“Well, stop worrying about things for a little while,” said Peggy. “Enjoy your few days here on our secret island. It will be a real holiday for you. Jack will teach you to swim, and Mike will teach you how to make a camp-fire. You never know when things like that will be useful to you.”
The children all felt rather lazy after their late night. Peggy and Nora washed up the breakfast things, and Peggy planned the lunch. The children had eaten all the ripe plums and Peggy wondered if she should open a large tin of fruit. She would cook some potatoes and peas too, and they could have some of the meat off the cold joint they had brought.
“What about picking some wild raspberries, as we used to do last year?” asked Nora eagerly. “Don’t you remember the raspberry canes on one part of the island, Peggy? - they were simply red with delicious raspberries!”
“We’ll go and see if there are any still ripe,” said Peggy. “But first let’s see if Willow House is still in the little wood beyond the beach.”
The children had built a fine little house of willow branches the summer before, which had sheltered them well on wet or cold days and nights. They all went running down the hill to see if Willow House was still standing.
They squeezed through the thick trees until they came to the spot where Willow House was - and it stood there, green and cool, inviting them to go inside.
“But the whole of Willow House is growing!” cried Peggy. “Every branch has put out leaves - and look at these twigs shooting up from the roof! It’s a house that’s alive!”
She was right. Every willow stick they had used to build their house had shot out buds and leaves and twigs - and the house was, as Peggy said, quite alive. Inside the house long twigs hung down like green curtains.
“Dear little Willow House,” said Peggy softly. “What fun we had here! And how we loved making it - weaving the willow twigs in and out to make the walls - and you made the door, Jack. And do you remember how we stuffed up the cracks with heather and bracken?”
The others remembered quite well. They told Paul all about it and he at once wanted to stop and build another house.
“No, we don’t need one,” said Jack. “We can sleep out-of-doors now - and if rain comes we’ll just sleep in the cave.”
Paul ran in and out of Willow House. He thought it was the nicest place in the world. “I wish I had a house of my own like this,” he said. “Mike, Jack, will you come back to my country with me and teach me how to build a willow house?”
The boys laughed. “Come along and see if we can find some ripe raspberries,” said Mike. “You’ll like those, Paul.”
They all went to the part of the island where the raspberries grew. There were still plenty on the canes, though they were getting over now.
Peggy and Nora had brought baskets. Soon they had the baskets half-full, and their mouths were stained with pink. As many went into their mouths as into the baskets!
“It’s one o’clock.” said Mike, looking at his watch. “Good gracious! How the morning has gone!”
“We’ll go back and have dinner,” said Peggy. So back they all went in the hot sun, feeling as hungry as hunters, although they had eaten so many raspberries!
They had a lovely dinner - cold mutton, peas, potatoes, raspberries, and tinned milk. Mike brought them icy-cold water from the spring, and they drank it thirstily, sending Paul for some more when it was finished. Paul wanted to do jobs too, and Peggy thought it was a good idea to let him. The sun had caught his pale little face that morning and he was quite brown.
“What shall we do this afternoon?” asked Paul.
“I feel sleepy,” said Peggy, yawning. “Let’s have a nice snooze on the heather - then we could have a bathe before tea, and a jolly good meal afterwards.”
It was a lovely lazy day they had, and they thoroughly enjoyed it after all the alarms and adventures of the last week or two. Jack began to teach Paul to swim, but he was not very good at learning, though he tried hard enough!
They had tea, and then they went boating on the lake in the cool of the evening. “We might try a bit of fishing to-morrow,” said Jack. “It would be fun to have fried fish again, Peggy, just as we did last year.”
“Do you suppose we are quite, quite safe here?” asked Paul anxiously, looking over the waters of the lake as they rowed about.
“Of course!” said Jack. “You needn’t worry, Paul. Nobody will come to look for you here.”
“If Mr. Diaz knew about your secret island he might come here to seek me,” said Paul. “Hadn’t we better keep a watch in case he does?”
“Oh no,” said Jack. “There’s no need to do that, Paul. Nobody would ever find us here, I tell you.”
“Where did you use to watch, when you were here last year and were afraid of people coming to look for you?” asked Paul.
“There’s a stone up on the top of the hill where we used to sit, among the heather,” said Jack. “You get a good view all up and down the lake from there.”
“Then to-morrow I will sit and watch there,” said Paul at once. “You do not know Mr. Diaz as well as I do, and I think he is clever enough to follow us, and to take me prisoner again. If I see him coming in a boat, there will be time to hide away in the caves, won’t there?”
