“Mother, do you mind if we spend to-night out camping?” asked Amanda one morning. “The moon is so lovely now, we thought it would give us a chance to do some moonlight bathing.”
“Of course not, dear,” said Mrs Finchberry-White. “I’ll pack up some food, shall I? And make sure you take a blanket and that sort of thing.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Amanda. “I’ll organise all that side of it.”
“Where are you going?” inquired the General, adding a touch of purple to an unfortunate cypress tree. “Not that I am particularly interested, but I feel it might be useful to know in case I have to send someone to rescue you from a shark or something.”
“Oh,” said David. “We are not going very far. Just down to the beach opposite Hesperides.”
Amanda packed up sufficient food for herself and David, Yani and Coocos and, in order to add a certain air of verisimilitude to their story (and to put her mother’s mind at rest) she rolled up a couple of blankets and (on her mother’s insistence) a couple of sheets. Then, at five o’clock, carrying their things, the children made their way down to the beach where Yani and Coocos were waiting for them. Here they lit a fire out of drift-wood and grilled some fish while they waited for it to get dark and for the moon to rise. They had decided to leave the fire alight so that, from a casual observer’s point of view, it would give the impression that they were still on the beach, and it would also act as a beacon for them as to the exact spot on the beach which was closest to Hesperides. David had spent two days working this out with the aid of a length of clothes line and endless mathematical formulae.
Although the children pretended to be very casual about the whole thing, they were all tense with excitement and Amanda, though she would never have admitted it, even felt slightly sick. Presently the moon, round and as red as a drop of blood, lifted itself over the edge of the sea and floated slowly up into the sky turning gradually to bronze and then to gold and finally to silver,
Well,” said David, with an air of nonchalance, “I suppose it’s about time we started.”
“Yes,” said Amanda, swallowing.
“Now, are we all sure that we know what we have got to do?” asked David.
Coocos nodded vigorously, so did Yani and Amanda. They had, after all, been practising it for ten days.
They had decided that their first sortie should be directed against the Mayor. This, they thought, was not only fair, but, apart from that, he owned one of the largest number of donkeys in the village. So they made their way up the hillside and crept with infinite stealth towards the Mayor’s house. The Mayor stabled his horse and his donkeys in a small shed that lay behind the house and so, while Amanda concealed herself behind an olive tree ready to give the alarm should the Mayor suddenly appear, the others made their way round the back of the house to the stables. The door to the stables was an old one and held shut by a heavy wooden bar, and this caused them a certain amount of trouble. The bar had to be lifted out with infinite precautions against noise and the doors eased open inch by inch so that they did not creak. Then the reluctant donkeys had to be led out one by one and tethered to each other and then finally the horse was tethered to them as the leader. They led the string of animals into the olive groves, where Amanda awaited them, twittering with excitement.
“You’ve got them!” she whispered excitedly. “That’s marvellous!”
“Don’t speak too soon,” said David grimly. “Now, if Coocos rides the horse, he can take this lot down to the beach and tether them and then come back.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Amanda, thoughtfully, “that horse might be jolly useful. With it Coocos can go up and down that path very much faster.”
“Yes, you are quite right,” said Yani. “It will be a help, and also I think the donkeys like following it.”
So Coocos was despatched down to the beach with the Mayor’s five donkeys and the children awaited his reappearance.
While they waited, David crept back to the Mayor’s house and pinned to the door of the stable a large notice, which he had got Yani to write out in Greek in rather shaky capitals, which read DONKEYS OF THE WORLD UNITE.
“That should give them something to think about,” said David with satisfaction, when it had been successfully attached to the stable door.
In a remarkably short space of time, Coocos reappeared on the Mayor’s horse and the children continued with their rustling. In a number of cases the job was simplicity itself, for the donkey was simply tethered under a convenient olive tree and all they had to do was untie it and lead it away.
With the donkeys of Philimona Kouzos, however, things were a little more difficult. Kouzos was notorious as being the biggest coward in the village and took infinite precautions to guard both himself and his livestock against the innumerable disasters which — he felt — constantly lurked around him. In consequence, his two donkeys were put in a shed at night, the door of which was firmly closed with a large and ancient padlock. Amanda and David had investigated this and had discovered that with the aid of a screwdriver it was possible to remove the entire lock but the whole process would take some time, So Yani waited round the front of the house in case Kouzos should put in an appearance while Amanda and David went to work with a screwdriver. They were just removing the last screw when the screwdriver slipped in David’s sweaty hands and he dropped it. That would not have been so bad but the trouble was that it fell with a resounding crash on an upturned bucket near the stable door. The children froze instantly and held their breath; in the still night, the sound of the screwdriver on the bucket had sounded like the crash of a bomb. Inside the house they heard stirrings and mutterings.
“Quick,” hissed David, “let’s get the donkeys out.”
Suddenly Yani saw Philimona Kouzos, clad in his thick woollen vest and underpants, carrying a lantern and a shot-gun, appear framed in the doorway of his house.
“Who’s that?” he quavered. “Stand still, or I’ll fire.”
As Kouzos was as notorious for his bad marksmanship as he was for his cowardice, this made Yani chuckle. He uttered a couple of loud moans, and assumed a screeching, quavering voice.
“I am Vyraclos, Kouzos,” he screeched, “and I have come to suck your blood and steal your soul.”
Kouzos, who had always felt inside himself that something like this would happen one day, dropped his lantern with fright and it promptly went out.
“Saint Polycarpos preserve me!” he shouted loudly, “Dear God be with me.”
“It is no good,” said Yani, giving a hideous cackle, “I have come for your soul.”
In the meantime, Amanda and David had gone into the stable and were endeavouring to extract Kouzos’s two donkeys. The animals had had an extremely hard day’s work and so were not, understandably, terribly enthusiastic about the idea of being removed from a warm, comfortable stable, with every prospect of having to do a night shift. So the children had the utmost difficulty in getting them out, but Yani, round the front of the house, was giving such an excellent imitation of Vyraclos that he was keeping Kouzos invoking every saint on the calendar. So the slight noise that the children made in pushing and pulling and tugging to get the donkeys out went unnoticed. As soon as Yani saw them disappear into the trees with the donkeys he uttered a few final moans to keep Kouzos happy and followed them swiftly.