ROGER WITH A bullet through his hat was enough to slow up any sewing party. Nancy was full of envy. Titty wanted to know exactly what had happened. Susan turned away from the hat and would not look at it, thinking how near the bullet had passed by Roger’s head. Captain Flint sat gloomily down on a bit of dragon where it spread over a chair.
‘It’s all my fault,’ he said.
‘Well, you were a bit of a gummock, Uncle Jim,’ said Nancy. ‘Going and letting Wu see the sextant.’
‘How was I to know the little beast had been a bo’sun?’ said Captain Flint. ‘I’d never heard him open his mouth. And most of these chaps get along all right with coastal sailing but wouldn’t know what a sextant was if you shoved it at their noses.’
‘One thing,’ said Nancy, ‘if we’re not allowed out any more, there’s no need to go on pricking our fingers. My thumb’s nearly raw pushing that needle through or having the needle jabbed into it by Peggy pushing it back.’
‘Gosh!’ said Roger. ‘We won’t even be allowed to see the other dragons.’
‘They cut it up for us,’ said Susan, ‘and we’ve nearly done now. We may as well finish it.’
‘I suppose we’d better go at that Latin,’ said John.
It was nearly dusk. Susan was finding it too dark to see, and the others, stirred to it by Captain Flint, were asking each other grammar questions, expecting every minute to see their evening rice brought in, when there was a sudden shadow in the doorway. Miss Lee had come back.
‘Salve, domina,’ said Roger.
‘Salve, Loger,’ said Miss Lee, but not as if she really meant it. She looked back into the garden and beckoned. The amah came in and Miss Lee spoke to her in Chinese, setting her to keep watch through a window looking on the courtyard. She herself glanced back again into the garden and said, ‘Loger, please sit in the doorway, so you will see if anyone is coming.’
Captain Flint offered her a chair and she sat down, but only for a moment. She stood up again, looked at the Latin Grammar and at the page Captain Flint had copied out to study in his cage, picked up the dictionary, opened it, closed it again and put it down. Suddenly she swept books and papers together.
‘No more lessons,’ she said.
‘But we like them,’ said Captain Flint. ‘And we’re getting on.’
‘No more lessons,’ said Miss Lee. ‘No good. I was velly happy. I thought Camblidge had come to me. Velly good students. All finished now. My father made a good law when he said “No English plisoners in the Thlee Islands”!’
Her students listened with puzzled and rather frightened faces. This was a new Miss Lee. They had seen Missee Lee, chief of the Three Islands, sitting in the council room of her yamen, sitting in her father’s chair, with the Taicoons and captains listening to her every word. They had seen Miss Lee, the happy lecturer, helping lame dogs over the stiles of Latin grammar. They had seen Miss Lee, the skilful steersman, master in her own ship. They had never seen a Miss Lee who looked as if she had failed in getting her own way.
‘Thlee Islands,’ said Miss Lee, talking as if to herself and not to her listeners. ‘Thlee Islands, my father made them one. He tlusted me to keep them one. And now I make them thlee again. The counsellor is light. Better to have no English students, no English plisoners, no Camblidge, but keep Thlee Islands one, and my father happy in his glave.’
‘Are you going to let us go?’ said Roger from his seat in the doorway, keeping watch on the garden path.
Everybody stirred uncomfortably. Roger had said what was in all their minds.
Miss Lee flashed for a moment into anger. ‘You all velly pleased. Even Loger.’
‘We’ve loved being here,’ said Nancy. ‘We’ll remember it all our lives.’
‘Short lives,’ said Miss Lee. ‘Plobably velly short lives.’
Suddenly they heard the shrill piercing whistling of the signaller. Miss Lee’s mood changed again.
‘You hear that?’ she said. ‘I have agleed with my counsellor. I have told him he may tell the Taicoons I have agleed with them. He has sent the message now. I have plomised to make an end and have no more English plisoners after the Dlagon Feast.’
‘But that’s tomorrow,’ said Susan.
‘But you’re not going to let them do any chopping?’ exclaimed Roger from the garden door. ‘We wouldn’t really like it.’
‘They say they will be quite content if I chop heads for them.’
‘Miss Lee!’ said Titty.
‘Jibbooms and bobstays,’ said Nancy. ‘But it isn’t fair.’
‘Vale, domina,’ said Roger sadly.
Miss Lee laughed in spite of herself.
‘Loger’s Latin leally velly plomising,’ she said. ‘And all have been good students . . . Tlied hard . . . Even Nansee is not so velly bad.’ (Nancy opened her mouth to speak but changed her mind.) ‘No. Miss Lee will not chop the heads of her students.’
