They waited for five minutes. The motor-boat’s engine sounded for a little while, then grew fainter and finally could not be heard at all.
Jack cautiously put his head out. He could see and hear nothing but puffins. Huffin and Puffin were squatting nearby and got up politely when they saw his head.
“Arrrrrr!” they said.
Jack got right out of the hole. He lay down flat, put his field-glasses to his eyes and swept the sea around. At last he spotted what he was looking for — the motor-boat going away at top speed, getting smaller and smaller in the distance.
“It’s all right!” he called down to the others. “They’re almost out of sight. Come on out.”
Soon they were all sitting in Sleepy Hollow, with the girls getting a meal ready, for by this time they were once again ravenous. The ginger-beer had now all been drunk, so they drank the water from the rock-pool, which was rather warm from the sun, but tasted very sweet. The rain from the storm had swelled it considerably.
“Well, that was a rather narrow escape,” said Philip, his spirits rising as he tucked into slices of Spam. “I really did think one of them would tumble in on top of us.”
“Well, what do you suppose I felt like when the match one of them used fell through the hole and bounced on my knee?” said Dinah. “I nearly let out a yell.”
“Kiki almost gave the game away too,” said Jack, putting potted meat on a biscuit. “Calling out ‘din-din-dinner’ like that. I’m ashamed of you, Kiki.”
“She’s sulking,” said Dinah, laughing. “Look at her — standing with her back to you, pretending not to take any notice. That’s because you were cross with her.”
Jack grinned. He called to Huffin and Puffin, who were, as usual, standing patiently beside Philip. “Hey, Huff and Puff — come and have a tit-bit. Nice birds, good birds, dear Huff and Puff.”
Huffin and Puffin walked over to Jack, doing their sailor-roll from side to side. They solemnly took a bit of biscuit from Jack’s fingers. But that was more than Kiki could stand. She whisked round and screeched at the top of her voice.
“Naughty boy, naughty boy, naughty boy! Poor Polly, poor Polly! Polly’s got a cold, put the kettle on, naughty boy, naughty boy!”
She rushed at the startled puffins and gave them a sharp jab with her curved beak. Huffin retaliated at once, and Kiki stepped back. She began to screech like a railway train and the two puffins hurriedly returned to Philip’s knees, where they stood and stared in alarm at Kiki, ready to dart down a burrow at a moment’s notice.
The children roared with laughter at this little pantomime. Kiki went to Jack, sidling along in a comical manner. “Poor Kiki, poor Kiki, naughty boy, naughty boy!”
Jack gave her a tit-bit and she sat on his shoulder to eat it, looking triumphantly at Muffin and Puffin. “Arrrrrr!” she said to them, sounding like a snarling dog. “Arrrrr!”
“All right, Kiki. Don’t arrrrr any more just by my ear,” said Jack. “And I should advise you not to go too near Huffin for a bit. He won’t forget that jab of yours.”
“Do you think it’ll be safe to sleep out of doors again tonight?” asked Dinah, clearing up the meal. “I don’t fancy sleeping down that hole again, somehow.”
“Oh, I should think it would be all right,” said Jack. “I don’t somehow think those fellows, whoever they were, will come along in the dark of night. Pity we didn’t catch a glimpse of them.”
“I didn’t like their voices,” said Lucy-Ann. “They sounded hard and horrid.”
“What a good thing that storm blew our tents away the other night!” said Dinah suddenly. “If it hadn’t, we wouldn’t have stumbled on that hole, and been able to use it as a hiding-place. We wouldn’t have known where to go, but for that.”
“That’s true,” said Philip. “I wonder if those men will come back again. We’ll go on keeping watch anyway, and keep the fire going. It’s our only hope of rescue — and Bill’s only hope too, I should think — because if nobody comes to rescue us, certainly nobody will rescue Bill!”
“Poor Bill!” said Lucy-Ann. “He wanted to disappear — and he has.”
