At first it seemed as if nothing would ever happen again. There were no
electric lights on the _Kalkis_, although she had a very fine dynamo in
her engine-room, because one of her engineers in time past had cut away
all the wiring and sold it. The donkey-boiler fire was banked and the
donkey man gone ashore. She swung at anchor in absolute silence. The
launch was half a mile away. Over the Vardar valley was a glare as of
distant conflagrations, and along the front shore the sparkling
entrances of the palaces of pleasure from which Mr. Spokesly had just
come.
He went down and unlocked the door of his cabin. It was much cleaner
than it had been for years, but smelled of new paint. He opened the
scuttles, hooked back the door, and lit the brass gimbal-lamp. His tin
trunk was stowed under the bed-place. Clean fresh canvas was on the
floor and a rag mat by the bunk. A piece of lilac-tinted toilet soap,
which is almost indispensable in an English guest room. A clean towel,
which he had bought himself at Stein's. The next room was a bathroom,
but it was not yet in an entirely satisfactory condition. It had been
used to keep chickens in at some time and had also served as a store for
the steward. And fresh water had to be carried from the pump, as all the
plumbing had been cut away and sold.
Well, it would do. Mr. Spokesly opened the trunk and began to lay the
contents in different drawers. He did it clumsily, as a matter of
course, so that things of silk and cotton were crumpled and twisted, and
he regarded his results dubiously. He decided he would be a failure as a
lady's maid, and lighting a cigarette ascended to the deck. A fine
thing, he reflected, if she never came and he had all those fal-lals and
frills to carry about the ocean!
There seemed to be no one on board. And it suddenly occurred to him that
this might be an actual fact. He looked into the galley and found no one
there. He walked forward to the bridge-deck rail and blew his whistle.
Presently up from below, and framed in the doorway of the scuttle,
appeared an alarming phenomenon. Its hair stood in conflicting
directions, a large moustache cut across between two round black eyes
and a red mouth full of yellow teeth, one cheek was covered thickly with
lather, and the other, already shaved, was smeared with blood.
"What's the matter?" said the bosun.
"Where's the watchman?" asked Mr. Spokesly.
"He's down here talking to me."
"What are you doing, shaving?"
"Of course I am. What did you think I was doing? Cutting my throat?"
"Looks damn like it," muttered Mr. Spokesly, and sauntered away aft to
look at the shore. The indignant apparition in the forecastle scuttle
gradually sank from view like the phantoms in old-fashioned grand opera,
and was replaced by a lumbering creature in a blue jersey, with curling
blond hair, and carrying a bucket of soap-suds. Mr. Spokesly heard him,
presently, banging about in the galley.
There was a seat aft near the hand-steering gear, one of those
old-fashioned affairs with curiously moulded cast-iron ends and
elaborate teak slats, and he sat down there with the telescope to his
eye watching the dark mass of trees and roofs where Mr. Dainopoulos
lived. Except for a street lamp shining among the trees and an
occasional blue spit from a trolley-car, he could discern nothing. Even
the room where Mrs. Dainopoulos usually lay was not lighted. It was just
about this time that Mr. Spokesly reached the lowest point of his
confidence. The magnetism of Evanthia's personality, a magnetism which
made him feel, in her presence, that she was capable of achieving
anything she desired, and which is sometimes confused with the faculty
of command, was wearing away in the chill, dark emptiness of the night.
