost a lot too,” he told me. “I touch them off by wireless.”

“What will people say,” I asked him, “when they see you shooting off your torpedoes from your wireless-set on the bank at their boats?”

“They won’t see,” said Bob. “But we’ll have to be careful about that. We could have it in a large sailing-boat at the edge of the water, what they call a parent boat; or we could hide it in a tea-basket. Then we wait till a good big ship has put to sea, and we launch the pirate-ship so that it should intercept her. If it doesn’t, we try again and again, until we are lucky. What I want to do is to get the Rakish Craft (that is to be her name) head on to her beam at about 3 or 4 yards, then we fire a torpedo, and if we meet her somewhere about the middle of the pond, she should never reach land. What do you think of it?”

“I think it’s perfectly splendid,” I said. “There’s only one thing seems to be missing like.”

“What’s that?” he asked rather sharply.

“Treasure,” I said. “Isn’t treasure rather the chief part of a pirate’s life?”

“That shows all you know about it,” he said. “The principal part of a pirate’s life is the battles he has, and the thrill of seeing his enemy sink, and the danger, the risk of hanging. I don’t say they’d hang me, but I’d go to prison for years if I was caught. And of course if anybody was drowned as a result of the accident, going in to pull out the ship or anything, then I’d be hanged. And even without that, after all I’m a pirate; it doesn’t matter where: I might be hanged in any case. Now, I’m giving you a chance you’ll probably never have again in a lifetime. Would you like to come in with me?”

Well, of course it was pretty wonderful getting an offer like that from such a tremendous chap as Bob Tipling; because I knew he would be as wonderful as a pirate as he was at everything else. Of course I said, “Yes, rather.”

And then he told me what I would have to do. Carry the tea-basket chiefly, and walk about and look unconcerned. Or look concerned if he told me to, and walk away from him to draw attention off. “It’s full of detectives,” he said.

That was on a Saturday morning, and we get the afternoons off on Saturdays. So Bob Tipling told me to meet him at the Round Pond at 2 o’clock, which I did, and he made me walk up and down looking unconcerned. There were some nice ships there, big sailing-ships and some clockwork ones, and even one that went by petrol, a beauty, a big grey ship. “That’s the one we’ll get if she’s there when we put to sea,” said Bob. “She’ll hole nicely.”

And I made the mistake of saying, “Wouldn’t it be rather a pity to sink a nice ship like that?”

But Bob explained to me that the people who owned it should think themselves very lucky if their ship was sunk without any loss of life, which wasn’t often the case if you were attacked by a pirate. “And, after all, there must be pirates,” he said. “And anyhow,” he said, “I shall only attack those that deserve it, as Robin Hood used to do on land. The money that that boat cost would have kept a poor man and his family in food for a year. I’m helping the Government, really, to swat the rich. Though that’s not the view they’ll take if they catch me.”

“They ought to,” I said.

“We’ll just not get caught,” said Bob Tipling. “Now walk about concernedly, so that they’ll watch you if I want their attention switched off me.”

So I did, and it’s wonderful how soon I saw one or two men mopping their faces with white handkerchiefs, and making funny little signs. We went away then, because we didn’t want people to get to know us.

There were only three of us in it; Bob, me and this rich boy that Bob had found. He had hung about among the trees in Kensington Gardens off and on for nearly a year, before he found this boy walking alone and got a chance to talk to him. He had tried others, of course, but they hadn’t enough money. This one had, and he took to the idea at once, as who wouldn’t? He had always wanted to be a pirate, and knew that he never would be; and then this chance came to him, brought by Bob. Bob had worked it all out, except the actual making of the torpedoes, and he knew there were people who could make them, and send them off by wireless: all he wanted was the money; and this boy had it, or he could get it out of his father, which comes to the same thing. Bob fixed next Sunday week for putting to sea, under the black-and-yellow flag with the skull-and-crossbones; only, Bob said that the actual flag might attract too much attention, and that he would sail under false colours, as pirates often did. We said nothing to each other in school; we almost might have been strangers; but it wouldn’t have done to have let a thing like that get out; we should only have been hanged, if it had, before we started. Bob Tipling said that it wasn’t a hanging matter. And he would be sure to know. At the same time we were pirates, and I never heard of anything else happening to a pirate, if he got caught, in any book that I’ve read. So it seemed best not to risk it.

