where’s Titty?” said Captain Flint.
Titty had been looking over the stem towards Lowestoft, watching to see if the Viper came out. It had been a hard job to hold the telescope steady. At last she had given up trying and had put the telescope back in its place in the deckhouse. That had been enough to make her quite sure she did not want to leave the deck again, even for breakfast. All she wanted was to stay still and breathe as much air as possible. Even the sunshine seemed to her to have turned a queer unpleasant colour.
“What’s become of Titty?” said Captain Flint, between mouthfuls, down in the saloon.
“I’ll go and tell her,” said Nancy.
“I’ll go,” said John.
“I want to go,” said Nancy fiercely, and she staggered up off the bench and somehow got out of the saloon and up the companion. Captain Flint looked gravely after her but said nothing.
Nancy came out on deck and found Titty in the stern, still watching the sailing vessels come out of Lowestoft.
“Come down to breakfast, Titty,” said Nancy bravely, and then suddenly gave up. Titty, looking round, saw Captain Nancy struggle forward round the lee side of the deckhouse, grip the bulwarks and hang her head over the rail.
In a moment Titty joined her. If Nancy, the Captain of the Amazons, that notable timber shiverer, could be seasick, then anybody could be without shame, and for some minutes a captain and an able-seaman, sharing their misery, hung over the side together.
Peter Duck, his grey beard blowing in the wind round his weatherbeaten old face, an old stocking cap crammed down over his ears, gripped the spokes of the wheel, moved them this way and that, and, with his eyes looking far ahead, seemed to see nothing and to hear nothing that did not concern the steering of the ship. The whole crew of captains and mates and everybody else could have been seasick over the side without disturbing him in the least. But he did, now and then, look back at a group of sailing vessels leaving Lowestoft, that was already far astern.
Presently Captain Flint came up the companion with a mug of hot coffee in each hand. He found the sufferers and told them that some of the most famous of sailors were always sick at the beginning of a voyage in spite of spending most of their lives at sea. Nancy cheered up a little. Titty said she didn’t believe it would have been so bad if she hadn’t been looking the wrong way trying to see if the Viper was coming after them or not.
“And what about the Viper, Mr. Duck?” asked Captain Flint, going aft to take the wheel and send Mr. Duck down to breakfast.
“There’s several vessels come out,” said Mr. Duck. “All in a bunch. It’d be hard to say if one of them’s the Viper. But if she isn’t out yet, she’ll be coming. You may lay to that, sir. Black Jake wouldn’t come in after us yesterday and not come out after us today. He ain’t going to lose sight of us, not if he can help it.”
“Oh, come, Mr. Duck, these things don’t happen nowadays.”
“Black Jake’s his own law,” said Peter Duck. “He knows I’m aboard here, and if he’s got it in his head that I’m taking you to that place I told you of, he’d sail round the world after us.”
“Well,” said Captain Flint, “if one of those vessels is the Viper, and she’s after us, she’d have turned south by this time.”
NANCY AND TITTY SHARING THEIR MISERY
“Look you there,” said Peter Duck, and Captain Flint snatched up the telescope from the rack inside the door.
One vessel had left the little group of sailing craft heading eastwards from Lowestoft. This vessel was now alone and heading south.
“Schooner,” said Captain Flint. “All lower sail set. Main topsail just going up. It’s our old neighbour.”
“I’d be surprised,” said Peter Duck, “if you was to say it wasn’t so.”
CHAPTER VIII
FIRST NIGHT AT SEA
ALL THAT DAY they sailed on with the north-east wind driving them southwards, past Walberswick, with its church tower and windmill, past Aldeburgh and Orfordness, and then from one lightship to another across the wide mouth of the Thames estuary. They passed the Shipwash lightship, with its ball at the mast-head, and the Long Sand, with its diamond, and then changed course a little so that they passed close by the Kentish Knock, which had a small ball on the top of a large one. They passed so near the Kentish Knock that they waved their hands to a man on the deck of the light-vessel and he waved his hand to them. Then they changed course again, steering a little west of south, for the Elbow buoy off the North Foreland. It was not a very clear day and for a long time they had been out of sight of land, and when they saw the North Foreland, with its steep chalk cliffs and the white lighthouse above them, they felt already like ancient mariners making a landfall after a long voyage.
They had had a fairly rough passage, too, but as the day wore on, Nancy and Titty had begun to feel better. The others had said nothing to them about their misfortune. None of the others had been seasick, but they could not be sure that they would not be, later on. Gradually, during the day, they had learnt how to keep their balance on the swaying deck of the little schooner. They had learnt the whereabouts of all the best things to which it was possible to hang on while moving about. Captain Flint had divided them into watches, too. He was taking the port watch, because in the saloon he sat in the arm-chair at the port end of the table and Peter Duck, who sat in the arm-chair at the starboard end, was to take the starboard watch. Lists were made by John and copied out on a sheet of paper pinned up inside the deckhouse:
| Port Watch | Starboard Watch |
| CAPTAIN FLINT | MR. DUCK |
| NANCY | JOHN |
| PEGGY | SUSAN |
| TITTY | ROGER |
These lists looked all right, but Titty and Roger were not to keep regular watches, but to make themselves useful when wanted, and, as Captain Flint said, they couldn’t expect the mates to do the cooking and be on duty at the same time and half the night as well. But it was a good thing to have the list so that all knew their proper places.
“But aren’t we going to stop somewhere for the night?” asked Peggy.
“What for?” said Captain Flint.
“Sailing in the dark?”
“Why not? It’s a grand night and a fine wind, and we’re lucky to have it.”
It was just about Roger’s bedtime, and a late bedtime at that, when they had the North Foreland abeam. Roger wanted to be allowed to stay up, but Susan and Captain Flint would have none of it, though it was agreed that Roger should be waked if the engine was wanted during the night. Titty, too, was sent off to bed, but she did not mind because she had got well enough to have
