THE LANTERNS HAD gone out during the night but thin slivers of sunshine came through cracks in the shutters into the room where the six prisoners, awake and fresh after a long sleep, were squatting on cushions and piecing together their tales of what had happened. Roger had told the story of Gibber and the hunters for grasshoppers. Nancy had told of what happened aboard the pirate junk. John and Susan, with interruptions from Roger, had told of the house on the island, the books that had vanished, and of how, when they set off after Titty had sighted the Amazon, there had been people coming down the cliff.
‘I wonder what happened to the boats,’ said Nancy.
‘I don’t know,’ said John. ‘There was a whole fleet of sampans coming down the river when we were looking for you. And then there were more of them by our island. They’ve probably collared all our things . . . Captain Flint’s sextant . . . My barometer . . .’
‘The sleeping-bags,’ said Susan. ‘My first-aid box . . . They’ve got every single thing we didn’t have in our pockets.’
‘We’ve lost all ours,’ said Peggy.
‘If they’re going to chop our heads off it won’t matter,’ said Roger. ‘I mean, not having the things won’t matter. Not our heads.’ He felt his neck as if to make sure his head was still firmly in its place. ‘Oh well,’ he added, ‘Captain Flint won’t let them. But I do think they might give us some breakfast.’
Boom!
It was the gong that they had heard the night before. Ten thrumming strokes. They had already heard a good deal of moving about and talking in the courtyard. Now they heard the noise of marching feet and, suddenly, close to them, the voice of Captain Flint, singing:
‘Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies,
Adieu and farewell to you ladies of Spain.
For we’re under orders for to sail to old England,
But we’ll jolly soon see you fair ladies again.’
They rushed to the shuttered windows and tried to look through the cracks. They could see that people were passing. John was the only one to catch a glimpse of Captain Flint.
‘Gosh,’ he said. ‘They’ve got him in the hen-coop again.’
‘He’s saying “goodbye”,’ said Nancy. ‘They’re taking him away somewhere.’
‘He’s changed the last line,’ said Titty.
‘He can’t mean they’re sending him off to England without us,’ said Peggy.
‘Galoot,’ said Nancy. ‘What he means is that we’re going too. Soon see you again. That’s what he means.’
Captain Flint was still singing, further away now, but he was singing the same verse.
‘Quick. Quick,’ said Titty. ‘Let’s answer, to show we’re all right . . . We’ll rant and we’ll roar . . .’
‘Come on,’ said Nancy and they all sang together:
‘We’ll rant and we’ll roar like true British sailors,
We’ll range and we’ll roam over all the wide seas
Until we strike soundings in the channel of old England
From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues.’
There was no answer. Captain Flint, in his hen-coop, had been carried out of the gateway and away.
‘I say,’ said Titty. ‘British . . . We ought to have made it American because of his pretending to belong to San Francisco.’
‘Oh rot,’ said Nancy. ‘He said “England” himself. It’s only a song. They won’t make head or tail of it, anyway. And Ushant and Scilly in the last line will muddle them up.’
Steps sounded outside and fumbling at the door. It opened and two of the servants whom they had seen at the Taicoon’s supper came in with trays, on which were bowls with rice and chicken, a bundle of chopsticks and a much smaller bundle of little splinters of bamboo. They set the trays on the floor and went out. Two guards with rifles were outside the door, and, when Nancy made as if to go out, stopped her at once.
‘Oh well, here’s breakfast, anyway,’ she said. ‘We’d better eat it,’ and the prisoners set their cushions round the trays and hungrily began.
‘Bother these chopsticks,’ said Roger, taking a bit of chicken in his fingers.
‘We’ll have to learn,’ said Susan. ‘It was awful last night . . . How do you hold the things? Oh, never mind . . .’
They heard a laugh. A shadow fell across them. The one-time cook was standing in the doorway and behind him the two guards were watching them with wide grins.
‘Stowee chow chow plenty quick,’ said the one-time cook. ‘Taicoon . . .’ He waved his hand to show that the Taicoon had gone away. ‘San Flancisco . . .’ He waved his hand again. ‘All go Missee Lee yamen plenty quick.’ He lifted both hands to his ears and made a terrific braying noise.
‘Gosh,’ said Roger. ‘Donkeys again. And I’m still sore.’
‘We walked on our own hoofs yesterday,’ said Nancy.
‘So did we,’ said Susan.
‘You don’t know what those donks are like,’ said Roger. ‘I wish we were walking today.’
