The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (24 page)

The whale grounded on the sand, and the boys, after repeating their instructions to Aaron Spens, slid into the water, swam a few yards, and then waded ashore. A seal raised its head from the pale green sea to watch them. Some oyster-catchers screamed excitedly, and a flock of dunlin and ringed-plover rose from the sand and fled before them. They took off their frog-like shoes, and Timothy led them in single file across the fields and past the lake to Popinsay House. Hew and the two Powder Monkeys lay hidden in the little wood that grew behind it, while Timothy went in alone to rouse Sam Sturgeon. They never locked their doors on Popinsay, so he had no trouble in getting in. But Sam Sturgeon's room was empty, and the door of Mrs. Matches' room above the kitchen stood open, and it was empty too. Timothy, bewildered and feeling a little frightened, did not
wait to search the rest of the house, but hurried back to Hew and the Powder Monkeys.

For a minute or two they could not decide what should be done next. Then Hew very sensibly proposed a thorough search of the whole house, to make sure there was no one there, and they went in, all four of them, walking very quietly as if they were anxious not to disturb anyone. They looked into every room in turn, and still found no one. They went downstairs again to the hall, and stood there, very puzzled and somewhat alarmed.

‘But where can they have gone?' said Hew. ‘What can they be doing?'

‘It isn't likely that the pirates would come ashore, is it?' asked Timothy.

‘No,' said William Button, shaking his head. ‘No, they wouldn't do that, not if they could help it.'

‘The pirates!' said Timothy again. ‘I'd forgotten all about them. I mean the pirates in the cellar. —The two pirates Sam Sturgeon found in the wreck,' he explained to the Powder Monkeys. ‘We brought them here, and tied them up, and locked them in the cellar.'

‘We'd better see if they're still there,' said Hew.

‘I suppose we had,' said Timothy, a little reluctantly, and opened a door above the stone steps that went curving down to the cellars. The others followed him, tiptoe and silent.

There was a main cellar, and two smaller ones leading off it. It was in one of these that the pirates
had been imprisoned, but now the door stood as wide open as the door of Mrs. Matches' bedroom, and there was nothing inside but a few blankets, a couple of dirty plates, a newspaper, and some ragged, tattered pieces of rope.

‘They've got away again,' said Hew, and hurriedly they ran upstairs and out into the garden. In the open air they all felt more comfortable, for the empty house was rather eerie, and though they had searched it thoroughly they still thought it possible that the pirates were hiding somewhere. They told each other that it was all very odd, and very strange and mysterious, and they repeated these observations several times without feeling any the wiser.

‘Then Timothy said, ‘Well, there's no use standing here talking. We'd better go down and see if
Endeavour's
at the pier. If Old Mattoo and James William Cordiall are aboard, perhaps they can tell us something.'

They were all pleased with Timothy's suggestion, and ran down to Inner Bay as quickly as they could. But the
Endeavour
was not at the pier, and the whole beach was empty. Again they stood, unhappy and perplexed, but now Hew said, ‘Come on, let's go over to the Hen. We may find Cully there. Or perhaps
Endeavour
went out early, and we'll see her in North Bay.'

The tide was at half-ebb, and most of the sand between Popinsay and the Hen was covered. They had to swim for about twenty yards, and then
splashing through the shallows they waded ashore and ran across the turf towards the northern cliffs. They had not gone very far when a most unexpected figure—a tall, lean figure in black—appeared on the skyline in front of them, and they stopped abruptly.

‘It's Mrs. Matches,' said Hew. ‘What's she doing here?'

‘The tide's going out, so she must have been here for a long time,' said Timothy. ‘Unless she swam, and that's not likely. —Wait here,' he said to the Powder Monkeys, ‘and we'll go and talk to her.'

With Hew beside him he ran uphill, and when
they were about fifty yards from her, they began shouting, ‘Mrs. Matches! Mrs. Matches!'

She turned and threw up her arms in astonishment when she recognised them, and hurried to meet them.

‘You bad things!' she cried. ‘You bad, worthless, runaway things! Where have you been all this time? What do you mean by going off and leaving me when I was in charge of you, without so much as a word to say where you were going? And what have you done with all your clothes? You'll catch your death of cold coming out half-naked at this time of the morning!'

