CHAPTER XVII

NANCY SENDS A PICTURE

“DIAMOND OVER NORTH CONE,” said Dick, hurrying breathlessly into the kitchen. “We’ve got to go to Holly Howe. We’d better go at once and leave the mast till later.”

“It can’t be the doctor,” said Dorothea. “We saw him only the day before yesterday.”

“It’s something urgent,” said Dick, “or they’d have waited to tell us at the Fram.”

It was a nuisance having to go to Holly Howe. If only it had been the Fram signal there would have been no hurry, and he would have been able to get on with that mast. Mr Dixon was about too, and would have been ready to help. But the Holly Howe signal meant that, whatever might be planned, the others would be waiting for them, and there was nothing for it but to start at once. In a very few minutes their provisions for the day were packed on the sledge and, pulling uphill and tobogganing down, they hurried along the road, ending up with a splendid run down the field and through the Holly Howe gate, which luckily happened to be open.

“At last,” they heard Peggy’s voice.

They got up from the sledge, stamped the snow off their boots, and went into the farm. There, in the big parlour, they found the others looking at something on the table.

“Is something the matter?” asked Dorothea, when she saw their serious faces.

“It’s Nancy,” said Peggy. “Look at this.”

“The doctor met Mr Jackson and gave it him to give to us,” said Roger.

The thing they were all looking at was a very small drawing, done on a sheet of writing-paper. Anybody could see the paper had been in the oven for disinfection, because it was faintly browned all over as if it had been scorched. Drawn in black ink upon it was a sledge, with four skating figures pulling it, two others sitting on the top of it, and another hanging on or pushing behind. On the shore (for the sledge was clearly going along on the ice) an excited crowd of people were talking to each other and waving their arms. A sign-post showed the way to the North Pole, and at the bottom corner of the picture was a compass sign also showing that the sledge party was on its way to the north.

“It must be meant for us,” said Roger. “Seven of us, counting both of you.”

“But why are all the people so excited?” asked Titty.

“Perhaps it’s a race,” said Dorothea.

“But there’s only one sledge,” said Peggy.

“She must be very tired of staying in bed,” said Dorothea, “and she’s been drawing pictures just for fun, and this is one of them.”

“But she isn’t in bed,” said Peggy. “She’s hopping about like anything. She only goes back to bed in the afternoons. The doctor said so last time he was here.”

“And anyway, why does she send it to us?” said Titty. “She knows we can do pictures too.”

“She wouldn’t do it for nothing,” said Peggy.

“Well,” said John, “I still think it means that she wants us to start for the Pole, but I don’t understand why.”

“But how can she mean that, when she knows she’ll be able to come herself if we wait and the frost goes on like it is?”

“I know,” said John, “but there you are, seven of us, and the sledge loaded up with gear, and that sign-post to show where we’re going.”

“But what did she put in the crowd for?” said Peggy doubtfully.

“Eskimos in Rio Bay,” said John.

“And seals,” said Titty. “She means start at once.”

“Well, let’s,” said Roger.

“We’re not nearly ready,” said Susan.

“But all those people in the crowd are on dry land,” said Dick, looking carefully at the picture, “and they’ve got no skates on. They can’t be Eskimos or seals.”

“I do wish we could go across and ask her,” said Peggy. “I don’t believe it would do her any harm now she’s getting better. And we couldn’t catch mumps by just semaphoring at her out of the garden.”

“Stop, stop!” said Dick.

He spoke with such excitement that everybody turned to look at him. He was struggling to get his notebook out of his pocket. “That’s just what the crowd’s doing,” he said. “Semaphoring. Wait till I get my book. The people in the crowd are just like the ones Nancy drew for me when she was showing me the semaphore alphabet.”

Everybody bent over the table again. If it was a question of semaphore signals neither Peggy nor the Swallows had any need of Dick’s book.

“Galoots we are!” cried Peggy. “Donks! Of course that’s what they’re doing. Well done, Dick. Look there. Look at those two plump Eskimos waving their left arms. That’s two e’s side by side. And the next one to them, that lanky one with one arm down and one up is an l. And the next one to him, with one arm stretched out and the other slanting downwards, is an s. Never mind their legs. Look at their arms, E-E-L-S. Eels.”

“But what on earth can Nancy be wanting to say about eels?” said Susan. “It must be just accident that those figures look like letters.”