I learned a lot that week in school, but what it was I couldn’t tell you, because I was only thinking of one thing all the week, that is of being a pirate. They say it’s wicked to be a pirate, and I dare say it is. At the same time nobody could say that it isn’t better than sitting indoors at a desk, learning things; especially the kind of things I was learning that week, whatever they were. I never knew a week go by slower. I’d have liked to have timed it, because I should think that it was the slowest week that ever went by. But it came to an end at last, and I slipped away from my home, which is where I lived, and came to the Round Pond at the time Bob Tipling said, which was 12 o’clock on the Sunday morning. I came along the Broad Walk, because I was to meet Bob and his friend there. It was all black earth by the edge of the walk, or dark grey any way, and there were little trickles of yellow sand in it. I liked the look of the black earth, because it made me think of a wide and desolate moor; and it would have been, if it hadn’t been for the grass. And there was a great row of elm-trees there, and all the little leaves were just coming out, because it was Spring. They looked very small and shiny. And at the end of the row I met Bob and his rich friend. Bob had his arms folded and a coloured handkerchief round his neck, and I thought he looked very like a pirate. We were quite near the Round Pond then. Bob introduces me to the rich boy, and his name turns out to be Algernon, and some other name that I forget. And it’s just as well to forget it, as we were all involved in piracy together. Bob is away where the police can’t catch him now. I’m not going to tell you my name. Algernon was carrying a big luncheon-basket by a handle, and Bob has the ship on the grass beside him, with a bit of a cloth wrapped round it to hide the torpedo-tubes.

“That’s a nice boat,” I says.

“It’s a long low rakish craft,” said Bob.

Bob was giving the orders, and Algernon and I went down with him to the pond to the part of it where he says, where there was a little kind of a bay. There were lots of ducks on it, mostly black-and-white ones, and every now and then they would get up out of the water and shake their wings and splash themselves. I suppose they were having a bath. Algernon said they was tufted ducks. And then there was ducks with green heads, that was just ducks. And there was a couple of geese that swam by, honking. And I saw a swan. And there were sea-gulls, lots of them, flying backwards and forwards over the pond and squawking as they flew. And there were lots of boats. I saw a little sailing-boat far out, nearly becalmed, and some clockwork ones like ours. And then all of a sudden I sees the big grey ship that went by petrol. I stopped breathing for a moment when I saw that, and then I pointed her out to Algernon, and Bob nodded his head. And then we both went round to where she was, just beside our little bay, and there was a boy running it that was about the same age as me, which is thirteen. Bob is fourteen, and knows about as much about most things as grown-ups. I don’t know about Algernon: I should say he was about the same age as Bob, but nothing near so clever. And just as we came up to where the boy was, a fat little brown spaniel with a wide smile ran up to the boy and licked one of his knees, which was bare. And the boy jumped out of the way. And there was a lady with the brown spaniel, and she said to the boy, “Our Billy won’t hurt you.” And the boy says, “I am not accustomed to being licked by dogs.” “Oh, aren’t you?” says Bob.

I don’t know if the boy heard him or not.

And then Bob says to me in a lower voice, “That settles the business of it being a pity to sink his nice ship.”

There was a fat man standing near, smoking a cigar, evidently the boy’s father, and I says to Bob, “Well, it’s he that will lose what he paid for the ship if we sink it.”

“That’s true,” said Bob. And he goes up to the fat man with the cigar and says to him, “That’s a fine boat your boy’s got, sir.”

“Yes. You leave it alone,” says the fat man.

“Certainly, sir,” says Bob.

“Well, that settles it,” he says to me. “The ship is doomed.”

The big ship touched land just then, and Bob hurried back to his bay, to be ready to launch the Rakish Craft, his idea being to launch it just at the right moment to cut off the big grey ship when it sets out again. With the curve that there was on the bay we could send our ship right across her course. I had a very responsible job. I had to unpack the luncheon-basket and get my finger on to a knob of the wireless-set that was hidden under some paper packets, and to press it down whenever Bob gave the sign. I can’t tell you what the sign was, because I took an oath to Bob that I would never reveal it, but it is something he did with his elbow. Well, the big grey ship set out almost at once. “That’s the last she’ll see of land,” said Bob. But he was wrong there, because our ship didn’t quite hit her off, Bob not having had time quite to calculate the speed of the big ship, though he knew the speed of the Rakish Craft, and so we were a bit behind her and never fired a torpedo, and we went right across the pond, and the grey ship went very nearly to the other end of it.

