ROGER CAME DOWN the rocks into the little bay where the Sea Bear had been scrubbed two days before. He looked at her lying quietly at anchor in the creek and saw that no dinghy was lying astern of her. Somebody must be ashore. He wondered who. He saw Peggy up aloft, sitting on the cross-trees, with her back towards him and guessed that she must be looking at the Pterodactyl. From up there she would be able to see across the lower part of the rocky promontory that divided the inlet. Some of the others were on deck, Susan, Titty, Dorothea. He could not see Dick, Nancy, John or Captain Flint. Then he saw the dinghy, pulled up the beach at the head of the cove where the stream came down into the salt water. Somebody, he thought, must have landed to get a nearer view of the Pterodactyl. Oh, why had he fallen asleep and let her come back without giving them a warning? Roger did not hail his ship. He was not going to ask to be taken aboard when they had found him sleeping and left him to wake with that label at his head. He sat on his heels on the shore, hating everybody.
Aboard the Sea Bear nobody noticed him. Peggy, up the mast, looked down from time to time and the others looked up at her from whatever it was they were doing, but not one of them looked at the waiting Roger. He thought they were not looking on purpose to make him feel that he was in disgrace.
He was on the point of stumping away inland again by himself when he saw Dick come down to the dinghy and busy himself with the stowage of some sort of cargo. Then he saw Captain Flint coming down the rocks on the far side of the cove and knew that he must have been looking at the enemy. Both of them were putting something into the dinghy. They had her afloat. They had pushed off from the shore. Dick was sitting in the stern and Captain Flint was rowing towards the Sea Bear. The dinghy was nearing the Sea Bear when Roger saw Dick pointing towards him. Captain Flint looked over his shoulder and changed course. In another few minutes the dinghy grounded at Roger’s feet.
‘Hop in,’ said Captain Flint. ‘You’re a good look-out. Why didn’t you let us know she was coming?’
‘I saw her go right out of sight,’ said Roger. ‘It wasn’t until long after that I fell asleep. I didn’t do it on purpose.’
‘All right,’ said Captain Flint. ‘Cheer up. There’s no harm done. Tell you the truth, I’ve been to sleep myself.’
Dick, very gloomy, said nothing.
The dinghy was half full of heather. Roger did not ask what for.
Dorothea grabbed the painter which Roger threw grimly aboard as the dinghy came alongside.
‘Peggy says he hasn’t landed,’ she said.
‘He hasn’t,’ said Captain Flint. ‘And I don’t think he will tonight. Too late. Besides a chap like that thinks that everybody else is like himself. He probably thought Dick would go straight back and take the eggs. That idea will be knocked out now because we’re still here, and if we’d got the eggs we’d have gone. His next idea will be that since we haven’t got the eggs yet we’ll be after them tomorrow, and he’ll be trusting to us to show him the way.’
‘We ought to sail away and then he’ll come after us and leave them alone,’ said Dick.
‘He won’t do that unless he thinks we’ve got the eggs in the ship with us,’ said Captain Flint.
‘You’ve got a grand lot of heather,’ said Dorothea. ‘I’m sure it’s going to be all right, Dick. I’m sure it is, in spite of everything.’
Dick and Captain Flint began passing up armfuls of heather. Roger climbed aboard without a word.
‘I say, Roger,’ said Titty, ‘didn’t you see him coming?’
‘You know I didn’t,’ flared Roger. ‘I think you’re all beasts, putting that notice. It was a beastly thing to do.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Susan.
‘What notice?’ asked Titty.
‘What’s all this?’ asked Captain Flint, as he handed up a great bundle of heather to Dorothea.
‘I don’t care what you say,’ said Roger. ‘It was a beastly thing to do.’
‘But what have we done?’ said Susan.
‘Coming up to my Pict-house and putting that notice and going away again just because I couldn’t help falling asleep. I don’t believe I was asleep for very long anyway.’
‘But we’ve never been near the Pict-house,’ said Titty. ‘We came straight back here from looking at the birds and we’ve been working ever since.’
‘Well, if you didn’t,’ said Roger, ‘I know who did. Where’s Nancy?’ he demanded. ‘John wouldn’t have done it.’
‘Done what?’ asked Captain Flint.
‘She knows what she did,’ said Roger.
‘Ahoy . . . oy!’
‘There she is,’ said Susan, ‘and John, just coming down to the shore. Who’s going to fetch them?’
‘I’m going,’ said Captain Flint, who was still in the dinghy. ‘Out you get, Dick.’