There was a quality of sharp and impersonal skepticism in the air and in
those glittering shore-lights beyond the black and polished surface of
the Gulf. There was now no wind; the evening current and breeze had
faded away, and both the water and the air were hanging motionless until
the early morning, when they would set eastward again, to bring the
ships' bows pointing towards the shore. And it was slack water in the
minds of men floating on that dark and sinister harbour. There were
other men sitting and looking towards the shore, men whose nerves had
been worn raw by the sheer immensity of the mechanism in which they were
entangled. They were the last unconsidered acolytes in a hierarchy of
hopeless men. They had no news to cheer them, for the ships sank a
thousand miles away. They endured because they were men, and the noisy
lies that came to them over the aërials only made them look sour. Great
journalists in London, their eyes almost popping from their heads at the
state of things on the sea and at the Front, thumped the merchant
mariner on the back in bluff and hearty editorials, calling him a
glorious shell-back and earning his silent contempt. The stark emphasis
placed upon his illiteracy and uncouthness did more harm than good. The
great journalists accepted the Navy and the Army on equal footing, but
they felt it necessary to placate the seaman with patronage. They were
too indolent to find out what manner of men they were who were going to
sea. And while the politicians fumbled, and the Navy and Army squabbled
with each other and with their allies, and the organized sentiment of
the world grew hysterical about Tommy and Jack, the seaman went on being
blown up at sea or rotting at anchor. And of the two the former was
invariably preferred. Mr. Spokesly, setting down the telescope to light
another cigarette, was following this train of thought, and he was
surprised to come on the conviction that an active enemy who tries to
kill you can be more welcome and estimable than a government without
either heart or brains who leaves you to sink in despair. Indeed, he
began to carry on a little train of thought of his own, this habit
having had more chance to grow since the London School of Mnemonics had
gone to the bottom with the _Tanganyika_ and a good many other things.
He said to himself: that's it. It isn't the work or the danger, it's the
monotony and feeling nobody gives a damn. Look at me. Now I'm on my own,
so to speak, gone out and started something myself, I feel twice as
chipper as I did when I was on that darned _Tanganyika_ and they didn't
seem to know where to send her or what to do with her when she got
there. I wonder how many ships we got, sailing about like her, and
gettin' sunk, and nobody any better off. They say there's ships carryin'
sand to Egypt and lumber to Russia. That's where it is. You trust a man
to boss the job and he can make a million for himself if he likes; you
don't mind. But if he muffs it, you want to kill him even if he is a
lord or a politician. I must say we got a bunch of beauties on the job
now. Good Lord!
It might be imagined that having found so fertile and refreshing a
theme, Mr. Spokesly would have abandoned everything else to pursue it to
the exceedingly bitter end. But he no longer felt that cankering
animosity towards authority. He saw that authority can be made
exceedingly profitable to those who display dexterity and resilience in
dealing with it. Mr. Spokesly had associated long enough with Mr.
Dainopoulos, for example, to conceive a genuine admiration for that
gentleman's astute use of his position in the midst of diverse and
conflicting authorities. Mr. Dainopoulos might be said to be loaning the
Government the tackle to pull down the branches laden with fruit, and
then charging a high price for the privilege of putting that fruit into
his own pocket. Even the shipowners of England could teach him nothing
about profits. Indeed, later on, when the war was over, and he himself
was expeditiously disposing of his interests in ships, for he had known
wars before and the slumps that followed them, it was to those same
shipowners that he sold some of his most deplorable wrecks at the top of
the market, rather mystified at their blind eagerness to close with him
at any price. He was heard to say, on the Bourse at Alexandria, on that
always cool loggia where so many deals are consummated over coffee and
_granita_, "This will not last. You take my advice. Sell that ship of
yours to the English." And his dark-skinned companion, who had been
doing very well in the tobacco trade from the Piræus and Saloniki, would
very likely sell, at a price that made him wonder if the English had
discovered a river of money somewhere. And both of them would continue
to sit there, fezzed and frock-coated, playing with their rosaries, and
discussing cautiously the outlook for Nilotic securities in the event of
the English withdrawing....
But that came later. Mr. Spokesly would have been even more impressed if
he had been aware of the ultimate destination of the freight he had been
stowing so industriously into the _Kalkis_, or of the total emoluments
accruing to Mr. Dainopoulos from that freight from first to last. The
old adage about turning your money over was not often so admirably
illustrated. Archy's absurd speculations and traffic in villainous drugs
seemed microscopic compared with the profits to be made by a good
business man. Which is perhaps one of the most embarrassing criticisms
of war in the modern sense, that it places a formidable premium upon the
sutlers and usurers, so that they now sit in high places, while the
youths of invincible courage are either rotting under wooden crosses in
France or looking for shabby situations across the sea. But Mr.