Well, the boy ran round and the fat man walked slowly after him; and, to make a long story short, they puts to sea again. And Bob watches to see about where the grey ship will come in, and goes round and launches the Rakish Craft to intercept her about half-way. And Bob said he had calculated the two speeds exactly, but I think it was pure luck. Anyway, the Rakish Craft, heading towards Bayswater, comes right up to within nearly two yards of the side of the grey ship, which is sailing towards Hyde Park; and just as the grey ship passes our bows Bob makes the sign with his elbow, and I presses the button where I am sitting on the grass beside the luncheon-basket, with my finger inside it touching the wireless-set. And there is a white fountain against the side of the grey ship, and both boats rock a bit, and the big one goes on apparently unconcerned. And I look round, and nobody has noticed a thing. But I couldn’t see anything out of the way, myself, except that white splash and the two boats rocking a little, ours more than the other one. For a moment I thought that Bob’s game did not work, and then to my delight I saw the big ship’s bows dipping a little, or thought I did. Then I saw I was right. She continued straight on her course, but the bows went lower and lower. And all of a sudden her stern went into the air, and she dived right under, and never came up any more. The only thing that could have made it any more perfect would have been a bit of blood on the water. However, one can’t have everything. I wanted to cheer, but I caught Bob’s eye. Bob strolled round with Algernon to the part of the shore to which our ship was heading, and they hardly glanced at the water. Bob wanted to go on and sink some more boats. But that’s where Algernon showed sense, and he told Bob not to do it. That’s what they were talking about when on the grass by the luncheon-basket. And I joined in with Algernon and said, “Don’t do it, Bob. Nobody has suspected a thing, and we can start all fresh next Sunday; but, if you get them suspecting you now, they’ll be waiting for you next time you come, and it will probably be prison for all of us.”

And Algernon says the same, and between us we just persuaded Bob, and stopped him doing any more piracy that day. But he insisted on hoisting the pirate’s flag, the skull-and-crossbones, yellow on black, because he says you ought to do that as soon as you open fire, whatever colours you have been sailing under till then, and, as he wasn’t able to do it at the time, he would do it as soon as he can, and sail across the main once more, as he now called the Round Pond, flying the skull-and-crossbones. I wasn’t easy about it, but nobody seemed to notice, and Bob said it was the right thing to do. I didn’t like to look too much at the fat man or his boy, for fear they should catch me looking at them, so I just went on quietly eating a biscuit, and Bob had the sense not to look at them too much either, though his pirate’s blood was up. But, as far as I could see when I did take a glance, they were puzzled, and unsuspicious of us. So we packed up the luncheon-basket that fired the torpedoes, and Bob put our ship under his arm, and I carried the luncheon-basket, and away we walked over the grass, and I never saw three people that looked more innocent-looking. Bob said that we ought to have drunk rum then. And so we would have, if we could have got any. But even Bob’s rich friend, Algernon, wasn’t able to manage that.

I was pretty pleased when I went home. I’d always wanted to be a pirate, and now I was one, one of the crew of the Rakish Craft, and we’d sunk a big ship. I’m not going to tell you where I lived. Pirates don’t do that, if they’ve got any sense. If there’s people looking for one of them they must find out for themselves, without the pirate helping them. I came home to tea; and I wished I could have brought my mother some gold ingots and a few pearls, as pirates often do when they come home. But I remembered what Bob told me, and knew I must think of the glory of it, and not bother about what it ought to be worth in cash. Of course there should have been heaps of gold taken from ships before they were sunk; but it was good enough seeing the grey ship go down, even without any loot. I was only sorry for the sea-gulls, that they had no corpses floating about. They’d have liked to have pecked at their eyes.

My father and mother wanted to know what I’d been doing, and so did my sister Alice, because they saw that it must have been something. But I couldn’t tell them that. And I’m not going to write about my father and mother. They’re grown up and can write about themselves if they want to; but I’ve got my hands full telling about the great battles Bob fought at sea, and the ships that he sunk.

