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“It’s not the houseboat man,” said Titty. “It’s the pirates from the pirate ship.”

“And in our tents,” said Susan.

“Let’s take them prisoners,” said Roger.

“Hands up,” said the pirate girl from the Amazon, who was in the captain’s tent.

“Hands up yourselves,” cried Captain John, and made as if to leap to his feet. Both the pirates shot off their arrows.

“Now,” shouted John, “before they load again. Swallows for ever!”

The four Swallows were up and half-way across the open space in a moment.

The red-capped Amazons leapt up out of the tents to meet them.

But they pointed their bows to the ground.

“A parley,” shouted the one who seemed to be the leader.

“Halt!” called Captain John.

The four explorers of the Swallow stood facing the two pirate girls from the Amazon. The Amazons were bigger than most of the Swallows. One of them was bigger than Captain John. The other was about the same size. If it had come to a fight, it might have been a very near thing.

But it did not come to a fight.

“Let’s parley first and fight afterwards,” said the leader of the Amazons.

“It’s no good our parleying with you if the houseboat man has got Swallow,” said John.

“The man from the houseboat?” said the younger Amazon. “But he’s got nothing to do with it. He’s a native, and very unfriendly.”

“Well, he’s unfriendly to us too,” said John.

Susan pulled John by the sleeve. “If the houseboat man isn’t with them,” she whispered, “they must have taken Swallow themselves, and the only place they could put her is the harbour. Their own ship must be there too. So if they have got our tents we can take both ships.”

“If he’s unfriendly to you too, we had better parley at once,” said the elder Amazon.

“Where is Swallow?”

“She is a prize, and we have taken her into our harbour.”

“It’s our harbour,” said John. “And anyhow that’s not much good to you. You can’t get out from this end of the island against the four of us. The harbour end of the island is in our hands, so that really it’s the Amazon that’s a prize, and we’ve got both ships. You’ve only got our tents.”

Titty spoke. “Why have your arrows got green feathers? The pirate on the houseboat must have given them to you. You must be on his side.”

The younger Amazon exclaimed, “But the green feathers are our trophies. We took them ourselves. He was keeping them to clean his pipes and we boarded his ship and took them.”

The elder Amazon said, “We are all on the same side, and I don’t see the good of fighting.”

John said, “But why did you come to our island . . .?”

“Our island,” said the Amazons together.

“How can it be your island? This is our camp?”

“It’s been our island for years and years,” said the Amazons. “Who built the fireplace? Who marked the harbour?”

“How marked the harbour?” said John. “You mean putting a cross on a tree there. Anyone could put a cross on a tree.”

The elder Amazon laughed. “That just shows it’s our island,” she said. “You don’t even know how the harbour is marked.”

“We do,” said Roger.

John was silent. He knew that they did not.

At last he said, “Right, we’ll parley. But you must put down your weapons, and so will we. You must take down your flag, because ours is in Swallow, so that we can’t put it up beside it.”

The elder Amazon said, “It seems a pity to take down the flag when there is such a good wind blowing it out. It isn’t as if it was just hanging. One of you go to the harbour to get your flag from your ship, and then we can have both flags flying during the parley and everything will be proper.”

“No fighting while one of us is going for it?”

“No. Peace. We’ll put our weapons down now.”

The Amazons put their bows on the ground. Roger and Titty put down their pikes. John and Susan had no weapons to put down.

“Mister Mate,” said John, “will you send one of your men to the harbour to bring our flag from Swallow?”

“Skip along, Roger,” said Mate Susan, and then, turning to the Amazons, “You swear the houseboat man is not there to take him prisoner?”

“Of course,” said the Amazons. “But will you swear he does not do anything to our ship? We were very careful with yours, and we haven’t done anything to your tents. We could have burnt them easily or razed them to the ground.”

“We swear,” said Captain John.

“Why not scuttle their ship and keep them prisoners?” said Titty.

“Until the parley is over it is peace,” said Captain John. “Skip along, Roger, and get the Swallow’s flag, but don’t touch anything else.”

Roger ran off. “I’ve got their knife anyway,” he shouted.

The elder Amazon turned to the other.

“Peggy, you donkey,” she said. “Where’s the ship’s knife?”

Peggy, the younger Amazon, felt in the pocket of her breeches.

“Gone,” she said. “We must have left it when we were in hiding in the bush.”

“We don’t want to take their knife,” whispered Susan to John.