“Those men must have put our fire out,” said Jack, suddenly noticing that there was no smoke. “The wretches! I suppose they thought they’d put it out, and then, if it was lighted again, and the smoke rose up, they’d know for certain that somebody was here.”
“We’ll jolly well go and light it again,” said Philip at once. “We’ll show them we’re going to have our fire going if we want to. I guess they don’t want it going, in case somebody does happen to come along and see it. They won’t want people exploring this part of the world at the moment.”
So they all went up to the cliff-top, and set to work to light the fire again. The men had kicked it out, and the ashes and half-burnt sticks were scattered everywhere.
It didn’t take long to get it going again. The children built it up carefully, and then Philip lighted it. It caught at once and flames sprang up. When it was going well, the children banked it with seaweed, and at once a thick spire of smoke ascended in the air.
“Ha! You men! I hope you have caught sight of our signal again!” cried Jack, facing out to sea. “You can’t beat us! We’ll get the better of you yet, you’ll see!”
Chapter 19
SOMEONE ELSE COMES TO THE ISLAND
THE children were now very brown with the sun. “If Mother could see us now, she wouldn’t call us ‘peaky,’ ” said Philip. “And you’ve got back all your freckles, Jack and Lucy-Ann, and a few hundreds more!”
“Oh dear!” said Lucy-Ann, rubbing her brown freckled face. “What a pity! I did think I looked so nice when my freckles faded away during measles.”
“I seem to be losing count of the days,” said Jack. “I can’t for the life of me make out whether today is Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“It’s Friday,” said Philip promptly. “I was counting up only this morning. We’ve been here quite a time now.”
“Well — is it a week since we left home?” wondered Dinah. “It seems about six months. I wonder how Mother is getting on.”
“She must be feeling a bit worried about us,” said Philip. “Except that she knows we’re with Bill and she’ll think we’re quite all right, even if she doesn’t get messages.”
“And we’re not with Bill and we’re not all right,” said Lucy-Ann. “I do wish I knew where Bill was and what was happening to him. If only we had a boat, we could go off in it and try to find where he was. He must have been taken to the west of us somewhere — because that’s where the planes seem to be.”
“Well — we’re not likely to get a boat,” said Philip. “Come on — let’s go up on the cliff-top and see to the fire. The smoke doesn’t seem very thick this morning. Huffin and Puffin, are you coming?”
“Arrrrrrr!” said both Huffin and Puffin, and walked along beside Philip. Huffin had taken to bringing fish as a little present for Philip, and this amused the children immensely. The first time that Huffin had waddled up with the fish in his big beak, the children hadn’t been able to make out what he was carrying. But when he came nearer they roared with laughter.
“Philip! He’s got six or seven fish in his beak for you — and do. look how he’s arranged them!” cried Jack. “Heads and tails alternately in a row all down his beak! Huffin, how did you do it?”
“Thanks awfully, old chap,” said Philip, as Huffin deposited the fish beside the boy. “Very generous of you.”
Now Huffin brought fish two or three times a day, much to the children’s amusement. Philip knew how to prepare it for cooking over the fire, and the children ate the bigger fish with biscuits and tinned butter. Huffin solemnly accepted a piece cooked, and seemed to enjoy it just as much as raw. But Puffin would not touch it.
“Well, as long as we’ve got Huffin to provide us with fish, we shan’t starve,” said Jack. “Kiki, don’t be so jealous. If Huffin wants to be generous, let him.”
Kiki tried to head off Huffin when he arrived with fish. She could not catch fish herself, and did not like the way Huffin brought presents to the little company.
“Naughty, naughty, naughty boy!” she screeched, but Huffin took no notice at all.
The children were sitting by the fire, idly throwing sticks on to it, and stirring it now and again to make it flare up a little. A spire of smoke rose up, bent northwards. Jack took up his field-glasses and swept the lonely sea with them. You never knew when friends — or enemies — might turn up.