“O-oh look! Miguel’s sinking! The waves are right over his head!”
That happens to be the one sort of joke sailors can’t enjoy. Even though the words were unintelligible, their gist — eked out by the slightly malicious hints of the mate — was not. If they steadily refused to swim, they at least took to crossing themselves fervently and continuously whenever they had to traverse a piece of open deck. For there was no way one could be certain that these brats were not gifted with second sight— hijos de puntas !
What the children were really doing, of course, was trying out what it would feel like when they themselves were all grown pirates, running a joint venture or each with a craft of his own: and though they never so much as mentioned piracy in the course of these public navigations, they talked their heads off about it at night now.
Margaret also refused to swim: but they knew by now it was no good trying to make her: no good yelling at her she was drowning, for all she did at that word was to sit down and cry. So it became a recognized convention that Margaret, wherever she went or whatever she was doing, was on a raft, with a keg of biscuit and a barrel of water, by herself — and could be ignored.
For, since her return, she had become very dull company. That one game of Consequences had been a flash in the pan. For several days after it she had remained in bed, hardly speaking, and inclined to tear strips off her blanket when she was asleep: and even when she was about again, though perfectly amiable — more amiable than before — she refused to join in any game whatever. She seemed happy: but for any imaginative purpose she was useless.
Moreover, she made no attempt to regain the sovereignty to which Emily had succeeded. She never ordered any one about. There was not even any fun to be got out of baiting her: nothing seemed to ruffle her temper. She was sometimes treated with a good-humored contempt, sometimes ignored altogether: and it was enough for her to say something for it to be automatically voted silly.
Rachel also, for several days after her service, showed no disposition to join with the others. She preferred to sit about below, sulking, in the hold. From time to time she attempted to pick a hole, with a copper nail she had got hold of, in the bottom of the ship, and so sink it. It was Laura who discovered her purpose, and came hot-foot to Emily with the news. Laura never doubted, any more than Rachel did, that the task was a possible one.
Emily came below and found her at it. After three days, she had only managed to scratch up one single splinter — partly because she never attacked the same place twice: but both she and Laura expected to see quantities of water come welling through and rapidly fill the ship. Indeed, though no water had yet appeared, Laura was convinced the ship was already perceptibly lowered as a result of Rachel’s efforts.
Laura clasped her hands in expectation, waiting to see what Emily would do in the face of this impending disaster.
“You stupid, that’s no good!” was all Emily’s comment.
Rachel looked at her angrily:
“You leave me alone! I know what I am doing!”
Emily’s eyes grew very wide, and danced with a strange light.
“If you talk to me like that, I’ll have you hanged from the yard-arm!”
“What’s that ?” asked Rachel sulkily.
“You ought to know which is the yard-arm by now!”
“I don’t care!” growled Rachel, and went on scratching with her nail.
Emily picked up a big piece of iron, in a corner, so heavy she could hardly carry it:
“Do you know what I’m going to do?” she asked in a strange voice.
At the sound of it Rachel stopped scratching and looked up.
“No,” she said, a trifle uneasily.
“I’m going to kill you! I’m turned a pirate, and I’m going to kill you with this sword!”
At the word “sword,” the misshapen lump of metal seemed to Rachel to flicker to a sharp, wicked point.
She looked Emily in the eyes, doubtfully. Did she mean it, or was it a game?
As a matter of fact, she had always been a little afraid of Emily. Emily was so huge, so strong, so old (as good as grown up), so cunning! Emily was the cleverest, the most powerful person in the world! The muscles of a giant, the ancient experience of a serpent! — And now, her terrible eyes, with no hint in them of pretense.
Emily glared fixedly, and saw real panic dawn in Rachel’s face. Suddenly the latter turned, and as fast as her short fat legs would carry her began to swarm up the ladder. Emily rang her iron once against it, and Rachel nearly tumbled down again in her haste.
The iron was so big and heavy it took Emily a long time to haul it up on deck. Even when that was done, it greatly impeded her running, so that she and Rachel did three laps round the deck without their distances altering much, cheered boisterously by Edward. Even in her terror Rachel did not forget to work her arms as in breaststroke. Finally, with a cry of “Oh, I can’t run any more, my bad leg’s hurting!” Emily flung down the iron and dropped panting beside Edward on the main-hatch.
“I shall put poison in your dinner!” she shouted cheerfully to Racheclass="underline" but the latter retreated behind the windlass and began to nurse with an abandoned devotion the particular brood she had parked there, working herself almost to tears with the depth of her maternal pity for them.
Emily went on chuckling for some time at the memory of her sport.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Edward scornfully, puffing out his chest. He was feeling particularly manly at the moment. “Have you got the giggles?”
“I like having the giggles,” said Emily disarmingly. “Let’s see if we can’t all get them. Come on, Laura! Harry, come!”
The two smaller ones came obediently. They stared her in the face attentively and seriously, awaiting the Coming of the God, while she herself broke into louder and louder explosions of laughter. Soon the infection took and they were laughing too, each shriller and more wildly than the other.
“I can’t stop! I can’t stop!” they cried at intervals.
“Come on, Edward! Look me in the face!”
“I won’t!” said Edward.
So she set on him and tickled him till he was as hysterical as the rest.
“Oh, I do want to stop, my tummy is hurting so!” complained Harry at last.
“Go away then,” advised Emily in a lucid interval. And so the group presently broke up. But they had all to avoid each other’s eye for a long while, if they were not to risk another attack.
It was Laura who was cured the quickest. She suddenly discovered what a beautiful deep cave her arm-pit made, and decided to keep fairies in it in future. For some time she could think of nothing else.
V
Captain Jonsen called suddenly to José to take the wheel, and went below for his telescope. Then, buttressing his hip against the rail, and extending the shade over the object-glass, he stared fixedly at something almost in the eye of the setting sun. Emily, in a gentle mood, wandered up to him, and stood, her side just touching him. Then she began lightly rubbing her cheek on his coat, as a cat does.
Jonsen lowered the glass and tried his naked eye, as if he had more trust in it. Then he explored with the glass once more.
What was that business-like-looking sail, tall and narrow as a pillar? He swept his eye round the rest of the horizon: it was empty: only that single threatening finger, pointing upwards.
Jonsen had chosen his course with care to avoid all the ordinary tracks of shipping at that time of year. Especially he had chosen it to avoid the routine-passages of the Jamaica Squadron from one British island to another. This — it had no business here: no more than he had himself.