Dick climbed aboard and looked glumly at the long net that was hanging below the boom, one end of it still plain netting, the rest of it decorated with tied-on sprigs of heather.
‘We’ll soon have it done,’ said Dorothea.
‘It won’t be safe to use it,’ said Dick.
Roger looked at it, wondered what it was for, did not ask and stood at the top of the ladder, waiting for Nancy.
‘Jiminy!’ Nancy was saying as Captain Flint brought the dinghy alongside. ‘We’ll just have to fend him off. It makes things a bit more difficult that’s all. I say, Susan, we’re starving. Just let me get my teeth into a bit of pemmican. Get out of the way, Roger. How can I come aboard with you standing there?’
Roger, red in the face, glared at Nancy. ‘I think you’re a perfect beast,’ he said.
‘Born that way,’ said Nancy cheerfully. ‘What have I done now?’
‘You jolly well know,’ said Roger.
‘I don’t.’
‘What you did when you came to my Pict-house.’
‘But I’ve never been to your Pict-house in my life,’ said Nancy. ‘I was hard at work scrubbing the day you people went off exploring.’
‘Today, I mean,’ said Roger.
‘Don’t be an idiot, Roger,’ said John. ‘We’ve never been anywhere near you. We’ve been right up to the hills at the end of the valley, and, I say, Titty, we saw one of your stalkers, a keeper or something. He yelled at us like anything.’
Roger’s eyes opened wider. ‘Gosh!’ he said. ‘But it couldn’t be one of them. It was in English. Whoever wrote it can’t have been a Gael.’
‘Wrote what?’
‘Get on,’ said Captain Flint. ‘Let me come aboard. Now then, let’s hear all about it.’
‘I couldn’t help going to sleep,’ said Roger.
‘Oh, never mind that,’ said Captain Flint. ‘It made no difference. We couldn’t have stopped her coming in.’
‘We saw her when she was nosing about outside,’ said Titty.
‘Go on, Roger,’ said Nancy. ‘Who wrote what? What did he write? Where?’
‘Well, if you didn’t do it, it was somebody else,’ said Roger. ‘When I woke up, some beast had been there. My knapsack was inside out. Somebody’d put a flower in the lemonade bottle. My telescope wasn’t where I’d left it. And I’d folded up the sandwich paper and put it away and somebody’d taken it and spread it out and written on it and stuck my knife into it to keep it from being blown away.’
‘Where was it?’ asked John.
‘Just above my head,’ said Roger.
‘What was written on it?’
‘A message?’ asked Titty.
‘Nothing like that,’ said Roger.
‘Well, what was it?’ said Nancy, impatiently.
‘Just something meant to be beastly.’
‘But what?’
‘Where is it?’ asked Titty. ‘It may be a secret message.’
‘Code,’ said Dorothea.
Roger had not thought of that. He pulled the scrumpled-up paper out of his knapsack and spread it out again. Even in that grim moment, when they all knew that the Pterodactyl had followed them, found them and was lying just on the other side of the rocks, the sight of the three words written on the paper made everybody laugh but Roger.
‘I don’t think it’s code,’ said Captain Flint. ‘Clear, to me.’
‘It’s serious all the same,’ said Nancy. ‘You didn’t hear anybody or see anybody?’
‘It must have been one of the people who stalked us,’ said Titty.
‘But they were Gaels,’ said Roger.
‘The young chieftain himself,’ said Dorothea. ‘He’d know English as well as Gaelic.’
‘The natives are not friendly,’ said Nancy. ‘You should have heard the one who shouted at us.’
‘What are you laughing about?’ Peggy called down from the cross-trees.
‘We aren’t laughing,’ said Nancy. ‘It’s going to be a lot harder than we thought. Enemies afloat and ashore. I say, come down. I’m going up to have a look. You come down and do your job. We’ve had nothing to eat since breakfast.’
‘Supper in half an hour,’ said Susan. ‘You others, get on with the net. We may as well finish it anyhow, even if Dick can’t use it.’
‘Can’t use it?’ said Nancy, as she started up the ratlines. ‘Who said he couldn’t? The Sea Bear’s not going to be beaten by a miserable motor boat.’
‘I must say, I don’t like the idea of being done by that chap,’ said Captain Flint.
‘We aren’t going to be,’ said Nancy from above his head. ‘You leave it to me.’
Dorothea and Titty were already hard at work, tying bits of heather on the part of the netting that had not yet been decorated. John and Captain Flint joined them. The two cooks went below.
‘Come on, Roger,’ said Titty.