“Nancy’d jolly well shiver our timbers if she heard us say so. Anyway, let’s get a bit of paper and see if it makes sense. Good for you, Titty. You write them down.”

“The first one’s an M,” said Dick, who had been carefully hunting through the set of signals Nancy had drawn in his pocket-book. And the next’s an a. I can’t find the one like a washerwoman. Oh, yes, I have. It’s an R.”

NANCY’S QUESTION

But the others were already reading far ahead.

“M-A-R-F-E,” said Peggy. “Stick them down. Titty. Ready? You can see they’re all letters. This E is just like the others.”

“Bigger and not so plump,” said Roger.

“Never mind anything except their arms,” said Peggy. “Go on. H-T-N. That’s as far as the little she-Eskimo with her arms slanting down on each side. Then it goes on just the same. They’re letters all right. She’s made them all skipping about just to puzzle any native who might try to read it. That tall one’s an I. Then there’s a g and she’s made it look like a governess, N-I.”

“It isn’t a bit like the other I,” said Roger.

“Galoot,” said Peggy. “Its arms are. P. Then the two E’s. E-E-LS-S-I-O-H-W.”

“Steady,” said John.

“Not quite so fast,” said Titty, “S-S-I. What then?”

“O-H-W.”

“Well, it doesn’t make sense,” said Susan.

Peggy looked at what Titty had written, and read it aloud with a rather puzzled expression.

“Marfeht nignip eels siohw?”

“It’s like some Indian language,” said Titty. “Have you and Nancy got one that we don’t know anything about?”

“Not yet,” said Peggy.

“What about the people pulling the sledge?” said Dick. “Are they letters, too? That first one might be an A. Not very good though. All the four in front might be A’s.”

“But the ones sitting on the sledge aren’t like any of the letters.”

“Just being lazy,” said Roger.

“And why has she put the compass in?” said John. “That means something.”

“Shows they’re going to the North Pole,” said Roger. “And we are, too. I bet it all means ‘Get ready to start.”’

“And a signboard as well,” said John. “As if the compass wasn’t enough.”

“Remember that other letter of Nancy’s up in Swallowdale,” said Titty, “when we had to show the arrow to the parrot. Let’s do just what she says. The sledge must be us, and it’s going the way the signboard is pointing. Let’s go that way. Right to left. Try from that end. W-H-O-I . . . ”

“You’ve got it,” shouted Peggy. “Who? Who ISSLE . . . ?”

“Wait a minute,” said John. “Who is. Now then, S-L-E-E-P, sleeping. It’s coming out now. I-N-T. In the F-R . . . WHO IS SLEEPING IN THE ‘FRAM’?”

“It’s a jolly good thing Nancy doesn’t know what an age we took to make it out,” said Peggy.

“But what does it mean?” said Susan. “We’ve locked up every night before coming home. And we’ve never left the key in the cabin door. Peggy’s put it in her pocket every time.”

“Somebody may have got another key,” said Roger.

“The only other one’s still at home,” said Peggy.

“It must be burglars again,” said Titty.

“But how does Nancy know about it?”

“Somebody’s seen a light there, and told them at Beckfoot, and she thinks we must have left the door open.”

“We’d better go down there at once and look round,” said Susan.

And the whole seven tobogganed down the field from Holly Howe to the boathouse, put on their skates at the edge of the ice, and then skated steadily away, round under the icicle-hung cliffs of Darien, and down the lake to Houseboat Bay.

But there seemed to be nothing suspicious about the houseboat when they skated up to it, and sat on their sledges to take their skates off before going aboard.

“Do you think the burglar may be still there?” Roger had asked.

“Not unless he’s a fool,” said John. “He must know we come every day.”

All the same, John walked slowly all round the Fram on the ice, and had a look at her from all sides, just to see if there was any sign of the presence of an invader.

There was none.

John, Peggy, and Susan left the others on the ice and climbed aboard. When Peggy had unlocked the cabin door, John walked right through and into the fo’c’sle, rummaging about and making sure that no one could be hidden in the ship. Meanwhile the others had been watching, half expecting to see the fo’c’sle hatch lift suddenly up, and the burglar, whoever he was, some cheeky young seal or Eskimo, bolt from it like a startled rabbit. But nothing of the sort happened. The fo’c’sle hatch did lift, but only to let John put his head out and say, “All clear,” after which the others climbed aboard and went down into the cabin in the ordinary way.