Timothy and Hew were rather taken aback, for they had quite forgotten that they had gone to sea without asking her permission, and indeed without her knowledge. She would, they had thought, be delighted to see them, and it was a nuisance having to explain what they had been doing when they wanted to know what Sam was doing.

‘We've been very busy,' said Timothy. ‘We had to go somewhere, and take a message, and—well, now we've come back again, and we can tell you all about it some other time. But where is Sam?'

‘Where indeed?' exclaimed Mrs. Matches. ‘Your father goes off, and you go off, and Sam goes off, and I'm left behind with never a word of explanation. And old Mattoo and James William Cordiall went off in the
Endeavour
just after dinnertime yesterday, and they've been out all night.'

‘Is
Endeavour
in North Bay now?' asked Timothy. ‘They've been there all night, I'm telling you,' said Mrs. Matches.

‘And is Sam aboard? ‘

‘He went away with her and he's never come back, so he must be aboard unless he's drowned by this time. It was the thought of them out there, all night long, and me alone in that great house, that brought me here and kept me here, when I should have been sleeping peacefully in my bed like any other Christian woman. And here I've been, all night, waving to them and crying to them, and never a bit of notice will they take.'

They had never before heard Mrs. Matches talking so excitedly, or looking so wild and worried, and Timothy thought he had better try to soothe and comfort her. So he said, ‘Well, we've come back again, and that ought to please you. You won't need to worry about us any more.'

‘But where have you been?' she demanded. ‘That's what I want to know.'

‘Oh, never mind about that,' said Hew. ‘When did the pirates escape?'

Mrs. Matches' jaw dropped. She breathed deeply and stood gaping at them.

‘The pirates in the cellar,' Hew explained. ‘The ones you hit on the head with a poker.'

‘They've gone?' she asked.

‘The door's open, and there's no sign of them except some bits of the rope they were tied up with,' said Timothy.

‘And me all alone in the house!' said Mrs. Matches. ‘I might have been murdered in my sleep!'

‘Not if you had your poker beside you,' said Hew.

‘You probably weren't there when they got out,' said Timothy. ‘Wait here, will you, till I've had a look at
Endeavour?'

He ran uphill to the top of the cliff and saw the fishing-boat lying at anchor in North Bay, in the position where she had been when Sam first went down to look for the wreck. But there was no sign of life aboard her, and after shouting once or twice he ran back to Hew and Mrs. Matches, and said to Hew, ‘I think we ought to find out what's happening, and William Button and Henry String can go for help in case it's needed.'

‘That's a good idea,' said Hew.

‘Where are you going now?' asked Mrs. Matches.

‘Out to the boat,' said Timothy.

‘I'll not stay here all by myself,' cried Mrs. Matches, ‘for I left my poker behind me, and those two men may be hiding anywhere!'

‘We're going to send for help,' said Timothy. ‘We've got two friends here, and a lot of friends not very far away.'

‘What sort of friends?' asked Mrs. Matches.

‘Come and see them,' said Timothy.

They walked down to the lower part of the island, where the Powder Monkeys were waiting
for them, and Timothy said, ‘This is William Button, and this is Henry String.'

‘Where do you come from?' asked Mrs. Matches.

‘That's telling,' said Henry String.

‘No names, no punishment-drill,' said William Button. ‘We're not allowed to say, ma'am.'

‘Whoever it was that sent you might have given you some clothes to wear,' said Mrs. Matches. ‘Are you not starving with the cold?'

‘No, ma'am, we're pretty comfortable,' said William Button.

‘We're used to it, you see,' said Henry String.

‘We want you to get help,' said Timothy, ‘as quickly as you can. One of you had better go to the north cliffs and the other to the skerries, and say that there seems to be some trouble in North Bay. Hew and I are going out to see what's wrong, and it would be a good thing if a few sailors could come too. There's a fishing-boat at anchor there, and the wreck lies about fifty yards inshore from her.'

‘That's clear enough,' said William Button.

‘We can do that,' said Henry String.

‘It's rather a long way to the skerries,' said Hew.