‘Hully up,’ said the one-time cook, squatting beside them on his heels.
They hurried up as best they could, sweeping the rice over the rims of the bowls, playing catch-as-catch-can with the bits of chicken, emptying the bowls down their throats. Before they had done, the one-time number one cook went off again, pretending to lift his ears.
‘He’s gone to fetch those donks,’ said Roger grimly.
‘Well, buck up,’ said Susan. ‘Don’t stop to talk about it. Nothing makes people so cross as other people being late.’
They drank their tea. Susan and Peggy put all the empty bowls one inside the other. They made six neat piles of the cushions. They even did a little washing in a huge earthenware basin full of cold water they had found in an inner room.
‘No toothbrushes,’ said Roger.
‘That’s what those little bits of bamboo are for,’ said Susan who had been looking at the little bundle that had been brought in with their breakfast.
‘Toothpicks,’ laughed Nancy. ‘No getting out of it, Roger. Go ahead. We won’t have any toothbrushes till we get to an English ship or a proper town.’
‘Well,’ said Roger, ‘if they’re going to cut our heads off I’m not going to bother.’ He looked anxiously at Susan.
‘I’m going to, anyway,’ said John.
‘So’m I,’ said Nancy. ‘If they’re going to be beastly to us, I want clean teeth to gnash at them.’
They were using the toothpicks and laughing at each other using them when the Chinese woman who had brought them the cushions the night before came in with a bowl of sunflower seeds. She took it to the parrot’s cage and then looked from Nancy to Susan, from Susan to Titty and from Titty to Peggy.
Titty darted forward, took the bowl and thanked her. ‘It’s the Taicoon again,’ she said. ‘He’s sent some food for Polly.’
‘Oh I say,’ said Roger. ‘Gibber can’t go till he’s had his breakfast.’
There was stamping in the courtyard outside and they caught a glimpse of brightly painted saddles.
‘All leddy?’ asked the ex-cook from the doorway.
‘Come on,’ said John.
‘Put a grin on, Peggy,’ said Nancy.
Titty was hurriedly pouring the sunflower seeds into the parrot’s feeding-box.
Roger looked from one to another, and then ran out of the door, dodged between the rifles of the guards, bolted through the men who were waiting with the donkeys, and raced up the courtyard to Nancy’s and Peggy’s prison of the day before. At the small window where they had seen Nancy’s face, Gibber, who had managed to climb up inside, was peering out.
‘Come on, Gibber,’ said Roger. ‘You’re coming too. But you’ve got to have some breakfast first.’ He began looking for the way to open the door.
‘Monkey belong stay here,’ said the ex-cook who had hurried after Roger. ‘You belong see him, bimeby.’
‘But he hasn’t had any food,’ said Roger, opening and shutting his mouth to show what he meant.
‘Plenty chow-chow,’ said the man and led Roger back towards the crowd with the donkeys. Titty was coming out with the parrot in his cage. The ex-cook shook his head. ‘Pallot belong stay here,’ he said. ‘See him, bimeby.’
‘That’s all right, Titty,’ said John. ‘It means we’re coming back again.’
‘Pallot all light,’ said the ex-cook, taking the cage from Titty to carry it back into the house.
‘Pieces of eight,’ screamed the parrot.
‘What him say?’
‘Pieces of eight,’ said Titty. ‘Money.’
The ex-cook rubbed his hands. ‘San Flancisco plenty lich man,’ he said.
Two minutes later they were off, the six prisoners sitting on those gay but painful saddles, with a man leading each donkey, a dozen guards with rifles walking beside them, and a crowd of onlookers jostling each other to get a better view. They left the courtyard and, busily trying how best to sit their donkeys, came to the outer wall where they had another view of the dragon, lying like a cast snake-skin on the ground while men and women crouched and worked at it. Most of the crowd went no further but stopped to see how the work on the dragon was going on. Only some of the small boys followed them out under the gateway, and turned right with them along the wall, grinning up at them, chopping off fingers with imaginary knives and cutting off heads with imaginary swords.
‘Don’t look at them,’ said Susan.
‘Nasty little beasts,’ said Nancy.
‘I’d like to bat one of them,’ said Roger.
‘What does it matter,’ said John, ‘if they like cutting off their own heads.’
