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With Mate Susan at the oars, Roger on the look-out in the bows, and Captain John at the tiller, the Swallow moved up the Amazon River in the rapidly gathering dusk. There were walls of reeds on each side, then a bit of meadowland where they could see the shapes of trees against the darkening sky, then reeds again, shutting them in as if they were in a lane between high walls. Suddenly the river broadened into a wide, open pool, with tall reeds all round it, except where the river entered and left it.

“This must be what they called the lagoon,” said Captain John. “It’s the very place for them to hide their ship in. I wish it wasn’t so dark.”

He put the tiller hard over to starboard, so that the Swallow turned sharply to port.

“It’s awful rowing if you steer with such a jerk,” said Susan.

“Sorry,” said John. “I want to keep close to the edge all round this place. I don’t want to miss her.”

“Something’s pulling at my oar,” said Susan, “I can’t lift it.”

The boat stopped moving.

John peered over the side.

“Water lilies,” he said. “It’s getting most awfully dark.”

“They hang on to my oars like octopuses,” said Susan.

“Perhaps they are octopuses,” said Roger. “Titty read to me about how they put their arms out long, and grab people even out of a boat.”

In Roger’s voice there were clear signs of panic in the forecastle. Captain John took command at once.

“Rubbish, Roger,” he said, “they aren’t octopuses. They’re only flowers.” He leaned over and picked one, not without difficulty. “Here you are,” he said. “Give it to him, Susan. Let him see for himself. They’re only flowers. Only their stalks are horribly tough. Try to pull out into the middle, Mister Mate.”

“All right. Only flowers,” said Roger, fingering the water lily and letting his fingers run down its stout slippery stalk. “But I wouldn’t mind even if they were octopuses.”

Susan did her best. But the blades of the oars caught under the broad, flat leaves of the water lilies and swept them together. The long, fat, smooth stalks of the water lilies tangled together and held the oars like strong ropes. She lost an oar overboard. She picked it up again at once, feeling for it, for it was hard to see Swallow’s brown oars in the dark water. Swallow moved as if she were being driven against something springy, which gave a little and then gathered strength and pushed her back.

“Bother these flowers,” said Roger.

“Let me row for a bit,” said John.

The captain and the mate changed places. John tried rowing without feathering, keeping the blades of his oars on a slant downwards and forwards so that when he pulled they would not go deep in the water and could not catch under the flat leaves. That was better. Presently Swallow was clear of the lilies.

“I can’t move the tiller,” said Susan. “Only a little way.”

“One of those lily stalks must be stuck between the rudder and the boat,” said Captain John. “Let me get at it.” He took off his coat, rolled up his sleeve, and plunged his arm into the water over the stern. Not one but half a dozen lily stalks were jammed together, wedging the rudder. He broke some of them and then pulled the bits through between the rudder and the keel.

“Clear now,” he said, and put out the oars again. He rowed on, telling Susan not to steer too near to the reeds, where the lilies were, and yet not to go too far from the edge. The struggle with the lilies had taken time and it was getting darker and darker.

“I say,” said Susan, “it’s too dark to find the Amazon now. Hadn’t we better give it up and go back?”

“If we waited till the morning we should find her all right,” said Captain John.

“But what about Titty?” said Susan. “Besides, Amazon may not be here at all.”

“She must be somewhere in the river,” said John. “But I forgot about Titty. We’ll go back.”

He turned the Swallow round and went on rowing.

“It’s no good steering,” said Susan, “I can’t see where to go.”

John tugged sharply at one of his oars.

“More lilies,” he said.

He pulled Swallow out of the lilies and she ran her nose into reeds.

“Do keep a look-out, Roger,” said the mate.

“There’s nothing to look at,” said Roger, “until it’s too late.”

It was a long time before they found the place where the river left the pool. They had rowed right across the opening once, being afraid to go too near the reeds. At last they decided that even if anyone saw a light here he would not suspect what it was, and used their electric torches. Roger could not get at his, but he used John’s, as John was rowing. Susan had her own. Even with the torches it was difficult. A pale light lit up, now here, now there, a patch of quivering reeds. But on either side of the patch of light was darkness. As they moved, the darkness turned to reeds when the round circle of light fell on it. At last they found a place where the lights showed a patch of reeds on each side, but nothing but darkness between them.

“This must be the opening,” said John.

He pulled a stroke or two towards the darkness. There was still clear water round the Swallow, but the torches showed reeds on right and left. The reeds were all bent the same way and, though John was resting on his oars, the Swallow drifted on in the direction in which the reeds were sloping. She was in the river at last.

John let the stream take the Swallow with it, using the oars only when she touched the reeds on either side.

