After the feasting had ended, and it lasted a long time, Peggy said, “I say, Uncle Jim.”
“He’s not Uncle Jim, you galoot,” Nancy said.
“Of course not,” said Peggy. “I say, Captain Flint, have you still got the accordion?”
“Tip us a stave,” said Captain Nancy.
“If you’ll dance the hornpipe, I will.”
“There’s no room in the cabin.”
“On the poop then.”
Captain Flint brought a huge accordion out of the fore-cabin.
“Lucky the burglar didn’t find that,” he said, “or he’d have taken it for certain. But perhaps he had no ear for music.”
They all went up on the afterdeck. Captain Flint sat on the rail and played the sailor’s hornpipe, while Captain Nancy danced.
“That’s not the way we do it,” said Titty.
“Let’s see your way,” said Captain Flint.
He played on and on, and Nancy and Peggy danced their hornpipe and Captain John, Mate Susan, Able-seaman Titty, and the ship’s boy danced theirs. The stamping on the deck could have been heard a mile away in the quiet evening. Faster and faster played Captain Flint. Faster and faster danced the Swallows and Amazons, until the tune went so fast that it stopped being a tune at all, and they all flung themselves on the deck, tired out.
“And to think how I’ve wasted this summer,” said Captain Flint.