“It did, rather,” said Captain Flint, as he disappeared once more.
The Swallows and Amazons went aft to the companion to go down into the cabin. The captains and the mates went by the gangway outside, the able-seaman and the boy over the cabin roof.
The cabin was all that the cabin of a retired pirate should be. Captain Flint had been hard at work, tidying up after the burglary, and the walls were hung once more with strange weapons and curiosities from all the seven seas. Everything that had not been broken and thrown overboard was back in its place. There was a long, narrow table down the middle of the cabin, with chairs set on each side of it. The green parrot was perched on the back of one of the chairs.
“Pieces of eight, pieces of eight, say pieces of eight!” said Nancy Blackett to the parrot.
“Pretty Polly,” said the parrot.
“You’re not fit to be a pirate’s parrot,” said Nancy.
“Are the chairs fixed to the floor?” asked Roger.
“No,” said Peggy.
“They are on daddy’s ship,” said Roger.
“We don’t get a very high sea in this bay,” said a voice from the doorway into the foc’s’le.
The roar of a Primus stove came suddenly to an end. Captain Flint, changed and in dry clothes, came in with a big kettle.
“Sort yourselves,” he said, and they sorted themselves, and the feast began. It was as good a feast as Captain Flint had been able to get sent