Spokesly, sitting there with his telescope, which revealed nothing, was
not criticizing the business men. He was admiring them, and wishing the
military and political and naval men could be half as clever at their
game as the business man was at his. It was a confusing and
kaleidoscopic problem, this of money. As soon as you got a lot of it, he
reflected, the value of it went down until you had only a little and
then the value of it went a little lower. And then, when you were
occupied in some way which prevented your making very much, the value
crept slowly up again. That is, unless you were a business man, when of
course you turned your money over and scored both ways.
Keeping company with these general fancies in Mr. Spokesly's mind was a
speculation concerning his own part in Evanthia's adventure. He looked
at his watch. Ten o'clock. By looking hard through the telescope he
could make out a faint radiance from the upper window of the Dainopoulos
house. No doubt it was closed and they were sitting there as usual with
one of the Malleotis family to keep them company. Then what was he
supposed to do? In the novels he had read, the hero with projecting jaw
and remarkable accuracy with firearms was never in any doubt about what
he was to do.
It was at this moment that he thought of the bosun.
He liked that person more than he would have admitted. Invariably
toiling at something in his immense canvas apron, the bosun's globular
eyes were charged with an expression of patient amazement at a
troublesome world. If Diogenes, who lived in these parts, had revisited
his ancient haunts and encountered Joseph Plouff, he would have made the
acquaintance of a peculiar type of honest man. The bosun was honest, but
he had been born without the divine gift of a bushel to conceal the
blaze of his probity. But in spite of his virtue Mr. Spokesly found him
congenial. In the midst of the little community of seamen, he was the
only one who spoke even passable English. He was the man-of-all-work,
bosun, carpenter, lamp-trimmer, winchman, storekeeper, and sometimes
acting second mate. For the engineer, with his Egyptian donkeyman and
two Maltee firemen, Plouff and his Scandinavian sailors had a fierce
contempt. For "the captinne," Plouff entertained an amusing reverence,
as though Captain Rannie's mastery of monologue appealed to the voluble
creature. In his own heart, however, there was neither bitterness nor
that despair of perfection which made Captain Rannie so uncomfortable a
neighbour. In his own view Plouff was an ideal bosun who was continually
retrieving his employers from disaster, but he attributed this to the
fortunate fact that "he had his eyes about him at the time" rather than
to the hopeless incompetence of the rest of the world. And it was
characteristic of the captain that he should regard Plouff with intense
dislike. Plouff therefore had avoided him adroitly and sought comfort
from the mate. Spiteri was not able to appreciate the bosun. When Plouff
explained how he had found several bolts of canvas secreted in the chain
locker, Spiteri was not impressed because he had put them there himself,
intending later to take them ashore and sell them. Also Plouff was
eternally wanting to chip something, which did not suit Spiteri at all.
If you once began chipping the rust and scale on the _Kalkis_, you might
carry something away and what good would that do you? And Plouff, in his
big apron, would be told to go to Halifax, which infuriated him, for he
thought Halifax, Nova Scotia, was meant, and he had some mysterious feud
with Nova-Scotiamen generally.
So Mr. Spokesly found him congenial, a garrulous monster of
unintelligent probity, and it occurred to him suddenly to enlist the
bosun in this enterprise. Apparently he was going ashore. Mr. Spokesly
wondered how he was going to manage it. He blew his whistle, and the
bosun, who had his head in the galley door talking to the watchman,
withdrew it and called out:
"What's the matter?"
"Come here, Bos', I want you."
Plouff knew by the sound of the word "Bos'" that a friendly conversation
was contemplated and he went aft stroking his pomatumed moustache and
licking his chops in anticipation, for he loved to talk to his
superiors.
"How are you going ashore?"
"Me?" said the bosun, amazed. "In a boat, of course. How'd you think I
was goin'? In a flyin' machine?"