‘How are you going to get rid of us, ma’am?’ asked Captain Flint. ‘Send us off to Hong Kong . . . or Singapore . . . or any treaty port? We’d be all right anywhere if we can get in touch with a consul.’
Miss Lee flared up at him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That is what the counsellor told me. You will talk to a consul. The consul will send teleglams to the admilal. The admilal will send orders to gunboats and gunboats will come and smash up all Thlee Islands business.’
‘But we wouldn’t let them,’ said Titty.
‘Not Chang, not Wu, not one of our captains would let you have a chance of talking to one of your consuls,’ said Miss Lee. ‘They would take no lisk. Chop heads. Dlown and be safe.’
‘But if you tell them they’ve jolly well got to,’ said Nancy.
‘What happened today?’ said Miss Lee. ‘An accident. A sampan will upset taking plisoners ashore. Plisoners all dlowned. Velly solly. All a lie. But what can I do? I chop off the head of the captain. Velly good. But plisoners will still be dlowned. The same thing will happen if you stay here. A stone will fall down a cliff. Poison in food. A man shoots a pigeon and hits Loger by mistake. No. Better no more Camblidge, no more lessons, and my velly good students must tly to go away.’
‘But how?’ asked Nancy.
‘If we could have Swallow and Amazon,’ said John. ‘Our two boats.’
‘Too small,’ said Miss Lee. ‘Too slow.’ She looked from one to another, and then, with eyes half closed, as they had seen her when in council with the Taicoons, she looked narrowly at Captain Flint.
‘If Miss Lee tlusts you,’ she said. ‘If I give you a junk, can you plomise to sail light away, not to go to Hong Kong, not to go to Macao, not to go to Hainan, not to go to any harbour till you leave all China Seas?’
‘We all promise,’ said Captain Flint. ‘We’ll touch nowhere before Singapore.’
‘Singapore harbour-master will say, “Hullo, you China junk, where are you flom?” What will you say?’
Captain Flint thought a moment. ‘Awkward without papers,’ he said. ‘Best tell them as much truth as we can. Tell them we lost our schooner at sea, got ashore somewhere, bought the junk from fishermen, put out again, lost our reckonings and glad to find out where we are.’
‘And not send gunboats?’
‘Of course we won’t,’ said Nancy.
‘You plomise?’ Again Miss Lee looked at Captain Flint. ‘They’ll chop us to pieces before we give you away, ma’am. But what about sending the junk back? Port officials might follow her.’
‘Who blings her back?’ said Miss Lee scornfully. ‘If I send Thlee Island men with you, you will never get to Singapore. Door-nail dead before you are gone two days. They will not tlust you. Only I, Miss Lee, tlust you.’ Another thought struck her. ‘Could you sail one of our junks without Chinese sailors?’
‘Seven of us,’ said Captain Flint. ‘And we took a schooner half round the world before we burnt her . . . I don’t know about a big junk, but we could manage a little one.’
‘I will give you Shining Moon,’ said Miss Lee.
‘Miss Lee!’ exclaimed Nancy.
‘Gosh!’ said Roger.
‘I’d take that little ship anywhere,’ said Captain Flint.
‘We’ll take awful care of her,’ said John.
‘But what will you do without her?’ said Titty.
‘Building another . . . better,’ said Miss Lee. ‘But Shining Moon is a good boat. She will take you to England. She will show what a Chinese junk can do. And I will stay here on Dlagon Island and fo’get Camblidge altogether.’
‘Come with us,’ said Titty.
‘Chuck this piracy business,’ said Captain Flint. ‘You come back to England with us, go back to Cambridge, take one degree after another and end up head of a college.’
Miss Lee’s eyes sparkled for a moment. Then the light in them went out. ‘I must stay in the Thlee Islands,’ she said.
‘Will the others ever let us get away?’ asked Susan.
‘No,’ said Miss Lee.
‘Then it’s all no good,’ said Roger.
‘Sail at night,’ said Miss Lee, ‘and they will not see you go. In the morning, if there are no plisoners, there will be no heads to be chopped.’
‘Those big junks are pretty fast,’ said Nancy.
‘Our captains do not make long voyages. If you are gone clear out of sight they will not catch you.’
‘When can we start?’ said Susan.
‘Tomollow,’ said Miss Lee. ‘Dlagon Day. The Taicoons come here to feast in my yamen. The Tiger Island men will bling their dlagon. The Turtle men will bling their dlagon. They will see you all day. They will see your dlagon dance at night. They know I have agleed to have no English plisoners. They will think, “All light. Chop off heads in morning.” No shooting, no chopping on Dlagon Feast Day. Sunlise to sunlise evellybody fliends. That night you go. Evellybody feast and sleep. When they wake you will be gone.’
‘How do we get out of here without being seen?’ said John.
