Frances came, and the dog-cart was at the door when Loo (who had been sent on an errand to the town—a common thing on Saturdays) rushed up to the door, thrust a letter into mamma’s hand, and darted away.
“Why!” said she. “It’s Bevis—why!” she read aloud, Frances looking over her shoulder:—“Dear Mamma, Please come up to the place where the boats are kept directly you get this and mind you come this very minute,” (twice dashed). “We are coming home from New Formosa in our ship the Calypso, and want you to be there to see the things we have brought you, and to hear all about it. Mind and be sure and come this very minute, please.”
Wondering and excited with curiosity, the two ladies ran as fast as they could up the meadow footpath, and along the bank of the New Sea, till they came to a clear place where the trees did not interfere with the view. Then, a long way up, they saw a singular-looking boat with a black sail.
“There they are!”
“They’re coming!”
“What can they have been doing?”
“That is not the Pinta!”
“This has a black sail!”
The sail was black because it was the rug, an old-fashioned one, black one side and grey the other. After long discussion Bevis and Mark had decided that the time had come when they must return from the island, for if Bevis’s mother went to Jack’s and found they were not there, her anxiety would be terrible, and they could not think of it. So Bevis wrote a letter and sent Loo back with it at once, and she was to watch and see if his mother did as she was asked. If she started for the shore Loo was to raise a signal, a handkerchief they lent her for the purpose.
Some time after Loo went they embarked on the raft, and drifted slowly down before the south wind till they reached the Mozambique, where they stayed the raft’s progress with their poles till Loo displayed the signal. The sail was then hoisted, and they bore down right before the wind.