“Don’t touch anything,” said John. “Let’s first make sure everything is exactly as we left it last night.”

A careful search was made without anything being touched except one small piece of chocolate, which Roger found just where he had left it by mistake. He decided that as it had been given him yesterday, it had better be eaten at once lest Susan might count it as part of today’s ration.

“Well,” said Susan, looking over the piles of Arctic equipment scattered all over the cabin. “One thing’s clear anyhow. If anybody slept in the Fram last night, he slept on the floor.”

“And there isn’t really very much room even there,” said Dorothea. “At least, not to be comfortable.”

In the end it was Peggy who guessed the truth. After all, she knew Nancy better than any of the others knew her. She knew the way in which Nancy’s mind worked, planning adventure even when, with a pumpkin face, she was stretched upon a bed of sickness. At least, Peggy remembered, it wasn’t a pumpkin any longer, and Nancy was getting up for more than half the days. But, no matter, she knew at last just what it was that her plague-stricken captain had wanted to say.

She came skating up to the others. After they had made sure that no one had slept in the houseboat, they had gone full tilt down to Spitzbergen and back, just to keep in training.

“It wasn’t that someone else was sleeping in the Fram,” she said. “Nancy wanted to know which of us was sleeping there.”

“But we none of us are,” said Susan.

“She thinks we ought to be. So we should be if she was all right.”

“We’d be at school,” said Susan.

“Oh yes,” said Peggy. “But you know what I mean. Here we are with a Fram all waiting, much warmer than our own bedrooms. It really is warm, you know, with the stove going all day. And Nancy’s always saying that the worst thing about winter is that you can’t get away from a house at night. That’s why she’s thought of it.”

They knew at once that Peggy was right. It was just like Nancy. But could it be done? John and Susan looked at each other. Old doubts as to whether they should be in the houseboat at all came flooding back into their minds.

“But we can’t really,” said Susan.

“Why not?” said Roger.

“Let’s all sleep aboard tonight,” said Titty.

“You won’t anyway, either of you,” said Susan very firmly.

“But you and John can,” said Peggy.

John went skating off by himself to think things out.

“It would be a lovely thing to do,” said Dorothea. She and Dick were somehow outside this altogether. Sleeping in the houseboat was something for the Swallows and Peggy. Dorothea felt that Nancy had never really thought of anyone else. But, like Nancy, she was aglow at the idea of the explorers sleeping in a real ship frozen in the ice; going to bed there, watching a red glimmer in a chink of the stove, and waking in the morning to clear a peephole in the frosted windows and look out over the frozen sea. It was not for her and Dick who were, after all, strangers, but just to think of the others doing it was next best to doing it herself.

Gradually, during the day, Susan weakened. John, too, who at first had remembered his old promise about night sailing, came round to think that you could hardly call it sailing to be in a boat that was frozen in and so not moving at all. And Peggy kept putting it to them more and more strongly. “We simply can’t let Nancy down.” Somehow it had never come into Peggy’s mind to sleep in the Fram; and even now, not for anything, not even for Nancy’s sake, would she sleep there alone in the dark, away from all the others. But if John and Susan were there too, everything would be all right, and Nancy, stuck at Beckfoot, would not have to feel that she could not trust her mate to do the things that were waiting to be done. Now that Nancy had suggested it, Peggy saw that they ought to have been sleeping there all along. What was the good of having a Fram if you went home to a farmhouse every night? “We’ve simply got to,” she said.

Again and again the three elders went skating off with grave, serious faces.

John and Susan, even as they weakened, were still sure of one thing, and that was that neither Titty nor Roger was to sleep anywhere but in bed at Holly Howe. But, if the two young ones were going to bed at the proper time and in the proper place, they began to think that there was no very serious reason why they should not themselves do as Captain Nancy had planned. John felt as if Nancy had dared them to do it, and that, in itself, was enough to make him very unwilling to say “No.”

No decision was announced, but at dusk, when they separated and went home, Peggy and the Swallows northwards to Darien, Dick and Dorothea southwards towards Spitzbergen, there was such a cheerful note in Peggy’s “Goodnight!” that Dorothea could hardly believe that she had failed.

“I believe they’re going to do it after all, the big ones,” she said, as she and Dick hauled their sledge up the field to Dixon’s Farm.

“I wish it was us,” said Dick.