Priscilla's Spies Part 9

"That fellow on the island," said Priscilla, "is getting down his tents and seems to be in a mighty hurry. He's got a woman helping him. Do you think she could be a female spy? There are such things. They carry secret ciphers sewn into their stays and other things of that kind."

"I don't believe they're spies at all," said Frank, who was feeling dishevelled and uncomfortable after his struggle with the sail.

"Anyhow they seem pretty keen on getting away from Inishark. Just look at them."

There was no doubt that the people on the island were doing their best to strike their camp as quickly as possible. In their hurry they stumbled over guy ropes, got the fly sheet of one of their tents badly tangled round a packing case, and made the matter worse by trying to free it without proper consideration.

"Let them fuss," said Priscilla. "We can't help it if they do get away.

If your ankle isn't too bad we might as well have lunch. You grub out the food when I get off my shoes and stockings, I'm a bit damp about the legs."

Frank felt under the thwart through which the mast was stepped and drew out one by one the parcel of macaroons, the tongue, the tin of peaches and the bottles. Priscilla wrung out her stockings over the stern of the boat and then hung them on the gunwale to dry. She propped her shoes up against the stern where they would get as much breeze as possible.

"I wish," said Frank, "that we'd thought of getting some bread."

"Why? Don't you like macaroons?"

"I like them all right, but they don't go very well with tongue."

"We'll begin with the tongue, then, and keep the macaroons till afterwards. Hand it over."

She took a rowlock and shattered the jar which held the tongue. She succeeded in throwing some of the broken gla.s.s overboard. A good deal more of it stuck in the tongue.

"What I generally do," she said, "when I'm out in the _Blue Wanderer_ by myself and happen to have a tongue, which isn't often on account of their being so beastly expensive?but whenever I have I simply bite bits off it as I happen to want them. But I know that's not polite. If you prefer it, Cousin Frank, you can gouge out a chunk or two with your knife before I gnaw it."

This seemed to Frank a good suggestion. He got out his knife.

"Sylvia Courtney is always frightfully polite," said Priscilla.

Frank hesitated. The recollection of Sylvia Courtney's appreciation of Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" and her fondness for "Gray's Elegy" for the sake of its calm came to him. He would not be cla.s.sed with her. He put his knife back into his pocket and bit a small bit off the tongue. Then he leaned over the side of the boat and spat out a good deal of broken gla.s.s. He also spat out some blood.

"That seems to be rather a gla.s.sy bit you've got," said Priscilla. "Are you cut?"

"A little," said Frank, "but it doesn't matter."

Priscilla bit off a large mouthful and handed the tongue back to Frank.

Her cheeks bulged a good deal, but she chewed without any appearance of discomfort. Frank had read in books about "the call of the wild."

He now, for the first time, felt the l.u.s.t for savage life. He took the tongue, tore off a fragment with his teeth, and discovered as he ate it, that he was exceedingly hungry.

"Your lemonade bottle," he said, a few minutes later, "has one of those gla.s.s stoppers in it instead of a cork. How shall I open it?"

"Shank of a rowlock," said Priscilla. "Those spies on the island have got their tents down at last They're packing up now."

Frank opened the lemonade bottle and then glanced at the island. The female spy was packing a holdall. Her companion was staggering down the beach towards the place where Flanagan's old boat lay high and dry on her side. He carried the packing case on his shoulder. Priscilla, tilting her head back, drank the lemonade from its bottle in large gulps. Then she opened the parcel of biscuits and munched a macaroon contentedly.

"It's dashed annoying," said Frank, "having to sit here and watch them escape, just as we had them cornered too."

The inside of his lip hurt him a good deal while he ate. He wanted to grumble about something; but the fear of being compared to Sylvia Courtney kept him silent about the broken gla.s.s. Priscilla took another macaroon.

"We were doing Wordsworth's 'Excursion' last term," she said, "in English literature, and there's a long tract of it called 'Despondency Corrected.' I wish I had it here now. It's just what would do you good."

Frank nibbled a biscuit with his eyes on the island. The man was carrying down a bundle of rugs to the boat. The woman followed him with one of the tents. Then they went back together to their camping ground and collected a number of small objects which were scattered about.

Frank became desperate.

"Priscilla," he said, "don't you think you could wade across to that island. There's only about an inch and a half of water round the boat now. I'd do it myself if it wasn't for this infernal ankle. I simply can't walk."

