what she had said in it. All the letters had gone together, a very long way, to his father, whose ship was at Malta but under orders for Hong-Kong. And there, in his mother’s hand, was the red envelope that had brought the answer. For a moment Roger wanted to run straight to her. But sail was the thing, not steam, so he tacked on, heading, perhaps, a little closer to the wind. At last he headed straight into the wind, moved slower and slower, came to a stop at his mother’s side, began to move backwards, and presently brought up with a little jerk, anchored, and in harbour.
“Is it the answer?” he panted, out of breath after all that beating up against the wind. “Does he say Yes?”
Mother smiled, and read the telegram aloud:
BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT
DUFFERS WONT DROWN
“Does that mean Yes?” asked Roger.
“I think so.”
“Does it mean me, too?”
“Yes, if John and Susan will take you, and if you promise to do whatever they tell you.”
“Hurrah,” shouted Roger, and capered about, forgetting for a moment that he was a ship, and anchored in a quiet harbour.
“Where are the others?” asked mother.
“In Darien,” said Roger.
“Where?”
“On the peak, you know. Titty called it that. We can see the island from there.”
Below the farm at Holly Howe the field sloped steeply to a little bay where there was a boathouse and a jetty. But there was little of the lake to be seen, because on each side of the bay there were high promontories. A path ran down the field from the farm to the boathouse. Half-way down the field there was a gate, and from that gate another path ran into the pinewoods that covered the southern and higher promontory. The path soon faded away into nothing, but on the very evening of their first coming, a fortnight before, the children had found their way through the trees to the far end of the promontory, where it dropped, like a cliff, into the lake. From the top of it they had looked out over the broad sheet of water winding away among the low hills to the south and winding away into the hills high to the north, where they could not see so much of it. And it was then, when they first stood on the cliff and looked out over mile upon mile of water, that Titty had given the place its name. She had heard the sonnet read aloud at school, and forgotten everything in it except the picture of the explorers looking at the Pacific Ocean for the first time. She had called the promontory Darien. On the highest point of it they had made their camping place, and there Roger had left them when he had come through the trees to the field and, seeing his mother at the gate, had begun his voyage home.
“Would you like to take them the answer?”
“And tell them it’s Yes for me too?”
“Yes. You must give the telegram to John. It’s he who has to see that you are not duffers.”
Mother put the telegram in its red envelope, and gave it to Roger. She kissed him, anchored as he was, and said, “Supper at half-past seven, and not a minute later, and mind you don’t wake Vicky when you come in.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Roger, pulling in his anchor hand over hand. He turned round, and began tacking back down the field, thinking of how he should bring the news.
Mother laughed.
“Ship ahoy!” she said.
Roger stopped, and looked back.
“You had the wind against you coming up the field,” she said. “It’s a fair wind now. You needn’t tack both ways.”
“So it is,” said Roger, “it’s dead aft. I’m a schooner. I can sail goosewinged, with a sail on each side.” He spread out his arms for sails, and ran straight down the field to the gate into the pinewood.
When he came out of the field into the wood he stopped being a sailing vessel. No one can sail through a pinewood. He became an explorer, left behind by the main body, following their trail through the forest, and keeping a sharp look out lest he should be shot by a savage with a poisoned arrow from behind a tree. He climbed up through the trees to the top of the promontory. At last he came out of the trees on a small open space of bare rock and heather. This was the Peak of Darien. There were trees all round it, but through them could be seen the bright glimmer of the lake. In a hollow of rock a small fire was burning. John was stoking the fire. Susan was spreading bread and marmalade. Titty, with her chin on her hunched-up knees, was sitting between two trees on the edge of the cliff above the lake, keeping watch and looking at the island.
John looked up and saw the telegram. He jumped up from the fire.
“Despatches?” he said.
“It’s the answer,” said Roger. “It’s Yes, and it’s Yes for me too, if I obey orders, and you and Susan take me. And if it’s Yes for me it must be Yes for Titty.”
John took the telegram. Titty scrambled up and came, running. Susan held the knife with the marmalade on it over the bread so as not to lose any, but stopped spreading. John opened the envelope, and took out the white paper.
“Read it aloud,” said Susan. John read:
BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT
DUFFERS WONT DROWN
“Hurrah for daddy!” he shouted.
“What does it mean?” asked Susan.
“It means Yes,” said Titty.
“It means that daddy thinks we shall none of us get drowned and that if any of us do get drowned it’s a good riddance,” said John.
“But what are duffers if not duffers?” asked Susan.
“It doesn’t say that,” said Titty. “It says that if we were duffers we might as well be drowned. Then it stops and starts again, and says that as we aren’t duffers . . . ”
“If,” said John.
“If we aren’t duffers we shan’t be drowned.”
“Daddy put that in to comfort mother,” said Susan. She went on spreading the marmalade.
“Let’s start at once,” said Roger, but at that moment the kettle changed its tune. It had been bubbling for some time, but now it hissed quietly and steadily, and a long jet of steam poured from its spout. The water was boiling. Susan took the kettle from the fire, and emptied into it a small packet of tea.
“We can’t start to-night anyhow,” she said. “Let’s have tea, and then we’ll make a list of things we shall want.”
“Let’s have tea where we can see the island,” said Titty.
They carried their mugs and the kettle and the tin plate piled with thick slabs of brown bread and marmalade to the edge of the cliff. The island lay about a mile away towards the lower, southern end of the lake, its trees reflected in the glassy water. They had been looking at it for ten
