Well, John and Susan would see the lights now. But what if they had been waiting a long time? She, Titty, able-seaman, had fallen asleep just at the very time when she ought to have been most awake. What if they had tried to make the harbour in the dark and were wrecked on the rocks outside?
Suddenly a big owl flew by close over her head, between the two leading lights, puzzled by the glitter of them.
“Tu Whooooooooo. Tu Whooooooooo,” she heard it as it swung away into the darkness.
Perhaps it had not been the owl signal she had heard. Perhaps all her fears were for nothing, and Swallow was still far away. And yet, that creak had sounded very like Swallow ’s boom going over.
But just then, somewhere in the darkness in front of her, outside the harbour, she heard the noise of a sail coming down into a boat, and then the quick creak, creak that an oar makes when it is being used for sculling over the stern.
She was just going to call out joyfully to welcome the Swallows, when she heard a voice that was not John’s, or Susan’s, or Roger’s.
The voice said, “Jolly good idea of theirs, putting lights on the marks.”
For one moment Titty thought of blowing the lights out. But it was too late. The boat was close in. In another second it grounded in the harbour not six yards away.
Titty crouched down on the ground behind a rock. Why had she ever gone to sleep? It was a real owl she had heard and not the signal from the Swallows. If only she had been awake she would have known. And now, left on guard, she had lighted the Amazons into the harbour, and the Swallows would come back to find the island in the hands of the enemy. Would they ever forgive her?