“Don’t wave your torch in the air, Susan,” he said, “or some one may see us. We must be getting near the house. Put yours out, Roger. We don’t want to rouse the natives.”

Once or twice they ran into the reeds at bends of the river, but they freed themselves without difficulty.

Presently they saw the lights of the big house, standing away from the water.

“We must be near the boathouse now,” said John.

“Here it is,” said Susan.

John backwatered. “We must look into it again,” he said, “just to make sure.”

Susan flashed her torch into the boathouse. A bat flew out almost into their faces. The big motor launch lay there as before and the rowing boat. The Amazon’s berth was still empty.

“They must have hidden her somewhere up the river,” said John.

Just then the lights in the big house went out one by one.

“Dowse your glim, Mister Mate,” said Captain John. “They could see the light now if anyone were looking from those windows.”

He pulled Swallow into the river again. She drifted on in the darkness.

No one spoke for some time. The plan had failed, and the cutting-out expedition had come to nothing.

Suddenly they began to feel a little more wind.

“We must have reached the open sea,” said Captain John. “You can light up that torch, Mister Mate, and see what you can.”

Susan flashed the torch all round them. There were no reeds to be seen. On every side there was nothing but rippled water.

“Hullo,” cried Roger, “I can see lights far away.”

“Rio lights,” said John. “We’re out. I’m going to hoist the sail. Hold the torch steady while I reef. Even daddy used to say, ‘Never be ashamed to reef a small boat in the dark.’ ”

Reefing in the dark, even with the help of a torch held by a willing mate, is not too easy, but it was done at last and John brought the Swallow head to wind and hoisted the sail, while Susan took the tiller and the main-sheet.

“Put her on the starboard tack,” said John, as soon as she was sailing, “and keep her very full. We want to be sure that we are well clear of the rocks off the point.”

Even with the reef down there was enough wind to send Swallow fast through the water with a steady rippling noise under her bows.

“We’re sailing due east,” said John presently.

“How do you know?” asked Susan.

“Look,” said John.

A broad patch of clear sky showed overhead, and in it the larger stars.

“Look,” said John, “there’s the Saucepan. There’s its handle. There’s its pot. And those two stars that make the front wall of the pot point to the North Star. There’s the North Star. It’s broad on our port beam, so we must be sailing east. And Rio lights are broad on the starboard beam away in the south.”

“Why do the natives always call the Saucepan the Great Bear?” said Susan.

“I don’t know,” said John. “It isn’t like a bear at all. It’s more like a giraffe. But you couldn’t have a better saucepan.”

“She’d go a lot nearer the wind,” said Mate Susan.

“Keep her full,” said the captain, “Keep her sailing. But we must be well clear of the point now. I’m going to use the compass and chart.”

The spirits of the Swallow’s crew had risen very much now that they were at sea once more and not fumbling in the dark with reed beds and water lilies. There is nothing like sea-room to cheer a sailor’s heart.

“Are you cold, Roger?” asked the mate.

“Rather,” said the look-out.

“Get down below the gunwale and wrap yourself up in this blanket,” said the mate, passing a blanket forward by way of the captain.

John, too, crouched in the bottom of the boat. He got out the guide-book, and found the chart in it with the help of his torch. Then he laid his compass on the middle thwart, so that the black line marked on the rim inside it was nearest to the bows. That was no good, because Swallow was heeling over and the compass was on a slant so that the compass card could not work. He had to hold it in his hand. Even then the card swung a good deal. He held the compass as steady as he could in one hand, while with the other he threw the light of the torch on it and watched to see what point on the card was opposite the black line. It did not keep still, but swung first one way and then the other.

“Almost exactly east,” he said at last. “Now bring her closer to the wind.”

The mate put the tiller down a little at a time and Swallow pointed nearer and nearer to the wind.

NIGHT SAILING

“East, East by South, East-South-East. South-East by East, South-East,” he said rapidly.

“She won’t go much nearer than that,” said the mate.

“Keep her so,” said Captain John. “South-east it is, or jolly near it.” He looked at the chart in the book. “That’ll take her to about here and then she’ll go perhaps a bit better than south-west on the other tack. But the trouble is, we don’t know how far we go on a tack. We’ll just have to sail fairly short tacks and try to keep them about the same length. Then we shan’t be going near the shore on either side. We’ll be able to see by the Rio lights when we are getting near the islands. I’m going to count a hundred, and then we’ll go about. Then I’ll count a hundred on the other tack before we go about again.”

“Rio lights are going out,” said Mate Susan.

They were. One by one the lights on the hill above Rio Bay disappeared.

“It must be awfully late,” said Susan.

