Then they remembered
the neighbouring Zoo, with its ornamental ponds covered with rare
imported and exotic waterfowl, and they realised what they had
done. It is quite possible that they had killed some unique
specimens, imported at fabulous cost from Central Africa, or from
the heart of the Australian continent, some priceless bird that
was the apple of the eye of the Curator of the Gardens, so we
buried the episode and the birds, in profound secrecy.
For my younger brother and myself, this lake had a different
attraction, for, improbable as it may seem, it was the haunt of a
gang of most abandoned pirates. Behind a wooded island, but quite
invisible to the adult eye, the pirate craft lay, conforming in
the most orthodox fashion to the descriptions in Ballantyne's
books: "a schooner with a long, low black hull, and a suspicious
rake to her masts. The copper on her bottom had been burnished
till it looked like gold, and the black flag, with the skull and
cross-bones, drooped lazily from her peak."
The presence of this band of desperadoes entailed the utmost
caution and watchfulness in the neighbourhood of the lake.
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