“You do the talking,” said Dick.
It was one thing to signal to Mars at night and to get into touch with distant Martians by the flashing of a lantern. It was quite another to meet them face to face in broad daylight. What ought to be said to strangers from another planet? Dorothea would probably know. Dick shut his telescope and followed her down the steps.
The leader of the Martians looked back, then up at the barn, then at the thing he held in his hand. He put it in his pocket, said a word to his followers and led them on. Dorothea and Dick had come down from the loft and were on their way to meet them.
Suddenly the smallest of the female Martians waved a white handkerchief she had fastened to a stick.
“That’s to show it’s peace,” said Dorothea. “We ought to have thought of it, too. Can’t you tie a handkerchief to your telescope?”
“Just wave yours,” said Dick. “That’ll show them we understand.”
Dorothea pulled out her handkerchief and waved it.
The Martians came gravely on.
This was much more difficult than Dorothea had expected. If only the Martians would say something, or even smile.
They met about a third of the way down the slope.
There was a moment’s dreadful silence.
It was broken by the smallest of the Martian girls.
“I don’t believe they’re in distress at all,” she said.
“Don’t they want to be rescued from anything?” said the smaller of the boys in a very disappointed voice.
“We were just signalling to Mars,” said Dick, who found that, after all, it was for him to explain.
THE MARTIANS IN SIGHT
“To Mars?” said the bigger boy.
“Not to us?” said the smallest girl. “Was it all a mistake?”
“No, no,” said Dorothea. “We wanted you to answer. It was Dick’s idea to be signalling to Mars. You see, we didn’t know you.”
“Giminy,” broke in the larger red-cap. “It was a jolly good idea.”
“And of course,” Dick went on, “when you started answering in Martian we couldn’t understand.”
“Morse code,” said the elder of the boys. “We asked what was the matter and who you were. And then when you didn’t answer we guessed you didn’t know how. So I took a bearing by compass.”
“Was that a compass you had in your hand just now?” said Dick.
“Yes.”
“We saw you on the island yesterday,” said Dorothea.
“We saw you,” said the smaller boy.
The elder of the red-caps, who had been standing there, rising and falling on her toes, making her wet shoes squelch every time she did it, broke in impatiently:
“Here we are, anyway,” she said, “but what are you?”
“Our name is Callum. He is Dick and I am Dorothea.”
“Oh yes, yes,” said the red-cap. “Dick and Dorothea, but what are you? In real life, I mean. We’re explorers and sailors.”
“Dick’s an astronomer,” said Dorothea promptly.
“Dorothea writes stories,” said Dick.
“Well, I’m Nancy Blackett, Captain of the Amazon. This is Peggy, Mate of the Amazon.” She waved her hand towards the others. “This is Captain John Walker, of the Swallow. This is Susan Walker, Mate of the Swallow. Titty is their able-seaman, and Roger is their ship’s boy.”
“Is that boat the Amazon?” asked Dick. “The one we saw you in?”
“That,” said Captain Nancy with scorn. “That’s a rowing boat. It belongs to our mother at Beckfoot. We use it just to row across every day to Holly Howe or Rio.”
“Rio?” said Dorothea.
“That’s what we always call the village. It’s got another name.”
“I know,” said Dorothea.
“Only for natives,” said Nancy.
“Do you live here?” asked Titty, the smallest of the girls.
“We’re staying at Mrs Dixon’s, just till the end of the holidays,” said Dorothea. “Father and mother have gone to Egypt, to dig up remains.”
The four Swallows looked at each other.
“Why, that’s just like us,” said Titty.
And then Susan explained that their mother had gone away only yesterday morning, to go to Malta, where their father’s ship was stationed for a time, and that she had taken Bridget, their youngest sister, with her. “Father’s never really seen Bridget since she was a person,” Titty interrupted, not wishing it to be thought that their mother would leave them without good reason. Susan went on to tell them that they had been staying at Holly Howe ever since Christmas and that they, too, would be going back to school when the holidays came to an end.
“I suppose you’ve come to the Arctic to watch an eclipse?” said Captain Nancy.
“But there isn’t going to be an eclipse,” said Dick.
“Oh well,” said Nancy, “don’t be so particular. Come to that, Holly Howe isn’t Mars.”
“It isn’t really,” said Dick. “But why Arctic?”
Nancy looked round at the others. Titty looked at Dorothea. Roger laughed.
“We may as well tell them,” said John.
“Everybody agree?” said Nancy. “They deserve to be told. That Mars idea was really pretty good.”
“Tell them,” said Titty.
“Well,” said Nancy. “You know what it’s like. Dark at teatime and sleeping indoors: nothing ever happens in the winter holidays. And we had to think of something that we could do without our ships. Swallow and Amazon are both out of the water for the winter. And it had to be something that would make it all right for us to sleep in the houses of the natives instead of in our tents. So we started a Polar expedition. We sleep in the Eskimo settlements at night, the same as you, and we’ve been building an igloo of our own to use as a base. You’ll see it.”
“The idea was that as soon as we could we’d go to the North Pole over the ice,” said Peggy, the other red-cap. “We’ve got a splendid North Pole.”
“Only, the beastly Arctic won’t freeze,” said Nancy “and the holidays’ll be over in no time. And it never will freeze unless we get another fall of snow. The lake’s so jolly deep.”
“There’s another week yet,” said Peggy.
And then the others joined in, all talking at once, and Dick and Dorothea heard how the four Swallows were living in the Eskimo settlement at Holly Howe, while the two Amazons were sleeping in the Eskimo settlement at Beckfoot at the mouth of the Amazon river and rowing across every day. They heard how yesterday they had rowed down to Wild Cat Island for signalling, because on the day Mrs Walker and Bridget had gone away no one felt quite like settling down to ordinary work on the igloo or hut they were building. They heard how the explorers had been waiting, day after day, for the little tarn to freeze so that they could begin skating practice. There was little hope now that the great lake would freeze all over so that they could go the whole way