The clouds swept over the stars again. There were no lights to be seen anywhere. The little Swallow rushed along in the darkness, Susan keeping her close to the wind, facing directly forward and putting the tiller up a little when she felt the hint of a cold breath on her left cheek.

“Ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, a hundred. . . . Ready about,” said John. Susan put the Swallow about. For a moment the water was silent under her keel, and then, as she gathered speed, the pleasant, galloping noise of the waves began again.

“You take the tiller, John,” said the mate, “I want to get out some chocolate for that boy.”

John took the tiller, counting steadily and slowly. He had the compass with him, and sometimes lit the torch and fixed it between his knees, and held the compass in its light. But it was really not much good, though he would have liked to think it was. The best he could do was to keep the ship sailing and to see that she sailed about the same distance on each tack. And then—what if the wind had shifted a little?

The mate got out the cake and the chocolate. She and the captain found that they could do with some just as well as the boy. The boy, warm in his two sets of clothes and his blanket, was enjoying himself enormously.

“Wouldn’t Titty have liked it?” he said.

“Liked what?” said Susan.

“Sailing like this in the dark,” said the boy.

Susan said nothing. She did not like thinking of Titty alone on the island for so long.

John said nothing. For one thing, he was counting to himself and getting near a hundred. For another, the light of Susan’s torch in the bottom of the boat, where she was cutting hunks of cake and breaking up chocolate, and the light of his own torch, when he used it to look at the compass, made the darkness of the night even darker than it really was. It was better than being stuck in the river, much better, but Captain John knew very well that he could not really tell how near they might be to the shore. He was the captain of the Swallow and must not wreck his ship. Daddy had trusted him not to be a duffer and, sailing in this blackness, he did not feel so sure of not being a duffer as he did by day. And there were no lights in Rio to help him. Everything was black. He could only keep on tacking against the wind, and he was wondering what he should do when Swallow came near the islands off the Bay. And how would he know when she was coming near them? It would not do to let his crew know that he was worried. So he said nothing, except that he went on with his counting. Perhaps he counted a little louder than before. He reached a hundred, put Swallow about, and began again: “One, two, three,” as she went off on the other tack.

Backwards and forwards Swallow scurried across the lake in the dark. The islands could not be far away.

Suddenly John stopped counting.

“Listen,” he said. “Trees. I can hear the wind in them. What’s that?” He flashed his torch over the side. There was the white splash of water breaking on a rock. The noise of wind in trees was close ahead.

“Let go the halyard,” called John. “Down with the sail. Grab the gaff as it comes.”

Susan was as quick as she could be. She knew by John’s voice that there was no time to lose. The sail came down in a rush. She gathered it in as well as she could. Then she flashed her torch into the blackness ahead.

“There’s something close here,” she said.

Swallow drifted in smooth water. John put out the oars.

“It’s here,” said Susan. “Close here. Pull, pull your left. It’s a landing stage.”

Swallow bumped softly against wood.

“Hang on to it, whatever it is,” called John. He shipped his oars. Then he scrambled forward. The torch showed the black damp wooden beams of one of the landing stages used by the natives for their rowing boats.

“Hold your torch up, Susan,” he said. “I’m going ashore.”

Susan held up her torch. John was on the landing stage in a moment.

“All right now,” he said. “I’ve got the painter.” He lit his torch, and Susan saw him, as Swallow drifted back, standing on the landing stage and making fast the painter round a post.

“We’re all right here, anyhow,” he said. “Lucky for us not to hit that rock we passed. I wonder which island this is.”

He walked up the landing stage, lighting himself with his torch. Then he came back.

“There’s a notice which says, ‘Private. Landing Forbidden.’ ”

“What are we to do?” said Susan.

“Land,” said Captain John. “At least, land if we want to. The natives are all asleep anyhow. We’ll stay here until there’s a little light. There’s bound to be some light soon. Only duffers would try to get through the islands in dark as black as this.”

“What about Titty?” said Susan.

“Titty’s in camp. She’s got a tent. She’ll be all right. So are we now.”

Captain John was extremely happy. Now that the danger was over, he knew very well that they had as nearly as possible been duffers after all, racing about in the dark. And instead of being smashed on a rock here was Swallow snugly tied up to a landing stage. Where they were did not matter. Dawn would show that.

Susan said, “Roger, you’d better go to sleep.”

There was no answer. Roger was asleep already.

John came back into the boat.

“Look out you don’t wake him,” said Susan. John stepped carefully over the sleeping boy.

“There are two more blankets,” said Susan.

“I’m not going to sleep,” said John, making himself comfortable in the bottom of the boat. “You can.”