Well, I learned a lot more at school that week. But I can’t tell you about that. I’ve got more important things to write of. Besides, I’ve forgot it. Bob didn’t say a word to me all that week, so that we shouldn’t be overheard. And that of course was a good precaution. But he didn’t look very precautious. He looked as if his blood was up, and as if he was going on sinking ships till he got hanged, as so many pirates do. I met Bob again at the same place and the same time next Sunday, and he was folding his arms tighter than ever, and wearing that look that I mentioned. I was afraid we would get into trouble. But it was too late to back out now, and, as for warning Bob to go a bit slower, it couldn’t be done. I mentioned it to Algernon, but he didn’t seem to see it. He’d put his money up, or his father’s money, and he wanted to see something for it. So we went to the Round Pond and launched the Rakish Craft from one of the little bays. Then I went back on to the grass and got out some sandwiches from the luncheon-basket, and watched Bob.

I think Bob was trying for a small sailing-boat near the shore, because the Rakish Craft just sailed across the little bay, pretty close to the sailing-boat, but it didn’t come near enough to fire. And when I saw there wasn’t going to be a fight, it gave me time to look round. And what did I see when I looked round but that same fat man again and his son, and another fine boat like the last one, even bigger if anything. Well, I saw that before Bob did, because he was watching the sailing-boat that he didn’t get; and as soon as our Rakish Craft came to land again, as she soon did on the other side of the little bay, I moved up nearer to Bob and Algernon, to a bench that there was near the pond, and signed to them to come over, and told them what I had seen. And, just as I thought, as soon as I’d pointed the big ship out, Bob wanted to go and sink it. And I tells him that would be fatal. “Won’t they be wondering still what happened to their other boat?” I says to him. “And won’t they spend the rest of the day putting two and two together, if they see their new one sink, and see the Rakish Craft quite close again and the same crew standing by?”

“Did you ever hear of a pirate sparing anything, when he had it at his mercy?” said Bob.

“Did you ever hear of a pirate that wasn’t hanged?” I asks.

“Yes,” Bob replies, “all the clever ones.”

“And are you being a clever one?” I asks.

And then Algernon joins in, and I admit he showed sense. “Sink smaller craft today,” he says, “at the other end of the main from those people, and give them time to forget.”

Well, the two of us just succeeded in stopping Bob, and it would have been a bad business if we hadn’t. And Bob goes after a smaller ship, as Algernon says, a long way away from the fat man. It was a clockwork ship some way out, and Bob launched the Rakish Craft so as to cut it off; and when it gets close he gives me the sign and I presses the button, but he wasn’t close enough and it was no good. The torpedo came to the surface then, but it was painted grey so that it wouldn’t show up, and very soon it sank, because it only barely floated, and there was a small hole in it so that it would soon fill with water. Nobody noticed it, and the Rakish Craft sailed on, under the colours of Spain, which Bob fancied, and came to the other shore, and Bob and Algernon went round and got hold of it, and wound it up and brought it back. And there was the same ship that Bob had missed, putting to sea again, and Bob had a better idea of her pace this time, which was very slow, and he launches the Rakish Craft out of the same bay.

It was a lovely day for a fight, and lots of ducks were there enjoying the sun, and the sea-gulls were flying in flocks over the water. Bob didn’t reload the torpedo-tube, so as not to attract attention. He still had his starboard torpedo, and he put to sea with that. And this time the Rakish Craft headed straight for the enemy. And I wanted to fire, but Bob didn’t give the sign until she was quite close, because he had missed the last time. And then he made the sign, and I fired, and both boats rocked a lot when the fountain went up against the side of the enemy’s ship, because they were pretty close, and it was a smaller ship than the one we had sunk last time. And then the enemy sailed on a little way, but not far. And soon her bows began to rise out of the water, and very soon after that she slid to the bottom of the sea; and the Rakish Craft sailed on to the further shore. The boy that owned the boat looked quite surprised, but he didn’t seem to suspect Bob or Algernon, and of course not me, who was sitting quiet on a bench with the luncheon-basket beside me. I watched him so closely that I didn’t see what the fat man was doing, or how much he saw.

He was a long way off, but of course you can see anything on the water at almost any distance, and he must have seen the ship sinking if he looked. Bob went round to the far shore with Algernon, and got the Rakish Craft when it came in, and hauled down the colours of Spain, which were red and yellow, and hoisted the pirate’s flag. I’d sooner he hadn’t hoisted the skull-and-crossbones, but there was no holding Bob over a thing like that. I believed that he had the idea of reloading his two torpedo-tubes and putting to sea again and sinking more ships, for I saw that Algernon was arguing with him as they came back. Anyway, he had the sense not to, and Algernon and I got away as quickly as possible. I did a lot of wondering that week. The boy who owned the small ship that we sunk was still there when we left, and he was looking puzzled. I was wondering what he made out about it when he had thought it over. And I was wondering how much the fat man saw, and how much he knew. Well, it wasn’t any use wondering. But I couldn’t help doing it, for all that. And I was a bit sorry for the boy that had owned the boat, and so I told Bob one day. But Bob said, “Did you ever read of a pirate that was sorry?” And I had to admit that I never had.

