CHAPTER SIX

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Oh!" said the captain, "I'm really smiling."]

CHAPTER SIX

Barty and the Good Wolf and Sat.u.r.day and Blue Crest sat very quiet indeed. It is always best to sit very quiet when pirates are landing on the beach just below your cave. You never can tell what will happen if you do something that attracts their attention.

But after a few minutes Barty could not help whispering a little.

"I have only read one book about pirates," he whispered, "and they blindfolded prisoners and made them walk out on a plank until they tumbled into the sea. They slashed heads off, too. Will they take us prisoners?"

"If they take us at all they will take us as prisoners," said the Good Wolf.

Barty looked round the cave and thought what a nice place it was and how comfortable the leaf bed had been.

"I can't help thinking about that thing which I can't remember," he said to the Good Wolf. "I'm thinking very hard about it just now. I wonder what it is."

The Good Wolf had no time to answer because they heard the pirates shouting so loudly as they tried to pull their boat upon the beach that he _had_ to go to the window and peep to see what they were doing.

"They look fiercer than ever, now that they are nearer," he whispered.

"They have such crooked swords and such curly black mustaches. You would better come and peep yourself."

So Barty went and peeped. He did it very carefully so that only the least bit of his curly head was above the cave window-ledge and it only stayed there for a mite of a minute.

The pirates dragged their boat up on the beach with savage shouts and songs, and then they stood and looked all about them as if they were searching for something. They looked up the beach and down the beach, and then they began to look at the cliff and talk to each other about it. Barty could _see_ they were talking to each other about it.

"I believe they know we are here and are trying to find out where we are hidden," he said. It certainly looked as if they were. They looked and looked and talked and talked. At last the Captain walked ahead a few dozen yards and climbed upon the rock and stood there staring up at the cliff-front as hard as ever he could; then he took a spy-gla.s.s out of his satchel and he looked through that.

"It seems as if he is looking right at the window," said Barty, rather shaking, "I'm sure he must see it."

He did see it that very minute, because he began to shout to the other pirates and to wave his hat and his sword.

"There's a cave!" he yelled. "There's a cave! They are hiding in there."

Then he jumped down from the rock and ran with the other pirates to the place where the green slope began. Barty and the Good Wolf and Sat.u.r.day could hear their shouts as they ran, and they knew they were running fast though they could not see them from the cave window.

I will not say that Barty did not turn a little pale. A desert island is a most interesting place and adventures are most exciting, but pirates chasing up a green slope to your cave, waving swords and shouting and evidently intending to search for you, seems almost too dangerous.

"I can't help thinking of that thing I can't remember properly," he said to the Good Wolf. "I wonder what it is."

"Come and stand by me," said the Good Wolf. "Whatever happens we ought to stand by one another."

Barty went and stood by him and put his arm tight round his furry neck. There was something about the Good Wolf which comforted you even when pirates were coming.

They were coming nearer and nearer, and louder and louder their shouts sounded. They had come up the green slope very fast indeed, and Barty and the Good Wolf could even hear what they were saying.

"A little boy and a wolf," they heard. "They ran up the hill. They must have hidden somewhere." Then after a few minutes they heard the pirate crew on the ledge not far from the window.

"There must be a way in," the Captain called out. "Swords and blood and daggers! We must find it. Daggers and blood and swords! Where can it be?"

Barty stood by the Good Wolf and Sat.u.r.day stood by Barty and Blue Crest stood by Sat.u.r.day, so they were all in a row prepared to meet their fate.

Suddenly there was a great big savage shout and there stood the pirates, all in a row, too, six of them staring in at the window. It was enough to frighten any one just to look at them, with their dark-skinned faces and white, sharp teeth gleaming, and their black eyes and beards, and their hats on one side.

"Swords and blood and daggers!" said the Captain, when he saw Barty and the Good Wolf and Sat.u.r.day and Blue Crest standing in a row looking at him. "Blood and daggers and swords!" and he jumped over the window ledge right into the cave and all the other five jumped after him. After they were all inside, there was just one minute in which both rows stood and stared at each other. Barty wondered, of course, what would happen next. No one could help wondering. Would they begin to chop with the crooked swords? But they did not. They did something quite different. This is what they did:

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Pirate Captain took off his hat with a big flourish]

The Captain took off his big hat with a great flourish and made a bow right down to the ground, then the second pirate took off his big hat with a great flourish and made a bow right down to the ground, then the third pirate took off his hat, and the fourth and the fifth, until all six had taken off their hats with a flourish and made the most magnificently polite bow any one had ever seen.

"I beg your pardon," said the Captain in a most fierce voice. "I hope we are not disturbing you. I apologize most sincerely--I trust you will excuse us--I really do."

Barty's eyes and mouth opened quite wide. His mouth looked like a very red, round O. "Why?" he gasped out, "how polite you are."

"Thank you extremely," roared the Captain. "We appreciate the compliment. We are not known anywhere but on this particular desert island, but if we were known, we should be known for our politeness.

We are the Perfectly Polite Pirates," and his row of pirates made six bows again.

"I--I didn't know pirates were _ever_ polite," said Barty.

"They never are," answered the Captain. "They are rude, all but ourselves. We were rude until a few years ago--when we met the Baboo Bajorum, and he would not stand it any longer."

"Who is he?" asked Barty.

The Perfectly Polite Pirate Captain made a splendid bow to Sat.u.r.day.

"He is a relation of this gentleman," he said, "only he is twenty times as big and twenty times as strong, and if you do anything he does not like he can break you into little pieces and throw you away."

Barty gave Sat.u.r.day an alarmed look. "Have you a relation like that?"

he said.

"Chatterdy-chat-chatterdy," Sat.u.r.day answered, and Barty knew he meant that if he had he was not a _very near_ relation.

One thing which puzzled Barty very much was that though the pirates were so polite that they kept bowing all the time they looked as fierce as ever, and when the Captain said such polite things, his voice was so rough and savage that it made you almost jump out of your skin when he began to speak.

"I hope you won't be cross at my speaking about it," Barty said, "but your voice scarcely sounds polite at all."

"Oh!" said the Captain as fiercely as ever, "I beg five hundred thousand million pardons, but that is nothing but a bad habit we can't get rid of. We spoke like this for such a long time that now we can't make our voices sound polite at all. We take voice lozenges six times a day, but it seems scarcely any use, and we can't help looking fierce and swinging our swords. But we are really as gentle as doves."

"I--I never sh-should have thought it," said Barty, moving back a little, because the pirate Captain began to swing his sword that very minute, and it looked rather alarming even if he were as gentle as a dove.

He saw that Barty was startled and stopped himself and made another bow.