“Oh yes,” said Jack. “But he won’t come. Nobody will guess you are here with us.”
But Paul was nervous - and when the next day came he ran off by himself. “Where’s he gone?” asked Jack.
“Oh, up to the hill-top to watch for his enemies!” said Nora, with a laugh. “He won’t see anything, I’m sure of that!”
But Prince Paul did see something that very afternoon!
He sat there for two or three hours, watching the lake around the island. It was very calm and blue. Paul yawned. It was rather boring sitting there by himself - but the other children wouldn’t come, for they said there was no fear of enemies coming so soon.
Paul saw Mike and Jack far below at the edge of the water. They were getting out the boat to go and fish. The girls came running down to join them. They had already asked Paul to come, but he wouldn’t. He was really afraid of water, and it was all that the others could do to get him in to bathe.
Paul stood up and waved to the others. They waved back. They didn’t like leaving him alone, but really they couldn’t go and sit up there for hours. Besides, Peggy had said that if they caught some fish she would fry them for supper, and that really sounded rather delicious!
“We shan’t be long, Paul!” shouted Mike. “We shall only be round the south end of the island, which is a good fishing-place. Yell to us if you want us.”
“Right!” shouted back Paul, and he waved again. He really thought it was queer the way the four children seemed to like the water so much - they were always bathing and paddling and boating! But Paul liked them immensely, especially Mike, who had been a great help to him when he had been a prisoner in the tower.
He watched the boat leave the little beach and row round to the other side of the island. The boat looked very small from where he stood, and the children looked like dolls! But he could hear their voices very clearly. They were getting their fishing-lines ready.
Paul half wished he was with them, they all sounded so jolly. He watched them for some time, and then he turned round and gazed down the blue waters of the lake on the other side of the island.
And he saw a boat there! Yes - a boat that was being rowed by two men! Paul stood and watched, his heart beating fast. Who were the two men? Could they be Mr. Diaz and Luiz? He hated them both and was afraid of them. Had they come to find him again?
He turned to the opposite side of the lake and yelled to the four children in the boat there.
“Jack! Mike! There’s a boat coming up the lake!”
“What?” shouted Jack.
Paul yelled again, even more loudly. “I said, there’s a boat coming up the lake!”
The four children looked at one another in dismay and surprise. “Surely Mr. Diaz can’t have found out where we are,” said Mike. “Though he’s quite clever enough to guess, if he knows we are the children who ran away to a secret island last year!”
“What shall we do, Jack?” asked Nora.
“We haven’t time to do anything much,” said Jack anxiously. “I think it wouldn’t be safe to go and hide on the island - those men will search it thoroughly, caves and all. We’d better get Paul down here, and row off to the mainland in the boat. We could hide in the trees there for a bit.”
“Good idea, Jack,” said Mike. He stood up in the boat and yelled to Paul, who was anxiously waiting for his orders.
“Come on down here, Paul. We’ll go off in the boat. Hurry up!”
Paul waved his hand and disappeared. When he appeared at the edge of the water, the others saw that he was carrying something. He had a loaf of bread, a packet of biscuits, and two tins of fruit!
“I say! You’ve got brains to think of those!” said Jack, pleased. “Good for you, Paul!”
Paul went red with pleasure. He thought the four children were wonderful, and he was very proud to be praised by Captain Jack!
“I just had time to push all our things into a bush,” said Paul. “And I grabbed these to bring, because I guessed we might have to stop away for some hours.”
“Good lad,” said Jack. “Come on in. We haven’t any time to lose. Tell us about the boat. How far away was it?”
As Jack and Mike rowed their boat away from the island, away to the mainland, Paul told them all he had seen, which wasn’t very much. “I couldn’t see who the men were, but they looked as if they might be Mr. Diaz and Luiz,” he said. “Oh, Jack - I don’t want to be caught and kept a prisoner again. It is so lovely being with you.”
“Don’t you worry,” said Jack, pulling hard at the oars. “We’ll look after you all right, if we have to stuff you down a rabbit-hole and pile bracken over it to hide you!”
That made them all laugh, and Paul felt better. The boys were pulling across to the mainland swiftly, hoping to reach it before the other boat could possibly catch any sight of them. The island was between them and the strange boat, but it might happen that the two men rowed round it and would then see the children’s boat.
They reached the mainland safely. Jack chose a very wooded part, and rowed the boat in right under some overhanging trees, where it could not possibly be seen. Then he and the others got out.