Miss Lee looked from face to face in the dusk. ‘Better I talk with your captain alone. Better you should not know. You can go out. Too dark for shooting now.’
‘Out,’ said Captain Flint.
There was no waiting. The six of them went out into the garden, leaving Captain Flint and Miss Lee to talk secrets alone in the swiftly darkening room.
In the dusk outside, Susan looked up at the tops of the trees that showed here and there shadowy against the sky above the garden wall. ‘Roger, you come here,’ she said. ‘Don’t go out on the terraces. We’ll keep under the orange trees where we can’t be seen.’
‘Giminy,’ said Nancy. ‘I wish we hadn’t really got to go.’
‘You don’t want to stay and have your head cut off?’ said John. ‘We’re jolly lucky it hasn’t happened already.’
‘How long will it take us to get to Singapore?’ said Susan. ‘We shan’t be able to let Mother know we’re all right until we get there.’
‘Depends on the wind,’ said John. ‘But she’s a grand little ship.’
‘I say,’ said Titty. ‘We shan’t be going home in a liner after all. We’ll be sailing in our own ship.’
‘Chinese junk,’ said Roger. ‘Gosh, it’s really almost a good thing Gibber set fire to the Wild Cat.’
‘It isn’t,’ said Titty.
‘Well, of course Wild Cat did have an engine,’ said Roger. ‘There’ll be nothing for me to do.’
‘Won’t there?’ said Nancy.
‘We’ll have to get a tow through the Red Sea,’ said John, thinking far ahead. ‘North wind there all the time. Captain Flint was counting on the engine to push Wild Cat through to the Mediterranean.’
‘It’s the getting away that’s going to be difficult,’ said Susan. ‘Sentinels everywhere. And it’ll be worse if we try and they catch us.’
‘Galoot!’ said Nancy. ‘Even you, Susan. We get our heads chopped off if we stay. They can’t chop them off more than once even if they catch us trying to bolt. And of course we’ll get away. No more beastly Latin. That’s one thing. No more listening to a ship’s boy cockily spouting Latin . . .’
‘Able-seaman,’ said Roger.
‘Jibbooms and bobstays! Won’t we mates and captains make you work,’ said Nancy, who, even if she was sorry to be leaving a pirate island, had not much enjoyed being bottom of a class in which Roger was top. ‘Latin!’ she added scornfully. ‘Polishing brass-work’ll do you good.’
‘There isn’t much brass to polish on Shining Moon,’ said Roger.
‘Plenty of teak to keep holystoned,’ said Nancy.
‘Probably no holystone,’ said Roger. ‘Anyway, who cares?’
‘We’ll be at sea again,’ said Titty.
‘I wonder how they reef those sails,’ said John.
‘Easy with all those battens, I should think,’ said Nancy, and the two captains went off into a debate as to how best to do it.
They walked up and down among the orange trees, sailors ashore only in passing, happy in the thought that very soon they would have a swaying deck under their feet once more. In the noise of the cicadas among the leaves they were hearing the creaking of the blocks. Up and down they walked in the dusk, keeping an eye on the door from the garden into their house, watching for Miss Lee or Captain Flint to call them in.
At last, when it was almost dark they saw a shadow flit to and fro carrying bundles from their house to Miss Lee’s. Then they saw Miss Lee herself going home. They waited a little longer and saw a flicker of light in their rooms. The amah had lit the lanterns. They saw her flit away for the last time.
They went back to the house and found it empty. Captain Flint had gone.
‘Locked up for the night,’ said Nancy.
‘Better make sure,’ said John.
‘I say,’ said Susan. ‘All our things from Swallow have disappeared.’
‘That’s what the old amah was carrying,’ said Roger.
They went out in the courtyard to the bars of Captain Flint’s cage, all but Roger, who went to have a word with Gibber through the bars of the next cage but one. They could see a glimmer of light through the door of Captain Flint’s sleeping-box.
‘Hey!’ called Titty quietly. ‘Captain Flint!’
The prisoner, with a bowl of rice in his hand, came out to the front of his cage.
‘Go home,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘We wanted to be sure everything was all right.’
Captain Flint spoke low. ‘I’ve got our sailing directions, if that’s what you mean.’
‘All our things have gone,’ said Susan.
‘I know,’ said Captain Flint.
‘What about the dragon?’ said Susan. ‘We shan’t want it after all.’
‘More than ever,’ said Captain Flint. ‘Go home and make the best job of it that ever you did in your life. And get it done before you go to sleep. Good night!’ He turned round, went back into his sleeping-box and closed the door behind him.
They went home and found their supper just coming in. They hurried through it. It was hard working by lantern-light, but when they went to bed the little dragon was all but ready for his twelve legs.