"Well, where's the boat?"
"Why, down there. Here's the painter," said Plouff, laying his hand on
it, very much bewildered.
"But I thought they didn't let you use the ship's boats after sundown."
"Yes, they got all them rules, but there's always easy ways," said
Plouff with gentle scorn.
"Where do you land?"
"Why, right here," and Plouff pointed to where Mr. Spokesly had been
looking with the telescope.
"Is that so? But I've seen no jetty."
"No, there's no jetty. It runs alongside of the garden, you see, and
there's big doors where the old feller used to keep his boat."
"What old feller?"
"Why, do you mean to say you don't know? I thought everybody knew that
place."
"Well, go on. Spit it out. _I_ don't know all the joints in this town."
"Neither do I, but I know a good many of 'em. Well, you see that house
with the corner like a turnip, Turkey style? That's the house. It used
to belong to an old guy who lives way over there," and Joseph Plouff
waved his arm eastward towards Chalcidice. "Big farm for tobacco he got.
Old Turk he is, I s'pose. Well, he has this house here and he had it
built with a boat-house so the boat can go right in and out o' sight.
And there wasn't any other way in. He comes down the mountain, gets into
his boat, and sails over to his house when he wants to have good time.
And when the house was lit up all the gels in the town gets into their
glad rags an' goes off in boats to have some fun. They rows up to the
house, and the old feller sittin' on his balcony gives 'em a look-over
and then he gives the word to let 'em in. Well, he must ha' made a
mistake, same as we all do at times, for one night he had a row with one
o' these gels an' she went for him. I reckon he was tryin' to get her to
go home quietly and she thought he was tryin' to push her into the water
instead of into her boat. So what does she do but poke his eyes out. You
have to watch that with the gels here," said Plouff sagely, looking at
Mr. Spokesly. "It's easy to do and they got the way of it. You push hard
here," and he put his forefinger against the outer side of his eye-ball,
"and the eye pops out like a cork out of a bottle. That was a fine
mix-up, I guess. They tied her head to her feet and shoved her into the
water, and then they had to get the old feller back to his farm over
there. Fine mix-up there, too, I expect, what with his wives fightin' to
get at him and him not bein' able to see which way to run. Now he lives
out there, blind and rollin' in money since the war, and his wives keep
him at home all the time. And the house was sold. You can get a drink
there now. I was there last night. American bar with Greek drinks."
"And are you goin' there to-night?"
"Sure I am. What did you think I was shavin' for?"
"Well, listen to me, Bos'. I wish I'd known it was as easy as that. You
see I've got a friend who wants to make the trip with us, but we can't
get a passport."
"Why can't he come back with me?"
"It's a young lady, Bos'."
The bosun started back as though in horror at these words.
"Is that the way the wind blows?" said he. "Well, this is what you'd
better do...."
"Can we get a boat at that place?"
"We might, easy enough. She can come in by the garden and there's a boat
in the old boat-house, if she had any help. Where's she goin' to sleep?"
"In my cabin."
"And all that work I done down there for a stranger?"
"No, you done it for me. And I done it for this lady friend o' mine.
She's goin' to meet her sweetheart in Athens, you understand."
The bosun, whose eyes had gradually assumed an expression of having been
poked out by the method he had spoken of, and replaced by an unskilful
oculist, now gave an enormous smirk and drew himself into an attitude of
extreme propriety.
"Oh-ho! But the captinne...."
"Never mind him just now. I have a reason for thinking he won't mind. In
fact, I believe he knows all about it but pretends he don't, to save
himself trouble. Skippers do that, you know, Bos'."
"You bet they do!" said Joseph Plouff with immense conviction. "And then
come back at you if things go wrong. I been with hundreds o' skippers
and they was all the same."
This of course was a preposterous misstatement and of no significance
whatever, a common characteristic of people who are both voluble and
irresponsible. Mr. Spokesly let it pass. The riding-light threw the
bosun's features into strange contortions as he stood with his round
muscular limbs wide apart and his arms, tattooed like the legs of a
Polynesian queen, crossed on the bosom of his blue-and-white check
shirt.
