“Of course not,” said Peggy, fishing them out from under a bush and taking off the lid. “I hid them there because I know what you boys are with biscuits!”
They sat round in the heather, eating their hard-boiled eggs, thick slices of bread and butter, ripe plums, and biscuits, and drinking cocoa that Peggy had made for them.
“I don’t know why, but we always seem to have most delicious meals on our secret island,” said Mike. “They always taste nicer here than they do anywhere else.”
“Paul, don’t you want your second egg?” asked Peggy, seeing that Paul had not eaten it. He shook his head.
“I am not used to your English breakfasts,” he said. “At home, in my own country, we simply have a roll of bread and some coffee. But I would like to eat my egg later in the morning, Peggy. It is so nice. I have never had a hard-boiled egg before.”
Paul began to talk of his own land. He was a nice boy, with beautiful manners that struck the others as rather comic sometimes. He would keep bowing to Peggy and Nora whenever he spoke to them. He had learnt English from his governess, and spoke it just as well as the other children did.
He told them about his father and mother. He cried when he spoke of his mother, who did not know where he was. Peggy and Nora felt very sorry for the little prince. They comforted him, and told him that soon his troubles would be over.
“You are so lucky not to have to be princes or princesses,” he told the children, “You can have a jolly time and do as you like - but I can’t. You will never be kidnapped or taken prisoner - but maybe it will happen to me again sometime or other. There are many people who do not want me to be king when my father dies.”
“Do you want to be?” asked Jack.
“Not at all,” said Paul. “I would like best of all to live with you four children, and be an ordinary boy. But I am unlucky enough to have been born a prince and I must do my duty.”
“Well, stop worrying about things for a little while,” said Peggy. “Enjoy your few days here on our secret island. It will be a real holiday for you. Jack will teach you to swim, and Mike will teach you how to make a camp-fire. You never know when things like that will be useful to you.”
The children all felt rather lazy after their late night. Peggy and Nora washed up the breakfast things, and Peggy planned the lunch. The children had eaten all the ripe plums and Peggy wondered if she should open a large tin of fruit. She would cook some potatoes and peas too, and they could have some of the meat off the cold joint they had brought.
“What about picking some wild raspberries, as we used to do last year?” asked Nora eagerly. “Don’t you remember the raspberry canes on one part of the island, Peggy? - they were simply red with delicious raspberries!”
“We’ll go and see if there are any still ripe,” said Peggy. “But first let’s see if Willow House is still in the little wood beyond the beach.”
The children had built a fine little house of willow branches the summer before, which had sheltered them well on wet or cold days and nights. They all went running down the hill to see if Willow House was still standing.
They squeezed through the thick trees until they came to the spot where Willow House was - and it stood there, green and cool, inviting them to go inside.
“But the whole of Willow House is growing!” cried Peggy. “Every branch has put out leaves - and look at these twigs shooting up from the roof! It’s a house that’s alive!”
She was right. Every willow stick they had used to build their house had shot out buds and leaves and twigs - and the house was, as Peggy said, quite alive. Inside the house long twigs hung down like green curtains.
“Dear little Willow House,” said Peggy softly. “What fun we had here! And how we loved making it - weaving the willow twigs in and out to make the walls - and you made the door, Jack. And do you remember how we stuffed up the cracks with heather and bracken?”
The others remembered quite well. They told Paul all about it and he at once wanted to stop and build another house.
“No, we don’t need one,” said Jack. “We can sleep out-of-doors now - and if rain comes we’ll just sleep in the cave.”
Paul ran in and out of Willow House. He thought it was the nicest place in the world. “I wish I had a house of my own like this,” he said. “Mike, Jack, will you come back to my country with me and teach me how to build a willow house?”
The boys laughed. “Come along and see if we can find some ripe raspberries,” said Mike. “You’ll like those, Paul.”
They all went to the part of the island where the raspberries grew. There were still plenty on the canes, though they were getting over now.
Peggy and Nora had brought baskets. Soon they had the baskets half-full, and their mouths were stained with pink. As many went into their mouths as into the baskets!
“It’s one o’clock.” said Mike, looking at his watch. “Good gracious! How the morning has gone!”
“We’ll go back and have dinner,” said Peggy. So back they all went in the hot sun, feeling as hungry as hunters, although they had eaten so many raspberries!
They had a lovely dinner - cold mutton, peas, potatoes, raspberries, and tinned milk. Mike brought them icy-cold water from the spring, and they drank it thirstily, sending Paul for some more when it was finished. Paul wanted to do jobs too, and Peggy thought it was a good idea to let him. The sun had caught his pale little face that morning and he was quite brown.
“What shall we do this afternoon?” asked Paul.
“I feel sleepy,” said Peggy, yawning. “Let’s have a nice snooze on the heather - then we could have a bathe before tea, and a jolly good meal afterwards.”
It was a lovely lazy day they had, and they thoroughly enjoyed it after all the alarms and adventures of the last week or two. Jack began to teach Paul to swim, but he was not very good at learning, though he tried hard enough!
They had tea, and then they went boating on the lake in the cool of the evening. “We might try a bit of fishing to-morrow,” said Jack. “It would be fun to have fried fish again, Peggy, just as we did last year.”
“Do you suppose we are quite, quite safe here?” asked Paul anxiously, looking over the waters of the lake as they rowed about.
“Of course!” said Jack. “You needn’t worry, Paul. Nobody will come to look for you here.”
“If Mr. Diaz knew about your secret island he might come here to seek me,” said Paul. “Hadn’t we better keep a watch in case he does?”
“Oh no,” said Jack. “There’s no need to do that, Paul. Nobody would ever find us here, I tell you.”
“Where did you use to watch, when you were here last year and were afraid of people coming to look for you?” asked Paul.
“There’s a stone up on the top of the hill where we used to sit, among the heather,” said Jack. “You get a good view all up and down the lake from there.”
“Then to-morrow I will sit and watch there,” said Paul at once. “You do not know Mr. Diaz as well as I do, and I think he is clever enough to follow us, and to take me prisoner again. If I see him coming in a boat, there will be time to hide away in the caves, won’t there?”
“Oh yes,” said Jack. “But he won’t come. Nobody will guess you are here with us.”
But Paul was nervous - and when the next day came he ran off by himself. “Where’s he gone?” asked Jack.
“Oh, up to the hill-top to watch for his enemies!” said Nora, with a laugh. “He won’t see anything, I’m sure of that!”
But Prince Paul did see something that very afternoon!
The Enemy Find the Island