“The kites are the only things that I’m sorry for,” he said; “not having any dead bodies to peck at.”

Of course there weren’t any kites; but I saw what he meant; and I saw that it wouldn’t be any use to say anything more on those lines to Bob. Well, he gave me my orders where to meet him next Sunday, the same place. Algernon and I were his crew, and of course we had to obey. In a way I was looking forward to that Sunday all the week, because it is a splendid thing to be a pirate and sink ships. But every now and then I couldn’t help wondering how far Bob would go, and what would happen to us all if he went too far. And I couldn’t ask him. It would have been such cheek.

Well, next Sunday came eventually, and I slipped away as usual and joined Bob and Algernon at the same place. It was a lovely day, and the lilac leaves were all flashing. There would be buds soon. Algernon was there with the luncheon-basket as usual, which I took, and we all went down to the pond. And the first thing Bob looks for is ships to sink. But the first thing I looked for was the fat man. And sure enough there he was, with his son and his big ship. And he was nearer to us this time, having come round to our side of the pond. I walked past him, and took a look as I passed, and he looked at me a bit sideways, and I thought he suspected something. But not the boy; he was only watching his big ship. And it was a fine ship, full of funnels and lifeboats and portholes, even better than the one we had sunk. And another thing I noticed; the boy whose ship we had sunk the Sunday before was there again too, and he also had a rather better ship. Who gave it him, I wondered? And I got the idea that the fat man was at the back of it. So I goes back to Bob and tells him that I think the fat man suspects us. And Bob says, “Aren’t pirates always suspected?”

And he won’t be warned. He has seen the fat man’s new ship, and is going to sink her at all costs. I think it’s dangerous just then to sink another ship at all, but to sink the fat man’s big ship would be absolutely fatal; and so I tell Algernon, and Algernon agrees, and we both of us warn Bob. But Bob says, even if he was going to be hanged for it he would sink that ship first. And when Bob starts talking about the big ship like that, Algernon all of a sudden deserts me and goes in with Bob, and says they will sink her whatever happens. Well, after that I could do nothing, except sit by our wireless-set and obey orders. So I sat on the grass, pretending to eat sandwiches, and watching for Bob’s sign. And then the big ship came steaming past our bay, close in to the shore and Bob times her exactly, and set sail with the Rakish Craft. And it wasn’t more than a few minutes before he gave me the sign with both elbows. And I pressed two buttons, and the ships were quite close, and both torpedoes hit. They were so close that our good ship nearly ran into theirs, but just passed astern of her and went on, rocking down to the gunwales. And the other ship went on, after the two fountains had gone up her side, just as the big one did last time, as though nothing had happened. But very soon she begins to dip by the head. And soon after that she takes her last plunge. Well, of course it was perfectly splendid, even if it did mean prison for years: and I looked at the fat man, and his face was half-turned towards me. And somehow there was an expression in it, and I was sure he had found us out. It certainly looked like prison. I packed up the luncheon-basket and went over to Bob. “You’ve done it now,” I said. “Let’s get away quick, and never come here again.”

But you can’t stop a pirate when once he has tasted blood. They always go on till they are hanged. “I must hoist my flag,” he said, “before I go.”

And there was no stopping him. He goes to where his ship comes in to land, and hoists the skull-and-crossbones and gives the Rakish Craft one more run across the bay. And the fat man stands there watching all the time, smoking his cigar, and says nothing. I was glad to see that at least Bob didn’t reload his torpedo-tubes. And when the Rakish Craft reaches shore he takes her out of the water. And the fat man walks up quite close. Bob did have the sense not to run; but we all walked away pretty fast, and got out of Kensington Gardens, never looking behind us once, because we didn’t dare. But I knew we were being followed. I don’t know how I knew: I just knew. When we got out into Kensington High Street, I said to Bob, “Let’s separate, so that they can only follow one of us.”

