Nora suddenly began to cry. The excitement had been so great, and she had been so brave, that now she felt as if she must cry and cry and cry. And then Peggy began - and even Mike and Jack felt their eyes getting wet! This was dreadful - but oh, it was such a glorious feeling to know they had not been discovered, and that their dear little island, their secret island, was their very own again.
A low and mournful noise came from the inside of the hill - it was poor old Daisy the cow, sad at being left alone in the cave.
The children couldn’t help laughing now! “Do you remember how Daisy frightened those men!” chucked Jack.
“She frightened me too,” said Peggy. “Honestly, I nearly jumped out of my skin - if my dress hadn’t been well buttoned up I believe I would have jumped right out of myself!”
That made the others laugh still more - and half-laughing, half-crying, they sat down on the hillside to wait till the boat was out of sight.
“I really thought they’d found us when that man got up to the part we had blocked up,” said Jack.
“Yes - it was a jolly good thing we did block it up!” said Peggy. “We would most certainly have been found if we hadn’t!”
“And it was a good thing Mike sank the boat,” said Nora. “If they had found a boat here they would have gone on looking for us till they’d found us.”
“I wonder what they meant when they said that such a surprise was waiting for us,” said Mike. “It couldn’t have been a nice surprise, I suppose?”
“Of course not!” said Peggy.