hunk of butter wrapped up in a bit of paper, and four large apples. A moment later the brown sail was hoisted and set, and Swallow , with her whole crew aboard, was slipping out from behind the island.
All four were in the stern of the boat to give her her best chance with a following wind. John steered, and the other three sat in the bottom of the boat. The little Swallow foamed through the water. John did his best to keep her nose steadily on the outermost point of Darien, but, glancing back, he knew that he was not steering so well as the girl at the tiller of the Amazon . Still, he did his best, and the noise of the water boiling under Swallow ’s forefoot showed that Swallow was doing her best too. The tops of the trees on the shores of the lake seemed to race across the purple slopes of the hills.
Houseboat Bay opened up. There was the houseboat and on the foredeck of her stood the fat man.
“He’s very angry about something,” said Titty.
He seemed to be shaking his fist at them, but they could not be sure, and presently they had passed the further point and could not see him.
Darien grew clearer and larger every moment.
“They’ll have lost the wind the other side of Darien,” said John, “and they won’t get much until they get beyond the islands off Rio. They’ve a long start of us, but we may get a sight of them and see where they go.”
The Swallow rounded the point of Darien. All her crew looked towards Holly Howe. Outside the farmhouse they could see two figures and a perambulator—mother, nurse, and Vicky. They seemed to belong to a different, distant life. There they were, placid in the sunshine. Vicky was probably asleep. And here, foaming through the water, ran the Swallow , carrying Vicky’s brothers and sisters who, not an hour before, not half an