“We ought to give the message, anyhow,” said Susan. “We promised we would, and I tied a knot in my handkerchief and showed it to the charcoal-burners. That’s a double promise. Shall we all go?”
“I’ll go by myself,” said Captain John, “then he can’t think it’s an attack. He’ll know it’s only a parley.”
And so it happened that on the second day of the calm Captain John once more took the mast and the sail out of Swallow . Only this time he rowed north instead of south, and he rowed alone. He did not like going, because he was worried about what the Amazons would think, and after all it was their message. Also he did not like going to deliver a message to an enemy who had stirred up the natives against them so unjustly. He remembered what Mrs. Dixon had said. Further, he held the houseboat man for a bad kind of enemy because he had come to the camp while the Swallows were all away. Still, there was the message, a native message. It would be more uncomfortable not to deliver it than to deliver it. It would soon be done anyway. Captain John waved as he passed the camp, and then settled down to work, rowing steadily, navy stroke, with a smart jerk as he lifted his oars from the water.
It did not take him long to reach the southern point of Houseboat Bay. He rounded it, looked over his shoulder to see that he was heading straight for the houseboat, and then looked over the stern of Swallow to the opposite shore of the lake. Directly over the stern on the far side of the lake there was a white cottage. On the hillside above the cottage was a group of tall pines. He chose the one that seemed exactly over the chimney of the white cottage. The cottage and the tree would be like the marks leading into the harbour on Wild Cat Island. So long as the tree was directly over the cottage and over the stern of the Swallow , he knew he would be heading as he was, straight for the houseboat. He made it a point of honour not to have to look round to make sure of his direction.