They left the wall and set out on a broad beaten track slanting up towards the ridge that they had crossed the day before. All but two of the small boys stopped and turned back. These two, the noisiest of the lot, ran along beside the guards, jeering, shouting, pointing at the prisoners and making signs of head-chopping. Suddenly the ex-cook, without saying a word, let go the leading-rein of Titty’s donkey, grabbed the two boys, banged their heads heartily together, and was back again by the side of the donkey. The two boys, each, no doubt, blaming the hardness of the head that had bumped his own, went for each other, fell on the ground and were left fighting in the dust.
‘Velly plitty countly,’ said the ex-cook, placidly waving his hand. ‘Allee same Melica?’
‘It’s lovely,’ said Titty, keeping her teeth clenched together because of the jolting of the donkey.
‘Giminy,’ she heard Nancy say. ‘My spine’s coming through the top of my head.’
‘You wait,’ said Roger. ‘They haven’t trotted yet.’
And as he said it, someone shouted an order. There was no more talking for a bit. The guards were running, their rifles leaping on their backs. The donkeys were trotting, galloping, trotting again. The prisoners were hanging on with both hands, their legs, spread wide by the saddles, kicking loose in the air. The cutting off of heads hardly seemed to matter now. How soon, how soon would the donkeys slow down into a walk?
They slowed down at last and the prisoners looked at each other. All had serious faces. All were trying to find softer spots in their saddles. But nobody had fallen off. The ex-cook was again inviting Titty to admire the scenery.
Moving along the side of the ridge they could see away to the right the feathery tops of bamboo woods, glimpses of water and more forest beyond them. Far ahead they could see more water and beyond that, range upon range of blue hills.
‘It’s an island,’ Nancy called over her shoulder.
The ex-cook said a name in Chinese. He translated it ‘Tiger Island. Velly fine island.’
‘That’s why the Taicoon had a tiger on his banner,’ said Titty.
For some time they went on at a fast walk. The road began to bear to the left over the shoulder of the ridge and suddenly they were looking down on the river, the mouth of which they had seen the day before. There, on the further side, was that great mass of rock, with cliffs falling to the water’s edge. Further up the river the cliffs were not so high, and the great rock sloped gently down towards green fields and trees almost on the level of the water, white walls, green roofs, a tall queer-shaped tower, a flagstaff, a widening of the river where junks were lying at anchor, and, beyond all this, a glimpse of yet more water on the further side of the trees.
The ex-cook pointed.
‘Dlagon Island,’ he said, and dropped his voice. ‘Missee Lee . . . Twenty-two gong Taicoon.’
‘Gosh!’ said Nancy. ‘Another island.’
The ex-cook heard her.
‘Thlee islands,’ he said and pointed down the river.
They looked, but Dragon Island seemed to be all in one piece.
‘Perhaps he means the little island where we landed,’ said John. ‘It’s hidden, round the corner, behind those cliffs.’
But the ex-cook was pointing almost straight across the river. ‘He must mean there’s a way through,’ said John, ‘but you can’t see it from here.’
‘Thlee islands,’ said the ex-cook again. He said a name in Chinese, hesitated and found the word he wanted. ‘Tort . . . Turtle Island. Taicoon Wu. Tiger Island . . . Taicoon Chang. Ten gong Taicoons . . .’ And then, drawing himself up and squaring his shoulders proudly . . . ‘Thlee Islands. We . . .’ He tapped his chest. ‘We Thlee Islands men and Missee Lee our Taicoon. Twenty-two gong Taicoon,’ he added, making as if to count on his fingers.
‘I say,’ said Nancy. ‘You know our Taicoon. All the others run like rabbits for him. If Missee Lee’s a bigger boss than him, she must be pretty good as a pirate.’ And then, as she looked before her and saw how the road dipped steeply down towards the anchorage she thought of something very different. ‘Giminy,’ she said. ‘If they begin to trot now we’re done.’
But for a long time they did not. The donkeys were allowed to choose their own pace till they were down among the trees and paddy-fields. Then, at a signal, donkeys and men set off just as hard as they could, as if to show that they had been hurrying all the way. The men ran, the donkeys galloped, and, in a cloud of dust, they came to a rough quay at the side of the river.
‘Hully, hully,’ panted the one-time cook.
The prisoners found themselves being pulled off their donkeys. Staggering as if they had been long at sea, as indeed they had, though it had never made them so unsteady, they were hurried out on the quay and down into a wide, square-ended boat. The boatmen had been waiting for them and the moment prisoners and guards were aboard, they pushed off from the quay.
‘Aren’t the donks coming too?’ said Roger.
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ said John.
‘Good,’ said Roger.