‘I know,' said Timothy, ‘and I thought that Mrs. Matches might take Henry as far as Fishing Hope on her bicycle.'

Mrs. Matches had listened to their conversation with much bewilderment and a little hope. Timothy's voice was fairly confident, and he
seemed to know what he was talking about.

‘Is it real help they're going for,' she asked, ‘or just some more naked boys like yourselves?'

‘Real help,' said Timothy.

‘Sailors,' explained Hew, ‘like Gunner Boles.'

‘Then I'll do what you want,' she said, ‘if these two boys will come with me as far as the house to get my bicycle. For I'm not going back there alone.'

‘They'll do that,' said Timothy, ‘and if you take Henry to the shore above the skerries, you can stay in Fishing Hope; though I don't suppose there's anyone up yet. But please don't tell anyone what's happening here.'

‘They'd think I was mad if I did,' she answered, and they went with her to the beach.

She and the two Powder Monkeys waded across the channel, where the water was now quite shallow, and hurried back to Popinsay House. Mrs. Matches kept her bicycle in the stable, and they got it without seeing anything of the two pirates. Then William Button set off to the north cliffs, and Mrs. Matches rode as quickly as she could, with Henry String sitting on her handle-bars, to Fishing Hope. They presented rather a curious sight, but fortunately there was no one to see them.

Timothy and Hew, in the meantime, were swimming out to the
Endeavour.
They swam round her, and saw no one on deck. Then they climbed aboard, and looking through the window of the little wheel-house saw James William Cordiall and
Old Mattoo asleep in opposite corners. They looked very uncomfortable, for there was no room to lie down and scarcely room to stretch their legs; but in spite of that they were sleeping soundly. Timothy opened the door and Hew shouted, ‘Wake up! Wake up!'

They started up, and rubbed their eyes, and looked with amazement at the two boys.

‘And where have you been all this time?' asked Old Mattoo hoarsely.

‘Never mind about that,' said Timothy. ‘Where's Sam?'

‘He went down to the wreck,' said Old Mattoo, ‘and he never came back.'

‘We have been waiting for him all night,' said James William Cordiall. ‘Keeping watch through the night, and waiting for him to return.'

‘When did he go down?' asked Timothy.

‘He was diving all through the afternoon,' said Old Mattoo, ‘and he found two more of those green skulls. —They are over there, James William.'

James William picked up two green-stained skulls that lay in his corner of the wheel-house, and shook them. They rattled like money-boxes, and he said, ‘That's eighteen of them altogether that he has brought up.'

‘When did you see him last?' asked Timothy.

‘It would be at the back of eight o'clock, or maybe it was nearer nine,' said Old Mattoo. ‘There's not much darkness at this time of year, and he was working late.'

‘But there's no breast-line over the side,' said Hew. ‘There's no air-line. How is he diving without your help?'

‘He doesn't use those things nowadays,' said Old Mattoo. ‘He has given up the diving-suit.'

‘It was two days ago that he went down without it for the first time,' said James William. ‘He came aboard in his bathing-suit, smelling as if he had been washing himself with fancy soap; or had put something on his hair that the barber gave him. He was wearing big black slippers that made his feet look like frogs' feet, and he said he had learnt a new way of going down and wouldn't be needing the suit any more.'

‘Gunner Boles must have told him the secret,' whispered Timothy to Hew.

‘He must have listened to the Shell,' said Hew; and Timothy nodded and asked Old Mattoo, ‘Have you seen Cully again?'

‘Not for three days,' answered Old Mattoo. ‘He has been aboard us twice since you went away, and had his tea with us. But the last time was three days ago.'

‘And a right good tea he took,' said James William Cordiall, ‘for we had plenty of jam aboard and a dozen eggs too, that we had taken just in case we should see him.'

‘Well,' said Timothy, ‘I think we should go down and look for Sam.'

‘That's the thing to do,' said Hew, and sat down to tie his frog-shoes more tightly.

Old Mattoo and James William Cordiall watched them with the look of men who could no longer be surprised by anything that happened. They had seen many strange sights in the last week or two—they had grown friendly with an octopus, and entertained it to tea—and now they took for granted the most unlikely and curious events, and were quite untroubled by them.