“I say, John,” whispered Susan a minute or two later.

Again there was no answer.

A few minutes after that she too was asleep.

The wind blew away the clouds and the stars shone out high over Swallow and her sleeping crew. The deep blue of the sky began to pale over the eastern hills. The islands clustered about Rio Bay became dark masses on a background no longer as dark as themselves. The colour of the water changed. It had been as black as the hills and the sky, and as these paled so did the lake. The dark islands were dull green and grey, and the rippled water was the colour of a pewter teapot.

When John woke it was still long before sunrise, but it was quite light enough for sailing. He woke with a start, and some shame at having slept. He was glad he had been the first to wake. He knew at once where they were, moored to the landing stage on one of the smaller islands at the northern end of Rio Bay. He tried to cast off and get the sail up without waking the others, but, as he moved, they stirred.

Roger yawned, and pulled himself up by the gunwale to look over the side. He just had one look and then, without saying anything, settled down to sleep again.

Susan woke as one wakes who has breakfast to get for a family.

“I say,” she said, “we could have started ages ago. It’s quite light.”

“Come on, then,” said John. “You take the main-sheet, while I set the sail. I didn’t want to wake you . . . but I’ve only just waked myself, really. It’s going to be another fine day, and the wind is the same.”

He unfastened the painter and put it once round the post at the end of the landing stage. Then he hoisted the sail. He had forgotten that it was reefed. It did not take a minute to shake out the reef. It was a great deal easier than tying it down in the dark. Then he hoisted the sail again and cast off. Swallow drifted backwards a few feet, and then gathered a breath of wind and began to sail. He came aft and took the tiller.

Susan blinked at the notice-board about landing being forbidden.

“We didn’t exactly land,” she said.

They tacked through between Rio and the islands. Rio Bay lay deserted as they had never seen it. No one was up. The houses had blinds in all their windows. Yachts lay at their moorings. The rowing boats of the natives lay drawn up on the beach. There was not a native to be seen.

“It won’t be sunrise for some time yet,” said John, looking up at the faint glow in the sky over the hills.

They sailed out into the open lake beyond the islands, and made a long board across to the farther side. Then, “Ready about,” and back again. Their second tack beyond the islands let them see into the narrow bay below Holly Howe. There was Holly Howe itself, the farmhouse, white among its yew trees and hollies, up on the hillside at the top of the sloping field. Mother and Vicky and nurse were in there asleep. John looked at Susan, and Susan looked at John. Both had the same thought, but neither said anything. It was not an altogether comfortable thought. Still, they would soon be back at the camp on Wild Cat Island.

At last Susan said, “I hope to goodness Titty had the sense to go to sleep.”

“Bet she didn’t,” said John. “She wouldn’t want to, anyhow.”

They left the Peak of Darien astern. John saw the houseboat moored to its big buoy in Houseboat Bay, but it reminded him of his meeting with Captain Flint, so he looked the other way.

They could see Wild Cat Island now, and suddenly Susan said, “Titty’s awake. She’s got a most tremendous fire.”

A big column of smoke was lifting and blowing from the island.

“Hullo,” said John. “There’s a boat. Why, it’s the Amazon.”

“Where?” said Susan.

“Over there. Starboard bow. By Cormorant Island. We shall fetch her on this tack.”

“It’s Amazon all right,” said Susan. “But there’s nobody in her. She must have broken loose from somewhere and drifted away.”

John watched carefully.

“She’s not drifting,” he said. “She’s at anchor. Perhaps the Amazons are asleep in her. Hurrah! Let’s capture her after all. We’ll get her anchor without waking them and tow her into harbour. Then when they wake they’ll be prisoners.”

“I don’t believe there’s anybody in her,” said Susan.

“Rubbish,” said John. “She couldn’t have got there and anchored herself.”

“Well, we’ll see in a minute,” said Susan.

John did not at first alter the Swallow’s course. That tack would bring her just to windward of the Amazon. Then he would be able to back down carefully with the oars to get hold of the anchor rope and take her in tow without waking the sleeping pirates. Then he changed his mind. It would be better to sail close under her stern to have a look into her. It would be silly to try to get their anchor if the Amazons were only pretending to be asleep.

“I’m sure there’s no one in her,” said Susan as they rushed towards the little anchored ship.

But just then a hand showed on the gunwale, and a moment later, just as they were passing under Amazon’s stern, the white face and rather draggled hair of Able-seaman Titty appeared over the transom.

Able-seaman Titty had thought out the proper thing to say. Something about “Report,” “Capture,” “Enemies,” and “Prize.” But the words went out of her head at the last minute, and all she actually said was, “I’ve got her.”