The Swallow swung round and headed out of the bay, to pass on the northern side of the huge buoy to which the houseboat was moored. The brown sail hid the houseboat from John and Roger until they were nearly past the buoy. Just for one moment, however, they had a good view of her bows, when they saw something that made the old blue launch that had been turned into a houseboat seem more pirate-like than ever.
Roger saw it first. John was too busy with the steering to look at much else beside the brown sail, to be kept full of wind but not too full, and to think of much else beside keeping the wind on his right cheek and nose as he looked forward. Swallow was sailing very fast and they saw the thing only for a moment. But there could be no doubt about what it was.
“He’s got a cannon,” said Roger. “Look, look!”
On the foredeck of the houseboat, on the starboard side, its round, shiny nose poking out above the blue planking, was a brightly polished little brass cannon. Once upon a time, perhaps, it had been used for starting yacht races. Now there it was, on a wooden gun carriage, ready for action. Even for Captain John it was proof that the houseboat was more than an ordinary houseboat. A brass cannon and a green parrot.
“Titty must have been right,” said Captain John.
He glanced back over his shoulder to see if there was another cannon on the port side. That would have settled the question. There was not. But still, a cannon is a cannon and ships with no secrets do not usually carry even one.
Roger was ready to go on talking about the cannon. Captain John was not. You cannot talk about anything when you are sailing a little boat against a hard wind and you cannot listen to anyone who talks to you. You are watching the dark patches on the water that show you a harder puff is coming and you have to be ready at any moment to slacken the sheet or to luff up into the wind. So Roger presently stopped trying to talk.
At last they passed Darien and reached into the Holly Howe Bay. They made the painter fast to a ring on the stone jetty by the boathouse and lowered the sail. Then they went up the field to the farm. Only three days before Roger, being a sailing ship, had tacked up the field against the wind to find his mother at the gate by Holly Howe with the telegram that had set them free for their adventure. Now he had no need to tack. He had no need to be a sailing ship. He was a real boy from a real ship, come ashore on business with his captain. Since yesterday the field path and the gate into the wood on the way to Darien and the farm at Holly Howe had all turned into foreign country. They were quite different places now that you came to them by water from an island of your own. They were not at all what they had been when you lived there and saw the island far away over the water. Coming back to them was almost the same thing as exploration. It was like exploring a place that you have seen in a dream, where everything is just where you expect it and yet everything is a surprise.
It seemed queer to walk straight in at the door of Holly Howe Farm. John had very nearly stopped and knocked at it. Inside, everything was as it used to be. Mother was sitting at the table writing to father. Nurse was sitting in the armchair knitting. Fat Vicky was playing on the floor with a woolly sheep with a black nose.
“Hullo,” said mother, looking up, “did you have a good drool?”
“We all drooled like anything,” said John, “and we didn’t wake up as soon as you said. At least not quite as soon.”
“And you got the milk at the farm all right?”
“Yes.”
“I liked the native at the farm,” said Roger.
“So did I,” said mother, “when I saw her yesterday.”
Nurse somehow did not seem to feel that she was talking with seamen from another land. “You haven’t caught your deaths of cold yet,” she said. “It’s quite a holiday to be without you. And tell me, Master Roger, did you remember to clean your teeth? I never packed a tooth glass for you.”
“I used the whole lake,” said Roger.
“We’ve brought the mail,” said John. “It’s a letter from Titty.”
He pulled the letter out of his pocket and mother opened it and read it. “I must write an answer to that,” she said.
“We’ve come for a cargo,” said Captain John. “We forgot to take our fishing rods.”
“Of course, you’ll want them,” said mother. “And there are your bathing things too. They were hanging out to dry yesterday when you sailed away and I never noticed them till this morning. You haven’t bathed yet from the island?”
“We didn’t this morning,” said John.
“We will to-morrow,” said Roger.
“Well, be sure you choose a good place with no weeds,” said mother, “and be sure you don’t let Roger get out of his depth.”
“Until I can swim,” said Roger. “I very nearly can.”
“Until you can swim on your back and on your front. As soon as you can do that you will be all right. But better keep within your depth even then until you are sure you can swim a long way. Now, you get your fishing things together, while I write a mail for you to take back.”
They put all the fishing tackle together. They took the four rods to pieces and put each one in its own bag. They packed the floats and hooks and reels in a big coffee tin. Meanwhile nurse made the bathing things into a bundle, tying them all up in a towel. Then mother came out with two letters, one for Titty, saying, “Love from all the Stay-at-homes, and thank you for your nice letter”; and one for Susan, saying that she must ask Mrs. Dixon for some lettuces, because if they tried to do without green vegetables the crew might get scurvy. Also mother gave them a big bag of peas. “Tell Susan just to boil them with some salt, and then put a pat of butter on them,” she said. Also she had a big tin of chocolate biscuits. “I don’t expect that mate of yours will manage much in the way of puddings,” she said, “and these may help out.” The captain and the boy ran into the farm again to say good-bye to nurse and Vicky, and then mother came down with them to the jetty, to help to carry the things.
“It’s blowing a bit harder this morning,” she said as they were going down the field.
“We reefed,” said Roger.
“Did you?” said mother.
“I helped,” said Roger.
“Which pendant did you tie down first?” asked mother.
“The one nearest the mast,” said Roger, “then the one at the end of the boom, and the reef points in the middle of the sail last of all.”
“And which are you going to let go first when you shake your reef out?”
“Reef points first,” said Roger, “then the one at the end of the boom, and then the one by the mast.”
“That’s right,” said mother. “No duffers in your crew.”
They stowed the cargo, hoisted the sail, and were soon reaching out of the bay.
“The pirate on the houseboat’s got a cannon,” shouted Roger as they sailed away. He had forgotten all about it while on land.
“Has he?” called mother. “Well, so long, you sailormen.”
This time, with the wind aft, and a good one, the Swallow fairly raced to the island, with her wake creaming out astern of her. They sailed straight past well outside Houseboat Bay. They were too far out to see very much, but they saw the man on the houseboat get up and lean on the railing round his after-deck and look at them through a pair of glasses. A moment later they had passed the promontory on the southern side of the bay, and the houseboat had disappeared behind it.
Soon they were nearing their island, and just as Holly Howe had seemed strange, so now the island seemed home. It was delightful to see it coming nearer, and to think of the tents and the camp, and to see smoke blowing away over the trees and to know that it came from