But Bob said that was no good, because if they got one of us that would be all they wanted, to unravel the whole plot. So we kept together and walked over half London, so as to tire out whoever was after us. But that was no good, because the fellow who followed us out of Kensington Gardens made a sign to a nasty-looking fellow ahead of us, who watched us as far as he could see, and then made a sign to another. I knew he was watching us, from the way that he looked so straight in the opposite direction, from the moment we came in sight, the direction in which we were going, so that once we were past him he did not have to trouble to turn his head.

I felt that we never got out of sight of those nasty people. Not even when we separated to go home. What I thought was that they hated everybody, and watched them all, because they thought they were all crooks. I seen them before, and that’s what I thought. But we was worse than crooks now. We was pirates. So they were right to watch us. One couldn’t deny that. I tried to do a bit of doubling to throw them off, when I got near my home. But it only made it worse.

Well, all Monday and Tuesday I was wondering what was going to happen. And Bob didn’t say nothing, either because he didn’t believe we had been followed, or because he was pretending that there was nothing wrong. You could never tell with Bob. And Wednesday came, and nothing happened. I still felt uneasy when I went to bed that night; but when I woke up on Thursday morning, and still nothing had happened, I said it was all imagination and nobody had followed us at all, or made little signs at us, silly little signs like lifting their arms and gazing hard at their wrist-watches. But I said as I woke up that Thursday morning that people who lifted their hands up to look at their watches only wanted to see the time, and were meaning no harm to us. So I had a good breakfast and set out to go to school. And there was the fat man walking right past our house, smoking his usual cigar! He was not following me; he was going the other way; but it gave me a feeling like what the man must have had in a poem they taught us at school, which went like this.

 

As one who walks a lonely road in terror and in dread,

And having once looked round goes on and turns no more his head,

Because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread.⁸

 

That’s how I felt that morning, and all that day; and the next day, and the day after. I knew something was after me. I told Bob that morning that the fat man had found out where I lived.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Bob. “He’s got to prove it.”

“He’s got that boy as a witness,” I said, “and probably lots of others.”

“Not he,” said Bob very airily.

But I don’t know how he felt.

“Anyway, I’ll never go there again,” I said. “So, if by any lucky chance he hasn’t got any absolute proof yet, he’ll never get any more.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Bob.

And an awful fear came all over me that Bob would make me go back. Because, if we ever went there again, we hadn’t a chance. I could see that. And Bob isn’t the kind of chap you can disobey, when he says a thing.

Well, the days went on going by, and I was afraid of my own shadow. And they noticed that there was something wrong, at home. But I said it was some work that was worrying me, some lines that I had to learn, and that I couldn’t remember. And my father said, “That’s right. Keep at it.” And my mother said I’d remember them all right. And neither knew the awful thing that was threatening Bob and I. And they tell us at our school that that isn’t grammar. But I can tell you I had much too much to think about, that week, to have any time to bother about grammar, even if it was worth bothering about. And of course they didn’t know about us being pirates. Well, Saturday came at last, and Bob called me over to him that morning. I think he must have seen something too, for he said, “You may be right about those sleuths. It may be a coincidence about the fat man passing your house; but I don’t believe much in coincidences, and we may be up against it.”

“Then you’ll never go back to the main,” I said, as we all called the Round Pond now.

But Bob was silent. I didn’t know what he was going to do, and he wouldn’t say.

And that afternoon he said to me, “We’re going back to the main.”

“We’ll all be hanged,” I said.

“Oh, no we shan’t,” said Bob.

“Prison, then,” I said, “anyway.”

“No,” he said. “You may be right about them suspecting us, but what I’m going to do is to go back there with my ship, and no torpedo-tubes on her. And we’ll sail her right across. Then, if they suspect our ship of being a pirate, they’ll seize her and see their suspicions are groundless. How can they charge us with sinking ships with torpedoes, when ours is quite unarmed?”

It seemed a good idea, and I felt much better; for I feared that Bob would take me and Algernon to the main and sink another ship, and we’d all go to prison that Sunday.

“And we’ll bring the luncheon-basket too,” says Bob. “And do you know what we’ll have in it?”

“No,” I says.

“Luncheon,” says he.

“That’s splendid,” I says.

“And then they can bring their charges for damaging property,” says Bob; “and see how they’ll prove it. Especially when Algernon’s father hires a lawyer to prove we are innocent. Piracy indeed! You don’t only have to catch your pirate. You have to prove he is one. He is only an alleged pirate till then.”

“Yes, we are only alleged pirates,” I says, brightening up.

But Bob folds his arms again, and says, “I am a pirate to the last. But still, they’ll have to prove it.”

