AdvFour2 – The Adventurous Four Again – Blyton, Enid.

Andy looked very miserable. He didn’t say anything at all. Tom knew how he was feeling.

“Oh, Andy, you don’t think those men have sunk her, do you?” he said in a hushed voice. “Surely nobody could do such a wicked thing to a beautiful boat like that!”

Andy still said nothing. He left the others and went to the back of the cave, where he busied himself lighting the stove and putting the kettle on to boil. He couldn’t bear to think that his lovely boat might be lying far down at the bottom of the water.

“Poor Andy!” whispered Jill, with tears in her eyes. “Isn’t it awful? Tom, why should those men sink our boat?”

“I suppose so that no one should see it and guess we were here, if they came to look for us,” said Tom, feeling that the girls ought to know how serious things were. “You see, we have stumbled on some kind of secret, and those men don’t want us to tell anyone. But they know someone will be sure to come hunting for us, so they’ve sunk our boat, and mean to hide us away somewhere, so that we can’t be found—then we shan’t be able to tell what little we know!”

The girls looked scared. Then Jill cheered up. “But they haven’t taken us anywhere, and when we see Andy’s father’s boat coming, we’ll all climb up on to the high rocks above the cave and signal. I’ll take off my vest and wave it!”

“Kettle’s boiling,” came Andy’s voice from the back. “Going to make the cocoa, Jill?”

Jill scrambled back. Her foot was practically all right again. But she blamed herself very much for her accident, for if she had not twisted her ankle, they might all by now have been safely back at home. So she was eager to please Andy in every way and show him how sorry she was.

Andy looked very miserable. Jill didn’t say anything to him, but she gave his arm a quick squeeze. She too felt very gloomy when she thought of the beautiful boat lying on the bottom of the sea—but she knew that to Andy his boat meant much more than a lovely plaything. That was all it really was to the three visitors, but to Andy the boat was a friend and a comrade.

“Dad ought to be along soon,” said Andy, as they ate their breakfast. “When we didn’t come home last night, as we should have done, everyone would get the wind up and be worried. Dad would start out for the Cliff of Birds early this morning. If he didn’t find us there he’d come along here. We must keep a look-out.”

They finished breakfast. Andy peered out of the cave. “I must just slip down to the cove and have a look to see if the poor old Andy is at the bottom there,” he said. “I won’t be long. And I won’t be caught, so don’t be afraid. But I’ve just got to go and have a look. Keep a watch out. Tom.”

The boy wriggled put of the cave, and the others saw him running and skipping like a goat, down the steep rocks that sloped to the cove. They saw him standing where the Andy had been anchored, peering down into the water here and there.

“Poor old Andy. This has upset him,” said Jill. “It’s awful to lose his boat like that. I feel it’s all my fault too.”

“Look—there’s that bandy man again!” said Tom, suddenly. “And two others with him! They’ve seen Andy—but he’s seen them too. Look at him leaping up the rocks! Oh, Andy, hurry, hurry!”

Andy was not afraid of being caught by the three men. He was far swifter than they were. They yelled at him and ran, but they were no match at all for the boy. He leapt up the rocks, and came panting to the cave. He wriggled in with plenty of time to spare.

“I don’t know if they’ve come for us,” he panted. “But they won’t make us come out! I don’t see how they can unless they like to risk wriggling in on their tummies—and they are at our mercy then!”

“Andy, did you see the boat?” asked Jill anxiously. Andy shook his head.

“No—they haven’t sunk her just there. I think they must have token her out to sea a bit and scuttled her in really deep water. There’s no sign of her down there.”

“I suppose they thought your father might spot her, lying in the cove at the bottom,” said Tom. “They must have taken her out in the night. And not one of us heard a thing!”

“Well, the cove is a good way off,” said Andy, getting back his breath. “Now look out—here come the men.”

There was the dark man with the beard; the bandy-legged man—and one that Tom recognized at once.

“Look—see the fisherman with the glasses on his nose? Well, that’s one of the men I saw in the cave at the Cliff of Birds! How did he get here? Did the motor-boat call for him and take him off?”

“He’s not the one with hairy legs, is he—the man whose legs we saw when he sat above us on the Cliff of Birds?” asked Jill.

“No. He’s not here,” said Tom. “Nasty-looking collection, aren’t they?”

Andy felt desperate. He was angered by the disappearance of his boat, and quite ready to push any of the men down the rocks, if only he could! He was anxious, too, for the girls. Their mother had put them into his charge—and here they were in the midst of danger. Andy was quite determined to fight with any weapon he could, if the men tried to wriggle into the cave.

The three came to the cave. The dark man called out to them. “Well,, children, are you more sensible this morning? Are you coming out? I advise you to.”

No one said anything. The man called again, impatiently. “Come along now! No one will hurt you! You’ll be sorry if you don’t come out of your own free will. We don’t want to make you come!”

Still no reply. There was a short silence, and the dark man gave a rapid order.

“Set it going, Bandy.”

Bandy set something down by the cave, just within the entrance. It looked like some sort of can. The children couldn’t quite make out what it was. They watched in silence.

Bandy struck a match and held it to something in the can. It flared up. Bandy seemed to damp it down and, instead of flames, smoke came out.

The wind was blowing in their direction and it blew the thick, billowing smoke into the cave. Tom got a smell of it first and he coughed.

“The beasts!” said Andy suddenly. “They’re trying to smoke us out of the cave—like hunters smoke out wild animals!”

The smoke poured in. The children began to cough. They choked. The smoke was thick and smelt horrid and bitter. It was quite harmless, but the children didn’t know that. They felt frightened.

“We’ll have to go out,” spluttered Andy. “It’s no good. We’ll have to go. Keep close to me when we’re out, girls, and do exactly what I say. Don’t be afraid. I don’t think for a minute we’ll come to any harm.”

Before he went out, Andy felt along the ledges for the packet of salt he knew was there. The others didn’t see him and would have been surprised if they had. Andy tore open the packet, and slipped the salt into his pocket He had a little plan for that salt!

Then, panting and coughing, he crawled out of the cave. The girls came next, and then Tom. The men stared at them.

“Why, they’re only kids—except for this fisherboy,” said Bandy. “Interfering little varmints.”

“Look! Look, Andy! There’s your father’s boat!” suddenly cried Tom, and they all swung round. Sure enough, away in the distance was a big fishing-boat, the one used by Andy’s uncle and his father when they wanted a bigger boat than Andy’s.

“Hurrah!” yelled Tom. “We’re all right You’ll have to let us go now! There’s Andy’s father.”

“Come on. Take them away,” said the dark man. “There’s no time to be lost. Blindfold them!”

To the children’s great dismay they were each blindfolded with big red handkerchiefs. Where were they going? And why were their eyes bandaged? Were they going to some secret hide-out that no one must know the way to?

The men pushed them forward roughly, and they stumbled over a rocky path, not seeing where they went.

“Oh,” wept Mary, “let us wait! Let us wait for Andy’s father! We’ll go home then. Let us go, please let us go!”

But the men pushed them on, and when Andy’s father sailed into the cove, there was no one to be seen!