“Dimmy dear, I wish you were coming with us to our lovely secret island,” said Peggy. “You’d love it so. You’ll be lonely without us here, won’t you?”
“Yes,” said Dimmy. “But perhaps you’ll soon be back again. Anyway, it will be nice to have Mike safe. I don’t like to think of him up there in that tower all the time.”
The night came quickly, for they had all been busy. It was arranged that George and Jack should go to rescue the two boys about half-past eleven. George had already been to the next village and had rung up his brother at Longrigg to tell him to have a car ready for the children. In fact, George was really marvellous.
“Now it’s time to go,” said George, looking at the enormous watch he kept in his waistcoat pocket. “Miss Dimity, you will go down to my boat with the girls, won’t you, in a few minutes. Jack and I will bring the boys back here by the secret passage and slip down to the boat too. Then we can set off.”
“Good luck, George!” said Nora. “Good luck, Jack!”
Dimmy and the girls went to the tower-room with them and watched them climb up the chimney. They heard them groping round the narrow way behind the chimney to the iron ladder. Then there was silence.
“We’d better get Mike’s coat and an extra coat for Prince Paul,” said Dimmy. “Then we’ll make our way to the beach and sit in the boat till the others come. I’ll just give you both a drink of hot milk first, for I can see you are shivering!”
“It’s with excitement, not with cold,” said Nora. But she was glad of the hot milk all the same.
“I do wonder how George and Jack are getting on,” said Peggy. “I wonder if they’ve reached the Old House tower yet.”
George and Jack were getting on very well. They had climbed down the iron ladder, their torches between their teeth. They had gone through the little room below, where the old old toys still lay, and had made their way through the narrow passage underground that led to the Old House.