The bell suddenly stopped. Dick had turned it off from inside the loft. Peggy, who had caught the dawdling Sappho, came down again with a scrap of paper in her hand. Gloom showed in her face.
“Do read it aloud,” said Titty.
“It’s the second message really,” said John, looking doubtfully at Mrs Blackett.
Peggy read it, while Nancy watched her with dancing eyes.
“WELLS DRY. BONES SCATTER THE DESERT. LIFE IMPOSSIBLE.”
“Well, that settles it,” said Mrs Blackett.
“No it doesn’t,” said Nancy. “We sent that off before going down to Mrs Tyson’s. She says their pump’s all right. And we can have all the milk we want. Only she wants to see you first about where we’re to camp. She’s in an awful stew about fires. And we promised you’d come tomorrow to talk to her.”
“But Mrs Tyson’s right down in the valley,” said Mrs Blackett. “You might just as well stay here.”
“Oh, mother, how can you?” said Nancy. “Tyson’s is miles nearer than here. It isn’t like being on the wrong side of Ling Scar …”
“Oh dear, oh dear …” said Mrs Blackett.
“What about those hammers?” said Nancy.
“We’ve got them,” said Titty.
“And gorgeous goggles,” said Roger, putting his on for her to see.
“Giminy,” said Nancy. “Have you got a pair like that for me?”
“And we’ve got a splendid lot of stores,” said Roger.
“Good old mother,” said Nancy, and gave her mother a hard and dusty hug.
“And we’ve finished Timothy’s sleeping-hutch,” said Peggy.
“Three cheers,” said Nancy. “We’ll start first thing in the morning. I wish my throat wasn’t too dry to shout.”
“But Nancy …”
“Come along, mother,” said Nancy. “That tea’ll be just cold enough to drink.”
“And what about all that crockery?” said Mrs Blackett. “If you’re going to startle cook into dropping a trayful every day when your pigeon comes home, we shan’t have a plate or a cup left at the end of the week.”
“Stop it out of our pocket money,” said Nancy.
“We’ll all subscribe,” said Titty. “There couldn’t be a better cause.”
CHAPTER VII
TREK TO TYSON’S
IN THE MORNING they bathed in the river.
“It’ll be the last chance,” said John.
“Except for anybody who comes to bring back the pigeons,” said Nancy. “Somebody’ll have to come every fourth day.”
“Poor beast,” said Roger.
“All right on a dromedary,” said Nancy. “And we’ve got two.”
“Dromedaries?” said Roger.
“Bicycles,” said Nancy. “Come on. I’ll race you across the river and back.”
But, last chance though it was, nobody made the most of it. Nancy and John and Susan kept remembering things and reminding each other lest they should forget them later. Dick wanted a final look at the article on gold in the Encyclopædia. Peggy wanted to make sure that Timothy had not arrived during the night, and was going to telephone to the railway station. Dorothea was a little worried lest she and Dick should not be able to pack their tents as neatly as the more experienced explorers. Titty, looking up at the hills and thinking of the long march before them, was eager to be already on the way. Roger had just been promised that he might go over the dromedaries with an oil-can and see that their tyres were pumped up. It was impossible just to swim and float in the morning sunshine as if nobody had anything else of which to think.
Ten minutes after breakfast was over, the camp was a wreck. Tents were being rolled up, tent-pegs gathered into bags, tent-ropes made up into neat hanks for easy stowage. Susan was putting out the camp-fire in the bushes with kettlefuls of water brought from the river.
“Giminy,” said Nancy, looking at the lawn, all scarred with the marks of torn up tent-pegs. “It’s a good thing the G.A. isn’t here to see that.”
“Lots worse than daisies,” said Roger.
“Never mind,” said Mrs Blackett. “It’ll have cured itself by the time we’ve got the house straight. But perhaps it is a good thing Aunt Maria can’t see it now.”
They had hoped to get off right away, but the wrecking of the camp was only the beginning of getting ready. There were a hundred things to do. The handcart was waiting in the stableyard with the dromedaries, but it was very soon clear that the expedition had more baggage than it could carry. More and more things joined the waiting pile. A big wooden pigeon-cage, with wire netting in front and a slanting roof, was lifted up and made fast on the handcart with a loose end from the big coil of alpine rope. Bags of tick beans, Indian corn and maple peas for the pigeons were slung on underneath. Boxes of tinned foods joined the pigeon-cage. The handcart looked already as if it could hold no more while the big pile of baggage had hardly been touched. Every other minute one of the workmen came out of the house to ask Mrs Blackett this or that. And Mrs Blackett was going through a list with Susan and at the same time trying to answer not only the questions of the workmen but also those of the prospectors.
“What about our sleeping-bags?”
“Do the tents go on the handcart?”
“Can’t we hang the cooking things on the dromedaries?”
“Titty, where’s your ground-sheet? Oh, where is Titty?”
“She’s in Captain Flint’s room with Dick.”
“Where’s Peggy’s pillow?”
“Look here,” said Mrs Blackett. “Don’t all talk at once. You needn’t carry anything you don’t want. I’ve got to go up to see Mrs Tyson before you can begin to unpack, and I can take as much baggage as you like in Rattletrap.”
Nancy hesitated, and then made up her mind.
“That’ll make things a lot easier,” she said. “And after all, we could bring it all ourselves, but that would mean making two journeys, and we’ve no time to lose. It isn’t as if it was just going to the North Pole or climbing Kanchenjunga or anything like that. It’s serious business, with no pretence about it. We’ve got to find that gold before Captain Flint comes back, and he’s on the way already.”
They pushed the old car out into the yard, and when they had crammed it with stores and bedding, things began to look a little more hopeful, though there was still plenty left to be carried by the dromedaries. By that time three parts of the morning were gone, and it was clear that there could be no hope of starting till after the midday meal.
Nancy dashed off to Captain Flint’s room and found Dick busy copying out paragraphs from the Encyclopædia into his note-book.
“Look here, Dick,” she began, and broke off.
“Good for you, Titty,” she said. “That looks jolly fine.”
Titty, who felt that it was rather like desertion to go off without waiting for the arrival of Timothy, had hurriedly made some garlands of marigolds, and with red and blue pencil had drawn the letters of “welcome home” on the lid of an old shoebox, cut them out, strung them on cotton, and