‘But what’s it for?’ asked Roger who, while still boiling with rage against the writer of that label, no longer thought that one of the Sea Bear’s crew was to blame for it. They told him and he set to work with the others, after trying for himself how good a hide it made.
‘But it’s going to be much more difficult now,’ said Dick. ‘We’ve got to get it there without being seen. We’ve got to hide from people as well as from birds.’
‘Hiding the hide,’ said Roger, and Titty knew that Roger was feeling better.
‘Once you get it there nobody’ll know what it is, even through glasses,’ said Captain Flint.
‘It’s getting it there,’ said Dick. ‘If those birds are frightened they’ll start screaming and tell him just where they are.’
‘You needn’t go near them till it’s nearly dark.’
‘It doesn’t get half dark enough,’ said Dick. ‘And anyway I’ve got to get the net to the island while there’s light enough to see what I’m doing.’
‘You’ll manage it,’ said Dorothea.
Somehow, with the return of Nancy the gloom that had settled on the Sea Bear had lifted. Perhaps Dick alone, after his talk with the egg-collector, understood quite how awful was the danger that threatened the Great Northern Divers and their eggs. For all the others, the presence of the Pterodactyl meant difficulty, but difficulty that they would find a way to overcome. One after another, after Nancy came down, champing for her supper, they climbed to the cross-trees, and looked across at the big motor boat lying beyond the rocks. There she lay, the enemy, in full view, and whatever happened, they did not mean to be defeated.
At supper, down in the cabin, there was a council of war.
Nancy summed up. ‘It’s like this,’ she said. ‘There are two lots of enemies, not one. Dick’s got to take his photographs without being seen by the old Dactyl. And he’s got to do it without being seen by the natives. If the natives start yelling like they did at John and me, they’ll frighten the birds and he won’t have a chance.’
‘It’s worse than that,’ said Dick. ‘If the Gaels see me going to the island they’ll start shouting, and that’ll tell the egg-collector just where to look.’ He paused a moment as a new thought came into his worried head. ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘There’s something else. If the natives see what I’m doing, the egg-collector’s only got to wait till we’ve gone. Then he’ll ask them. They’ll take his money and show him where the nest is and we won’t be able to do anything about it.’
‘Great Auks for ever!’ exclaimed Nancy. ‘Well done, Professor. Of course that’s what we’ll do. We’ve got to use one lot of enemies against the other. Simple. We’ve got to find a way of making those Gaels do all their shouting in the wrong place.’
‘But if they see me . . .’
‘They mustn’t,’ said Nancy, ‘and they shan’t. Look here, Titty. About that stalking the other day. Let’s hear exactly what happened.’
Titty, Roger and Dorothea, interrupting each other, told once again the story of the explorers and how they had felt they were being watched but could see nobody watching them, and how, at last, far up the valley, the stalkers had shown themselves, with their dogs, and how, with shouts in what could only be Gaelic, a foreign language anyhow, they had sent the explorers hurrying back to the safety of their ship. This time, now that John and Nancy had themselves been shouted at, the able-seamen had an audience that was ready to believe. It made all the difference to the telling of the story.
‘What we’ve got to do,’ said Nancy, ‘is to get them stalking again.’
‘We don’t want trouble with natives,’ said Captain Flint. ‘What sort of people are they?’
‘There’s a young chieftain,’ said Dorothea.
‘And a huge old giant with a grey beard,’ said Titty.
‘You saw him yourself,’ said Roger. ‘The dogmudgeon who wouldn’t wave back when we waved to him as we sailed away.’
‘And there were others,’ said Dorothea. ‘All savage Gaels shouting Gaelic war cries on their native hills.’
After supper, John went up to the cross-trees and reported that the Pterodactyl’s dinghy was still in the davits. Nobody was showing on deck. Nobody had gone ashore.
‘Lying low,’ said Nancy. ‘All the better.’
‘But what about the Gaels?’ said Dick, coming on deck after doing his share in the washing up.
‘They won’t be out so late,’ said John. ‘And once we get to the loch, that shore shelves so that you can’t see the ridge when you’re down by the water. The only danger from that side is when you’re rowing out to the island. It’ll be nearly dark, and tomorrow you’ll have to be there before people get up.’
With many hands at work, the net was soon ready. They spread it flat, folded it and rolled it up for easy carrying, with a rope round it to keep it from coming undone. With the heather on it, it made a big bundle, but, of course, weighed very little more than the string that had gone to its making.
‘What about starting?’ said Susan. ‘Nobody’s had much sleep except Captain Flint . . . and Roger.’
‘Susan!’ said Roger angrily.