“We’ll give you back your knife,” said John to the Amazons. “As soon as our man comes back from the harbour he shall put it with the other weapons. We don’t really want your knife. We have three knives on our ship.”

“Besides the knives for cutting pemmican and bread and butter,” said Susan.

“This knife was given us by Uncle Jim last year for polishing the cannon on the houseboat,” said the elder Amazon.

“Is the man on the houseboat your uncle?” asked Titty. “I thought you said he was your enemy too.”

“He is only our uncle sometimes,” said the younger Amazon. “He was last year, but this year he is in league with the natives, and the natives are very unfriendly.”

“Our natives are friendly,” said Titty. “Everybody is friendly except the houseboat man . . . and you,” she added. “And if he’s your uncle you must be in league with him.”

“We jolly well aren’t,” said the elder Amazon.

“Shut up, Titty, and wait for the parley,” said Captain John.

Roger came back with Titty’s flag from the Swallow.

“They’ve got a lovely boat,” he whispered to Mate Susan.

“Hand over that knife,” said John.

Roger handed it over and John cut a tall sapling from a hazel on the edge of the clearing. He made a sharp point at one end of it to stick in the ground. Then he fastened Titty’s flag to the top of it, found a soft place, and planted his flagstaff firmly beside the pirate flag of the Amazons. Then he wiped the knife on the grass, shut it up, and put it with the bows and the pikes.

“Now for the parley,” said he. He walked towards the Amazons and held out his hand.

“My name is John Walker,” he said, “master of the ship Swallow. This is Susan Walker, mate of the Swallow. This is Titty, able-seaman. This is Roger, ship’s boy. Who are you?”

The elder Amazon shook hands with him.

“I am Nancy Blackett, master and part owner of the Amazon, the terror of the seas. This is Peggy Blackett, mate and part owner of the same.”

“Her real name isn’t Nancy,” said Peggy. “Her name is Ruth, but Uncle Jim said that Amazons were ruthless, and as our ship is the Amazon, and we are Amazon pirates from the Amazon River, we had to change her name. Uncle Jim gave us the ship last year. We only had a rowing boat before that.”

Nancy Blackett scowled ferociously. “I’ll shiver your timbers for you if you don’t stop chattering, Peggy.”

“They must be in league with the houseboat pirate,” said Titty. “Didn’t you hear how she said he gave them their ship?”

“That was last year,” said Nancy. “He was friendly last year. This year he’s worse than the natives.”

“Hadn’t we better sit down?” said Susan. “Shall I put a stick or two on our fire and warm up the kettle? It’s still got some tea in it.”

“We don’t want any tea, thank you,” said Nancy. “But use our fireplace if you want to.”

“It’s our camp,” said Roger.

“Let’s sit down,” said Mate Susan.

The two parties sat on the ground by the fireplace where the fire was still smouldering. Susan was right. It is much more difficult to be fierce sitting down than standing up.

“First of all,” said Nancy Blackett. “When did you come to these seas?”

“We discovered this ocean nearly a month ago.”

“When did you first come to this island?”

“We have been on the island for days and days.”

“Well,” said Nancy Blackett. “We were born on the shores of the Amazon River, which flows into this ocean. We have been coming to this island for years and years.”

“We used to come in a rowing galley until Uncle Jim gave us the Amazon,” said Peggy. “We used to land at the place where we found your ship, until we discovered the harbour. We have made our camp here every year.”

“Look here,” said Nancy Blackett. “What is the name of the island?”

“We haven’t yet given it a name,” said John.

“It is called Wild Cat Island. Uncle Jim called it that, because it belonged to us. That shows you whose island it is.”

“But it’s our island now,” said John. “It was uninhabited when we came and we put our tents up here, and you can’t turn us out.”

Titty broke in.

“Is your Uncle Jim a retired pirate?” she asked. “I said he was as soon as we saw him.”

Nancy Blackett thought for a moment. “It’s quite a good thing for him to be,” she said at last.

“But,” said Titty, “you are pirates too.”

“That’s why he hates us. He must be Captain Flint. He knows what pirates are. He knows the day will come when he will walk the plank off the deck of his own ship when we have captured it.”

“We’ll help,” said Roger.

“He hates us,” said Captain John. “He has been stirring up the natives against us.”

“Let’s be allies,” said Nancy Blackett, “then it won’t matter who the island belongs to. We will be allies against Captain Flint and all the natives in the world.”

“Except our friendlies,” said Titty.