"I could," said Priscilla, "and what's more, I would, only that there's a deep channel between us and them. If I'd jibed that time instead of trying to stay her I should have kept in the channel and not run on to this bank. I knew it was here all right, but I forgot it just at the moment. That's the worst of moments. They simply make one forget things, however hard one tries not to. I daresay you've noticed that."

Frank had as a matter of fact noticed this peculiarity of moments very often. It had turned up in the course of his experience both on cricket and football fields. But it seemed to him that the consequences of being entrapped by it were much more serious in sailing boats than elsewhere.

He was so far from blaming Priscilla for the plight of the _Tortoise_ that he felt very grateful to her for not blaming him. His moment had come when she gave him the order about the centreboard. Then not only memory, but all power of coherent thought had deserted him.

"Let's have at the Californian peaches," said Priscilla. "But we'd better eat a bit slower now that the first pangs of hunger are allayed.

If we hurry up too much we'll have no food left soon and we have absolutely nothing else to do except to eat until five o'clock this afternoon. We can't expect to get off before that."

The spies packed their belongings into Flanagan's old boat and then set to work to push her down to the sea. Frank, with the point of the opener driven through the top of the peach tin, paused to watch them. They shoved and pulled vainly. The boat remained where she was. Frank began to hope that they, too, might have to wait for the rising tide. They sat down on a large stone and consulted together. Then they took everything out of the boat and tried pus.h.i.+ng and pulling her again. Her weight was still too great for them. They moved her forward in short jerks, but each time they moved her the keel at her stern buried itself deeper in the soft mud. They sat down, evidently somewhat exhausted, and had another consultation. Then the man got the oars and laid them out as rollers. He lifted the boat's stern on to the first of them.

"I thought," said Priscilla, "that they'd hit on that dodge sooner or later. Now they'll get on a bit. Go on scalping the peach tin, Cousin Frank."

The peaches had been cut in half by the kindly Californian who preserved them and a half peach fits, with a little squeezing, into any mouth of ordinary size. Priscilla and Frank fished them out with their fingers and ate them. Some juice, but considering the circ.u.mstances very little, dripped down the front of Frank's white flannel coat, the glorious crimson bound coat of the first eleven. He did not care in the least. He had lapsed hopelessly. No urchin in the lower school, brewing cocoa over a form room fire, ladling out condensed milk with the blade of a penknife, would have been more dead to the decencies of life than this degenerate hero of the lower sixth.

"They're getting the boat down," said Priscilla, swallowing a lump of peach. "Do you think that you could throw stones far enough to hit them when they get out into the channel? I'd grub up the stones for you. We might frighten them back that way."

Frank had won second prize in the sports at the end of the Easter term for throwing the cricket ball. He looked across the stretch of water and judged the distance carefully.

"No," he said, regretfully, "I couldn't."

"That's a pity," said Priscilla, "for I can't, either. I never could shy worth tuppence. Curious, isn't it? Hardly any girls can."

The spies had got old Flanagan's boat down to the water's edge.

They went back to the place where she had lain first. By a series of laborious portages they got all their goods down to the beach and packed them into the boat.

"They're off now," said Frank, regretfully.

"I wouldn't be too sure," said Priscilla. "That fellow's an extraordinary a.s.s with a boat."

Her optimism was well founded. By shoving hard the spies ran their boat into the water. The lady spy stopped at the brink. The man, with reckless indifference to wet feet, followed the boat, still shoving.

It happens that the sh.o.r.e of the north side of Inishark shelves very rapidly into the deep channel. The boat floated suddenly, and urged by the violence of the last shove, slid rapidly from the sh.o.r.e. The man grasped at her. His fingers slid along the gunwale. He plunged forward knee-deep, s.n.a.t.c.hed at the retreating bow, missed it, stumbled and fell headlong into the water. The boat floated free and swung into the channel on the tide.

Priscilla leaped up excitedly.

"Now they're done," she said. "They're far worse stuck than we are."

"Oh, do look at him," said Frank, "Did you ever see anything so funny?"

The man staggered to his feet and floundered towards the sh.o.r.e, squeezing the salt water from his eyes with his knuckles.

"Of course, I'm sorry for the poor beast in a way," said Priscilla, "but I can't help feeling that it jolly well serves him right. Oh, look at them now!"

She laughed convulsively. The scene was sufficiently ridiculous. The spy stood dripping forlornly, on the sh.o.r.e. The lady dabbed at various parts of his clothing with her pocket-handkerchief. Flanagan's old boat, now fairly in mid-channel, bobbed cheerfully along on the ebbing tide.