At the word “sword,” the misshapen lump of metal seemed to Rachel to flicker to a sharp, wicked point.
She looked Emily in the eyes, doubtfully. Did she mean it, or was it a game?
As a matter of fact, she had always been a little afraid of Emily. Emily was so huge, so strong, so old (as good as grown up), so cunning! Emily was the cleverest, the most powerful person in the world! The muscles of a giant, the ancient experience of a serpent!—And now, her terrible eyes, with no hint in them of pretence.
Emily glared fixedly, and saw real panic dawn in Rachel’s face. Suddenly the latter turned, and as fast as her short fat legs would carry her began to swarm up the ladder. Emily rang her iron once against it, and Rachel nearly tumbled down again in her haste.
The iron was so big and heavy it took Emily a long time to haul it up on deck. Even when that was done, it greatly impeded her running, so that she and Rachel did three laps round the deck without their distances altering much, cheered boisterously by Edward. Even in her terror Rachel did not forget to work her arms as in breaststroke. Finally, with a cry of “Oh, I can’t run any more, my bad leg’s hurting!” Emily flung down the iron and dropped panting beside Edward on the main-hatch.
“I shall put poison in your dinner!” she shouted cheerfully to Rachel: but the latter retreated behind the windlass and began to nurse with an abandoned devotion the particular brood she had parked there, working herself almost to tears with the depth of her maternal pity for them.
Emily went on chuckling for some time at the memory of her sport.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Edward scornfully, puffing out his chest. He was feeling particularly manly at the moment. “Have you got the giggles?”
“I like having the giggles,” said Emily disarmingly. “Let’s see if we can’t all get them. Come on, Laura! Harry, come!”
The two smaller ones came obediently. They stared her in the face attentively and seriously, awaiting the Coming of the God, while she herself broke into louder and louder explosions of laughter. Soon the infection took and they were laughing too, each shriller and more wildly than the other.
“I can’t stop! I can’t stop!” they cried at intervals.
“Come on, Edward! Look me in the face!”
“I won’t!” said Edward.
So she set on him and tickled him till he was as hysterical as the rest.
“Oh, I do want to stop, my tummy is hurting so!” complained Harry at last.
“Go away then,” advised Emily in a lucid interval. And so the group presently broke up. But they had all to avoid each other’s eye for a long while, if they were not to risk another attack.
It was Laura who was cured the quickest. She suddenly discovered what a beautiful deep cave her armpit made, and decided to keep fairies in it in future. For some time she could think of nothing else.
V
Captain Jonsen called suddenly to José to take the wheel, and went below for his telescope. Then, buttressing his hip against the rail, and extending the shade over the object-glass, he stared fixedly at something almost in the eye of the setting sun. Emily, in a gentle mood, wandered up to him, and stood, her side just touching him. Then she began lightly rubbing her cheek on his coat, as a cat does.
Jonsen lowered the glass and tried his naked eye, as if he had more trust in it. Then he explored with the glass once more.
What was that businesslike-looking sail, tall and narrow as a pillar? He swept his eye round the rest of the horizon: it was empty: only that single threatening finger, pointing upwards.
Jonsen had chosen his course with care to avoid all the ordinary tracks of shipping at that time of year. Especially he had chosen it to avoid the routine-passages of the Jamaica Squadron from one British island to another. This—it had no business here: no more than he had himself.
Emily put her arm round his waist and gave it a slight hug.
“What is it?” she said. “Do let me look.”
Jonsen said nothing, continuing to stare with concentration.
“Do let me look!” said Emily. “I haven’t ever looked through a telescope, ever!”
Jonsen abruptly snapped the glass to, and looked down at her. His usually expressionless features were stirred from their roots. He lifted one hand and gently began to stroke her hair.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
“Mm,” assented Emily. Later she added, with a wriggle, “You’re a darling.”
“If it was to help me, would you do something … very difficult?”
“Yes, but do let me have a look through your telescope, because I haven’t, not ever, and I do so want to!”
Jonsen gave a weary sigh, and sat down on the cabin-top. What on Earth were children’s heads made of, inside?
“Now listen,” he said. “I want to talk to you seriously.”
“Yes,” said Emily, trying to hide her extreme discomfort. Her eye plaintively searched the deck for something to hold it. He pressed her against his knee in an attempt to win her attention.
“If bad, cruel men came and wanted to kill me and take you away, what would you do?”
“Oh, how horrid!” said Emily. “Will they?”
“Not if you help me.”
It was unbearable. With a sudden leap she was astride his knees, her arms round his neck and her hands pressing the back of his head.
“I wonder if you make a good Cyclops?” she said; and holding his head firmly laid her nose to his nose, her forehead to his forehead, both staring into each other’s eyes, an inch apart, till each saw the other’s face grow narrow and two eyes converge to one large, misty eye in the middle.
“Lovely!” said Emily. “You’re just right for one! Only now one of your eyes has got loose and