“I’d better climb a high tree and see if I can possibly see what’s going on the island opposite us,” said Jack.
“I’ll climb one too,” said Mike. “I’d like to watch as well. Come on, Paul, would you like to climb one too?”
“No, thank you,” said Paul, who didn’t like climbing trees any more than he liked bathing.
“Well, you stay behind and look after the girls,” said Jack. Paul was pleased with that. It made him feel important.
But the girls didn’t want much looking after! They wanted to climb trees too! However, they busied themselves in looking for a clear space to picnic in.
Jack’s tree was a very high one. He could see the island quite well from it. He suddenly saw the boat coming round one side of the island, and he knew who the two men were!
“Yes - it’s our dear friend Mr. Diaz and his sleepy helper Luiz,” thought Jack to himself. “They must have missed seeing the little beach where we usually land, and they’ve come round to the other side of the island. Well, that means we can keep a jolly good watch on them!”
Mike and Jack watched the boat from their perches up in the trees. The two men landed and pulled the boat on to the shore. They stood and talked for a while and then they separated and went off round the island.
“I’m afraid they won’t find us!” Jack called softly to Mike, who was at the top of a tree nearby. “And unless they find the things we brought with us, that Paul so cleverly stuffed into a bush, they may not even think we’ve been to the island!”
“It was a good idea of yours to come across to the mainland, Jack,” answered Mike. “We’re safe enough here. We could even make our way through the woods and walk to the nearest town, if we had to!”
“Look! There’s one of the men at the top of the hill,” said Jack. Mike looked. The hill was not near enough to see if the man was Mr. Diaz or Luiz, but it was certainly one of them. He was shading his eyes and looking all down the waters of the lake.
“Good thing our boat’s hidden!” said Mike. “I wonder how long they’re going to hunt round the island! I don’t want to spend the night in these woods - there’s no heather here and the ground looks very damp.”
The boys watched for two hours and then they began to feel very hungry. Mike left Jack on watch and climbed down to the girls, who had been picking a crop of wild strawberries, small and very sweet. Paul was with them, and he ran to Mike and rained questions on him about the men in the boat.
Mike told him all he had seen. “But what I really came down for was to say we’d better have something to eat,” he said. “I’ll clean the fish we’ve caught, Peggy, and light you a small fire. You can cook them, then, on some hot stones, and we’ll have a meal.”
He cleaned the fish they had caught, and made a fire. “I hope the men on the island don’t think our smoke is anything to do with us!” he said.
They had a meal of cooked fish, bread, biscuits, and wild strawberries. Then Mike went up his tree again to watch, and Jack came down and had his share of the meal. It was really rather fun. The children enjoyed their dinner, and wished there was more of it!
“But we must keep the two tins of fruit, and the rest of the bread and biscuits for later on in the day,” said Peggy, putting them safely aside under a bush. “Thank goodness Paul had the brains to bring what he could! We’d only have had the fish to eat if he hadn’t!”
Jack and Mike took it in turns to watch from a tree the rest of the day. They saw no more signs of the two men on the island, but they knew that they had not left, because their boat was still there.
When it began to get dark, and the boys could no longer see clearly from their perches in the trees, Jack wondered what was the best thing to do.
He climbed down and talked to the others. “We’d better have another meal,” he said, “and finish the rest of the food. I’m afraid we shall have to spend the night here.”
“We could sleep in the boat,” said Nora. “That would be more comfortable than the damp ground here. There are two old rugs in the boat too. And Peggy and I have explored a bit and found where a great mass of bracken grows. We could collect it before it’s quite dark, and use that for bedding in the boat! It will be fairly soft for us.”
“Good,” said Jack. “Show us where the bracken is, Nora, and Paul, Mike, and I will carry armfuls to the boat. Peggy, will you get a meal?”
“Right,” said Peggy. It was dark to get a meal under the trees, but the little girl did the best she could. She opened the tins of fruit - Paul had even been sensible enough to snatch up the tin-opener! She cut the rest of the bread into slices, and put two biscuits for every one. That was all there was.
The boys and Nora came back with armfuls of bracken. They set it in the boat. Then they went back to where Peggy was waiting. Jack had his torch in his pocket, so they were able to see what they were eating. They shared the fruit in the tins, ate their bread and biscuits, and drank the fruit juice, for they were very thirsty.
“And now to bed,” said Jack. “Bed in a boat! What queer adventures we have! But all the same, it’s great fun!”