“It was that day we first saw you,” said Captain John. “When we thought he’d fired at you. He saw us when we sailed up the lake to see where you went, and he thought it was us who put that firework on his cabin roof.”
Captain Nancy turned very red, even through her sunburn.
“I’ll put that matter right at once,” she said. “Was he very beastly?”
“He did call me a liar,” said John. “But it doesn’t matter now, really.”
“It does,” said Captain Nancy. “Peggy!”
“Sir.”
“Empty the rest of our stores out of Amazon , take the mast and sail out of her and bring her round to the landing-place. Mister Mate, Captain John, have you got a pencil and a bit of paper in the camp? And I’ll want a scrap of charcoal out of your fire.”
Captain John went into his tent and brought out the exercise-book and the pencil. Captain Nancy lay on the ground and wrote for some minutes, sucking her pencil between each word and pressing very hard. Twice she broke the point of her pencil and had to sharpen it again.
“I suck it to make it good and black,” she explained, noticing that Susan watched her with surprise.
Titty and Roger stared at her open-mouthed.
When she had done she got up and took a bit of charred wood from the fire. She tore out the sheet on which she had been writing and smeared the back of it with burnt wood. Then she folded it up and put it in the pocket of her shirt.
“Boat ready, sir!” called Peggy from the landing-place.
“I’ll be back soon,” said Captain Nancy.