Winter Holiday. Arthur Ransome

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      “What? What? Oh, it’s you, Dot. You did give me a jump.”

      “Well, you ought to hang out a notice when you’re not there. Aren’t we waiting for them to go upstairs? Look! There’s a light in the upstairs window now.”

      Dick was wide awake in a moment. Yes. Where there had been one steady light in the end of the white farm-house there were now two, and one was exactly above the other.

      “We’ll begin signalling at once,” said Dick. “They can’t have been upstairs very long.”

      “But will they be looking out?”

      “Why not? They may be looking out just like us, and wanting to signal to Earth. We always take a last look out before going to bed. Anyway, not knowing makes it more like the real thing. Have you got your torch?’

      “Yes.”

      “We may want it, but we’ll try the lantern. I wonder if they can see any light from the fire. Shouldn’t think so. We’ll go upstairs to signal. Come on, Dot.”

      Dorothea darted back for the lantern that she had put just inside the barn.

      “Don’t go and fall off the steps in the dark,” she called.

      “I’m keeping close to the wall. Come on.”

      She hurried after him. The steps going up outside the barn were broad enough in daylight, but in the dark, even with a lantern, she wished there had been some sort of a railing. Still, if Dick had done it, so could she, and presently they were both standing in the dark upper floor of the barn, looking out of the great square opening at the end of it.

      “Don’t go too near the edge.”

      “I’m not going to,” said Dick.

      “What are you doing?”

      “Finding out where they won’t be able to see the lantern. This corner is all right. Now. Hold the lantern well in the middle of the window. That’ll do. Now shove it into this corner. Now show it again. That’s enough. Into the corner. Three times.”

      Dorothea obediently showed the lantern in the middle of the big opening at the end of the barn, then hid it close against the wall in the corner where no smallest ray of it could be seen from Mars away down there in the valley. Three times she showed it. Three times she hid it. Dick carefully focussed the telescope on the lights of the farm, and watched for a sign that the Martians had noticed that someone on earth was trying to get into touch with them.

      Nothing happened.

      “Do it again.”

      Dorothea did it again. In matters like this, though she was the elder of the two, she always felt that Dick knew best. He could not make up stories about people, but he could think out things like this better than anybody.

      Again nothing happened.

      “You try,” said Dorothea.

      “Well, you take the telescope and watch the planet. The Martians may answer at any minute.”

      But nothing happened.

      “Perhaps it isn’t their room,” said Dorothea. “Perhaps the light in there now has nothing to do with them. It’s the farm woman who’s taken it up to see how much dirt they carried up on their shoes because they came in without using the doormat. So she’s down on her hands and knees scrubbing and very cross indeed with them, and naturally she isn’t looking this way at all.”

      “I say, Dot,” said Dick. “You can’t see all that through the telescope.”

      “Of course I can’t,” said Dorothea. “I never can see anything through the telescope.”

      “I’m going on signalling, anyhow. It may be two or three nights before they notice it.”

      Again and again he held the lantern in the middle of the big empty window. Again and again he hid it. Anybody looking at the old barn high on the hill-side might have thought it was a lighthouse. Flash . . . flash . . . flash . . . and then dark for a long time, and after that another three flashes, and so on.

      “It’s most awfully cold,” said Dorothea at last. “And we’ve got to get back to Mrs Dixon’s.”

      “Once more,” said Dick, and then, just as he hid the lantern at the end of the third flash, Dorothea said, “That top light’s gone out. Perhaps it is their room after all. Somebody’s told that youngest one to go to sleep.”

      “Oh well,” said Dick. “We’ll try again to-morrow. Hullo! Look! There it is again. Dot! Dot! Something’s happening!”

      There was the light in that upper window once more, one spark on the top of another, far away below them. It went out. They watched the patch of darkness where it had been above that other light that went on steadily burning. And as they watched, the upper light shone out again.

      “If it goes this time . . . ” said Dick, hardly able to speak. “It’s gone. Dot! They’ve answered . . . ”

      “What are you going to do?” asked Dorothea.

      “Give them our signal again. That’ll settle it.”

      Quickly the lantern was shown in the middle of the window, hidden, shown, hidden, shown, and then put finally away in the corner. This would settle it. The two watched, hardly daring to believe.

      There it was, that answering light, flashing out in the farm far away below them in the valley. It was gone. There it was again. One, two, three flashes, and then darkness.

      “We’ve done it! We’ve done it!”

      “Don’t go and tumble out. What are they thinking? Do they know it’s us?”

      “Where’s your torch? Try them with another signal. Set it going and swing it in big circles like a wheel.”

      Dorothea stood in the opening, a few feet back from the edge, lit her pocket torch, and whirled it round and round.

      “Fine.”

      “Shall I stop now?”

      “Yes.” Dick was already watching through the telescope, finding the place to look at by the light in the lower window. “Of course, they may not guess . . . ”

      “They’ve done it, anyway,” cried Dorothea.

      Away down there, unmistakably, a small and feeble spark was spinning in a circle.

      “Their battery is worn out,” said Dick. “They ought to get a new one.”

      The Martians perhaps felt that the battery of their torch was not to be trusted. Almost at once the spark stopped spinning and, instead, there were a series of quick, short flashes at the window, and then a number of flashes, some long, some short, with intervals of darkness.

      “They’re trying to say something,” said Dorothea.

      “It’s СКАЧАТЬ