That lifted a little of the load off my mind; but I wasn’t easy yet, for the fat man knew where I lived, and he must have been very sure of what we had done, to want to track me down like that. And, when Bob went away, most of the old fears came back, and I couldn’t look into the future without seeing prison. Well, Bob had fixed the same time on Sunday to meet him near to the main; and so I had to go. And I went, and I met him with Algernon. And the luncheon-basket looked lighter. This time, I was glad to see there were no torpedo-tubes on the Rakish Craft. But he had the pirate’s flag flying on her, which seemed a mistake. However, that was Bob’s way. And then we went round to the far side of the pond, meaning to sail her right across and take her out and go straight home. That was the north side; and the first thing I sees is the fat man with his boy and his boat, standing on the east side, where he usually is. And he has a big wireless-set on the ground beside him, playing a tune to amuse the boy, a tune about Teddy bears. Then Bob launches the Rakish Craft, with the skull-and-crossbones flying big and bold from the foremast, and a nice little bit of a wind was making it fly. And he winds her up, and off she goes. There was a small sailing-ship quite near, and I sees Bob look at it with a wistful look; and I was glad he had no torpedoes, because if he had he’d have sunk her for certain, and we should have all been in jail; because you can’t go on and on doing a thing like that and not get caught. But we’ve no torpedoes, and nothing in the luncheon-basket but luncheon, and the sailing-ship goes safe, and the Rakish Craft steams on, and the sound of the tune about the Teddy bears drifts to us over the water. I see the fat man watching us, and I didn’t like it; but I glanced over my shoulder at Bob, and something about the look of him made me see that the more we were watched the better, because the Rakish Craft was going about her lawful business that day, and it was a good thing for people to see it. Still, I knew that I wouldn’t be easy until she had crossed the main, and we were all on our way home. And then I saw a ship about the same size as ours, putting out from the east shore and coming across. She was faster than ours, and looked like cutting across our course. A pity, I thought for a moment, we hadn’t torpedoes. And then I was jolly glad that we had not, because I knew what Bob would have done if his tubes had been loaded.

It was a grey ship, with guns all along her sides; I counted eight of them on each side as she came near, guns that were big enough to have fired a rifle bullet; they seemed rather crowded to me, and I wondered what the ship wanted so many of them for. The ship came on, and the Rakish Craft went on, and I thought the other ship would pass right ahead of her. And then it gave a curve and came straight for the Rakish Craft. Then I thought it would pass astern of her. And then it gave another twist and came straight for our ship again. Bob and I, and I think Algernon too, realized at the same moment that the manoeuvre was too good to be chance. It must be directed! If wireless could fire torpedoes, it could direct a boat. Even aeroplanes have been directed that way. When the strange ship got quite close, she gave a sudden twist to port, which brought her alongside only a few inches away. It was obvious then that the ship was directed. I looked at Bob, and he had his mouth open. Then I looked across the pond at the fat man, and he was sitting beside his big box that was playing the tune for his boy. But I knew that the tune was only camouflage: the box was much larger than what you’d need, for one thing, to play a tune like that. He was sitting there quite unconcernedly. But the boy wasn’t unconcerned: he gave the whole show away, staring at the two ships, glaring would be the right word for it. For a while the two ships kept dead level, quite close; and all of a sudden, bang! And the starboard guns opened fire, the whole broadside. They were pointed downwards, and they hit the Rakish Craft just above the waterline on her port side. Several people looked up when they heard the bang. But there was no smoke to speak of, and I don’t think anyone spotted where the noise came from, except us, who were watching, and that boy.

I could see the holes in our port side, where every shot had hit; and they must have gone right through and made cracks on our starboard side below the waterline. They wouldn’t have been more than cracks, or the Rakish Craft would have sunk, but she remained there, rocking on the water. One of the bullets must have gone right into her engines, for she didn’t go forward any more. Then the strange ship turned round and sailed back the way she had come, and the Rakish Craft stopped rocking. I thought at first that she would keep afloat, and that the breeze, which was proudly flapping her black-and-yellow flag, would blow her ashore in about ten minutes. But she was making water all the time, and she couldn’t last ten minutes. And we saw her go down with her skull-and-crossbones flying, yellow and black from her masthead, as a pirate’s ship should.

There’s not much more to tell, except one funny thing: the fat man launched his grey gunboat again and sent it right across the Round Pond. And she was flying the skull-and-crossbones too.