“Let’s be allies,” said Peggy. “Really we wanted to be allies as soon as we saw your smoke on the island yesterday. We are sick of natives. And we wanted to be allies at once, if only we hadn’t promised to be home for lunch. That was why we just sailed round the island and defied you with our flag. There wasn’t time for anything else. Then we went home.”

“We watched you from beyond the big islands by Rio,” said Susan.

“Rio?” said Nancy. “Rio? Oh, well, if you’ll agree to let the island go on being called Wild Cat Island, we’ll agree to Rio. It’s a good name.”

“Wild Cat Island’s a good name too,” said John politely.

“But how could you see us beyond the islands by Rio when we left you here,” asked Peggy.

“We manned the Swallow and gave chase,” said John.

“Thunder and lightning,” said Nancy Blackett, “what a chance we missed. If we’d only known we’d have given you broadside for broadside till one of us sank, even if it had made us late for lunch.”

Peggy Blackett went on. “We came here to-day to look at you again. We got up at sunrise and sailed close by the island, and there was no smoke and we thought you had gone. Probably you were all asleep. Then we saw your ship at the landing-place. We sailed on to Tea Bay and had our second breakfast there, a real one with tea. The first was only cold porridge and sandwiches we got from cook last night. Then we crawled along the shore and saw one of you coming back from somewhere in your ship. The others were bathing. Then we saw you all disappear, and we crawled back to our ship and sailed straight into the harbour. There was nobody there. Then we came through the bush on the island, scouting, and saw you round your camp fire. We took away your ship and put her in the harbour. Then we came back and made a surprise attack. When you found your ship was gone and you all ran down to the landing-place we slipped past and took the camp, and Nancy was saying that somehow it was going to be difficult to be allies . . .”

“Avast there, Peggy, you goat,” said Nancy Blackett. “Excuse my mate,” she said to Captain John. “She does chatter so.”

“Well, Nancy was saying that our surprise attack was such a good one that we’d have to go on being enemies, and I said I was sick of enemies, what with our natives and Uncle Jim being no good this year. . . .”

“He’s Captain Flint,” said Nancy.

“Anyway, if she hadn’t remembered about parleys you would have been natives too, for ever and ever,” said Peggy.

“We couldn’t be that,” said Titty.

“Of course not,” said Nancy Blackett; “it’s much more fun being sea-dogs and timber shiverers. I propose an alliance.”

“I don’t see why not,” said Captain John.

“My idea,” said Nancy Blackett, “is an alliance against all enemies, especially Uncle Jim—Captain Flint, I mean. But we want the sort of alliance that will let us fight each other if we want to.”

“That’s not an alliance,” said Titty, “that’s a treaty, a treaty of offence and defence. There are lots in the history book.”

“Yes,” said Nancy Blackett, “defence against our enemies and all sorts of desperate battles between ourselves whenever we want.”

“Right,” said Captain John.

“Have you got a bit of paper and a pencil?” asked Nancy.

“I have,” said Titty, and ran into the mate’s tent and brought out a leaf from her log and a pencil.

Nancy took it and wrote:—

“I, Captain John of the ship Swallow, and I, Captain Nancy of the ship Amazon, do hereby make a treaty of offence and defence on behalf of our ships and our ships’ companies. Signed and sealed at this place of Wild Cat Island in the month of August 1929.”

She passed the paper to the others.

“It looks all right,” said Captain John.

“It ought to be ‘this month,’ not ‘the,’ ” said Titty. “And you haven’t put in the lat. and long. They always put them in all over the place.”

Nancy Blackett took the paper, crossed out “the” in front of the word “month” and put “this” instead, and after the word “Island” wrote in “Lat. 7 Long. 200.”

“We ought to sign it in our blood,” she said, “but pencil will do.”

John took the paper and signed, “John Walker, Master.”

Nancy signed it, “Nancy Blackett, Amazon Pirate.”

The two captains shook hands.

Peggy said, “Well, it’s peace to-day, anyhow.”

Susan said, “Perhaps you would like some of our toffee?”

“Molasses,” said Titty.

Peggy said, “We did see it when we took the camp, but we did not like to take any. We’d like some very much, if you’re sure you can spare it.”

Nancy said, “Let’s broach a puncheon of Jamaica rum. We’ve got a beauty in the Amazon. Let’s go to the harbour and get it. It’s really good stuff. Sometimes our cook is quite friendly, for a native. She calls it lemonade.”