‘Never you mind, Roger,’ said Captain Flint. ‘Susan’s yawning herself. She’s envious of us, that’s all.’
‘Not yet,’ said Dick. ‘I ought to go as late as possible, so long as it’s just light enough to see.’
‘You can’t go now, anyhow,’ exclaimed Nancy. ‘Don’t all turn round at once. There’s someone coming down to talk to us.’
The sun was dropping behind the hills, but high up by Roger’s Pict-house, two figures had shown for a moment on the skyline. They were now coming down the slopes above the cove.
‘One’s the dogmudgeon,’ said Roger.
‘I do believe the other’s the young chieftain,’ said Dorothea.
‘It’s a boy,’ said Captain Flint. ‘Um, I wonder if he’s Roger’s ingenious friend. That message didn’t sound quite like a ghillie.’
‘I’m going ashore,’ said Roger. ‘I want to talk to him.’ He jumped up and was going to unfasten the dinghy’s painter that was made fast astern.
‘No,’ said Nancy. ‘Sit tight. They’re coming here. Wait and see what happens.’
But the tall old dogmudgeon and the boy in his Highland dress were not at the moment interested in the Sea Bear. They were coming down the slopes, but moving sideways as they came. The crew of the Sea Bear lost sight of them, saw them again, nearer the head of the cove. They disappeared once more.
‘They’re going to the loch,’ said Dick.
‘Of course they aren’t,’ said Dorothea, ‘or they wouldn’t have come by the Pict-house. They’d have gone straight down on the other side of the Hump.’
Peggy was at the masthead now.
‘Lights in the Pterodactyl’s cucumber frame,’ she reported, and a moment later, they saw her signalling quietly with one hand.
She had caught sight of the tall Gael and the boy. Presently the others saw them.
‘They must have crossed the stream,’ said John.
‘They’re going to talk to the egg-collector,’ said Dick.
‘Allies already,’ said Dorothea.
From the Sea Bear, the watchers saw the boy and the dogmudgeon climbing among the rocks and heather of Low Ridge.
‘What are they waiting for?’ said Titty.
The two figures were on the top of the ridge, looking down towards the anchored motor boat. They stood there a minute or two, and then turned back the way they had come.
‘Funny to come all that way and not hail him in the end,’ said Nancy.
‘They can’t be allies,’ said Dorothea.
‘Don’t talk too loud,’ said Nancy. ‘You know how sound carries over water.’
The sun had gone down, leaving a golden glow above the distant hills. It was already hard to see the man and the boy against the slopes of the hill below the Pict-house, but more than once somebody saw something moving, and just for a second, as they passed the Pict-house, the two figures showed black against the sky.
‘They’re going back to the castle,’ said Dorothea.
‘Very rum,’ said Captain Flint. ‘But it’s the other boat they came to see. They aren’t interested in us.’
‘They’ve seen us already,’ said Titty.
‘I wish you’d let me go ashore,’ said Roger. ‘If it was that boy . . .’
‘He’s bigger than you,’ said John.
‘I don’t care,’ said Roger. ‘I want to know why he did it.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t,’ said Susan.
‘Well, who did?’ said Roger.
‘You ready to start?’ said Captain Flint to Dick.
‘Give them time to get home first,’ said Nancy.
Half an hour passed. The light in the sky had faded. The shore looked dark in the dusk.
‘Now,’ said Nancy. ‘Now’s your chance. Off with you. Gaels in bed, Dactyls ditto. We’ll keep watch all the time and give you a blare on the foghorn if they come ashore. They can’t until they put their dinghy over. Look here. If John’s going with Dick, I’ll go with them and watch the Dactyl from those rocks. I’ll borrow Susan’s whistle. No I won’t. If the Dactyl launches her dinghy, I’ll do an owl call, and then the Sea Bear can loose a blare on the foghorn, so that Dick and John’ll know it isn’t safe.’
‘It’s all right, Dick,’ said Dorothea, ‘you can’t do any harm by putting up your hide tonight, even if it isn’t safe to use it tomorrow. No one will ever notice it if we have to leave it behind.’
‘It’ll be too dark if we don’t go now,’ said Dick, his mind made up.
John, without a word, had already brought the dinghy to the ladder, and gone down into it. Dick followed. The rolled-up net was lowered in and John made ready to row with a leg on each side of the bundle. Nancy went down with the painter.
‘You ought to be in the stern,’ said John, ‘but never mind now.’
‘Good luck,’ said Dorothea.
The dinghy slipped quietly away towards the mouth of the stream.