Term time was gone as if it had been wiped out. Real life was beginning again.
“Pretty good surprise, wasn’t it?” said Nancy. “I told mother not to let you know the D’s were coming. Able-seamen both of them now. And with Roger promoted we’ll have two able-seamen in each boat when your mother comes to Holly Howe and you have Swallow again. But we’ve got lots to do first. Did Peggy tell you? Lucky we’ve got Dick. He’s geologist to the company …”
“What company?” asked Roger.
“Mining,” said Nancy.
“Supper in half an hour,” Mrs Blackett called from the house. “You’ll be ready by then. Supper in my camp tonight, not yours. I’ll come to supper with you another day … to try Susan’s minced pemmican.”
“Buck up,” said Nancy.
They had just time to look at their own tents, and at the camp fire, not on the lawn but in a little clearing among the bushes a few yards away.
“Now for the pigeon loft,” said Nancy.
They were raced across the lawn and round the house to the stableyard.
“Hullo,” said Peggy. “There’s that Squashy Hat again.”
A tall, thin man, in loose grey flannels, with a soft brown felt hat, was hesitating outside the garden gate. When he saw the eight of them pouring round the corner of the house he turned and went off up the road.
“That’s the second time,” said Nancy. “He was here yesterday, looking over the wall when we were putting up tents ready for the D’s.”
“Visitors think gates and walls are just made for them to goggle over,” said Peggy. “Here you are. Don’t kick up too much row going up the ladder. That’s the door they fly in at.”
They went up the ladder to see the pigeon loft, with its whitewashed sill for the pigeons to land on, and the little doorway with its swinging wires to let the pigeons come in and to keep them in when they had come. Nancy opened the big door for humans at the top of the ladder, and showed them the inner door of wire netting, and the big loft behind it, where Homer, Sophocles and Sappho were enjoying their evening meal, sipping water, and talking over the afternoon’s flights.
“Look here, you must get your things changed,” said Susan, and they were rushed across the yard and upstairs in a house strangely dismantled, to get into camping clothes in a room crammed with all kinds of furniture wrapped up in dust sheets.
“Hurry up,” called Nancy from the hall, and they were rushed down again and into Captain Flint’s study.
Captain Flint’s study, close by the front door, seemed to be the only room in the house that was as they remembered it. There were the high bookshelves, the shelves of scientific apparatus, the glass-fronted cupboard of chemicals and the queer things hanging on the walls; spears, shields, a knobkerry and the jawbone of a big fish. Even there, something was going on in the building line. Someone had been at work turning a packing-case into something rather like a rabbit hutch. On the table a big book of South American natural history was open at the coloured picture of an armadillo, and beside it was a slip of paper on which the careful Dick had noted down the usual size of such animals. This, no doubt, was as a guide in making a suitable place for Timothy to sleep in when he should arrive. Pinned to the mantelpiece, as if to let even his room know that he was coming, was the telegram, sent off from Pernambuco a week before, in which Captain Flint (Nancy’s and Peggy’s Uncle Jim) had announced that he was on his way.
THIS WILD GOOSE LAYS NO EGGS STARTING HOME BE KIND TO TIMOTHY GIVE HIM THE RUN OF MY ROOM—JIM
“Read that,” said Nancy. “He’s come another mucker. Wild goose means he was on a wild goose chase. And when he says ‘Lays no eggs,’ he means he hasn’t found gold. That’s what he went for.”
“You know,” said Peggy. “The goose that lays the golden eggs. Well, this one didn’t.”
“He might just as well have stayed at home,” said Nancy. “And then he’d be in the houseboat and we could be making him walk the plank or anything else that turned up. The whole trouble is that he gets fidgets and goes off looking for things. Why shouldn’t he look for things here? If we can find just a scrap of gold, then he’ll stay at home instead of wasting our holidays by being too far away to be useful …”
The gong sounded in the empty hall.
They hurried into the carpetless dining-room to have their supper off a table made with the planks and trestles of the plasterers. Mrs Blackett served out good big helpings of mutton and green peas and potatoes, and everybody was too hungry to do much talking. Mrs Blackett herself talked all the time, of the papering and plastering and what not, and how the house must be ready before her brother came back, and how glad she was the Walkers and Callums had been able to come, and how much she was looking forward to seeing Mrs Walker and Bridget, when Bridget’s whooping-cough should be over, and Mr and Mrs Callum, as soon as Mr Callum could get away from correcting examination papers. It was not till supper was nearly over that serious subjects were mentioned. “And now,” said Mrs Blackett at last. “How soon do you begin prospecting?”
“We’re going to see Slater Bob tomorrow,” said Nancy.
“So long as you are all here to answer your names at night you can’t get into much harm,” she said. “I expect he’ll tell you enough to keep you busy hunting all over the valley.”
“Is there really any gold?” said Roger.
“Slater Bob’ll tell you there is,” said Mrs Blackett. “He’s been talking of gold ever since I was a little girl.”
It was really growing dark when they went out to the camp in the garden. The sun had gone down over the shoulder of Kanchenjunga, and the fiery sunset had dimmed and cooled to a pale green light behind the hills. A starry darkness closed down over the valley of the Amazon, and the silent little river, and the cluster of white tents on the lawn. The camp-fire among the bushes made the night seem darker than it was. They sat around it and talked, seeing each other’s faces by the light of the flames. Bushes and tree trunks about them flickered into sight and out again as the flames leapt up or died. Everything seemed possible.
“It’ll be the Swallows, Amazons and D’s Mining Company,” said Nancy, and Titty started suddenly. She knew that Nancy had been talking for some time, but she had not heard what she was saying.
“When he sees what we’ve found, he’ll never desert again,” Nancy went on.
Dorothea was still wide awake. She had not come a long railway journey that day. She spoke to Titty. “Isn’t it lovely?” she said. “To think of him coming home and knowing nothing about it. A failure. No gold. Nothing. Coming home alone. Even his faithful armadillo sent on ahead. And the boat moving through the tropical night. And Captain Flint walking up and down the deserted decks. Up and down, up and down. Thinking of failure. Not knowing that when he gets home, there’ll be a gold mine at his very door.”
Titty looked away from the fire, and tried to see the outlines of the hills somewhere above them in the dark. She caught herself yawning. Tomorrow … Her eyes blinked.
A sudden light showed through the bushes. Mrs Blackett’s voice sounded across the garden. “Time all you people were asleep. Titty and Roger must be nearly dead.”
“All right, mother,” called Nancy. “We’ve a lot to do tomorrow,” she added, “and we want to get up in the morning before the whole place is flooded with paperers and painters.”
“Come along,” said Susan.
She was already raking the embers together. Pocket torches flashed out. The eight prospectors left their camp-fire and went back to the lawn where the tents shone suddenly out of the darkness. Lanterns were lit for each tent. Frantic shadows swayed on the canvas as the