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" asked the chief officer
calmly. "You talk a hell of a lot, Bos', but you haven't said much yet."
"Because you ain't give me a chance. You ask me all about that American
bar where there ain't any American drinks and I had to tell you, didn't
I? And I was goin' to sugges' something, only you wouldn't listen."
"What?"
"Go yourself. Come with me. You can get out into the street by the
garden. It used to be a movin' picture place, but they stopped it
because of the lights. And it's mostly French sailors go there. American
bar, see? What the _matelots_ call _hig' lif'_. I speak French, so I go
there. Now you come along and see what we can do."
"And leave the ship?"
"The ship won't run away, I can promise you that. And the watchman's
there in the galley, ain't he? I'll get my coat."
"And how do I know when she'll come, supposing she does come to this
place you're talking about?"
"You want me to tell you that!" said the bosun in a faint voice, lifting
his broad features to the heavens in protest. "I thought you knew," he
added, looking down again at Mr. Spokesly.
"Sometime before daylight," muttered that gentleman, getting up. "I'll
go with you, but mind, you got to stand by to row me back whenever I
want you. Understand? No going off with your _matelots_. Nice thing, if
anything should happen and me out o' the ship."
"All right, all right. You don't need to get sore with your own bosun,"
said Plouff. "I can tell you, you might have a worse one. Here's me,
sits all the evening, playin' rummy and one eye on the ship from that
American bar, and all you can do's get sore. What do you think I am, a
bum? If it hadn't been for me havin' my eyes about me in Port Said, them
A-rabs would ha' stove her in against the next ship twenty time. Me
sittin' up half the night makin' fenders. Oh, yes!"
"Come on then. You're as bad as the Old Man when it comes to chewing the
rag. Can you talk French like that?"
"As good as English. Faster. More of it. I know more French words than
English."
"Lord help us." Mr. Spokesly poked the tiller-bar into the rudder and
hung the latter over the stern of the boat, which Plouff had been
hauling along to the gangway. "Now then. Got a lantern? Don't light it.
Bear away."
Instructed by Plouff, Mr. Spokesly steered due east away from the ship
and concealed by it from the eyes on watch on the warships. Then after
half a mile he turned sharply about and Plouff slowed down until the
boat just moved through the water and they were quite lost in the
intense darkness. Plouff said:
"Now we got nothing to be scared of except searchlights. But it's only
Wednesday night they work 'em."
"Why do you get only Frenchmen at this place?" asked Mr. Spokesly.
"Because it's near their hospital and rest-camp. The English are all
down by the Bersina Gardens. So the Frenchies go to talk to the poilus.
French sailors don't have much truck with English sailors, you can bet."
"Well, you wouldn't if you couldn't talk to them either," retorted Mr.
Spokesly. "Now where do we go in?"
"Ship the rudder," said the bosun. "I'll fetch round myself."
They were now in the profound shadows of a short back-water formed by
the corner of the old _café-chantant_ and cinema garden which had been
fashioned out of the romantic dwelling whose earlier history Plouff had
recounted with such relish. The big doors of the water entrance had been
removed and the shed itself partly boarded over. There was no one in
sight, and only a small tin lamp on the wall, but there was an air of
recent occupancy, of human proximity, of frequent appearances, about the
place. A boat was thrust half under the planks, and the door at the back
had a black patch where many hands had polished it in passing through.
Beneath the door shone a crack of bright light. Plouff, shipping his
oars, brought up softly alongside the other boat, and stepped ashore
across the thwarts with the painter in his hand.
"Here we are," he chuckled. "Snug as a bug in a rug. Bring her in under.
Make fast."
The door was opened about six inches and a face with an exceedingly
drooping moustache peered out from beneath the slovenly looking cap of a
French petty officer of marine.
"_Qu'est-ce que c'est?_" he demanded.
"_Comment ça va, mon vieux!_" retorted Plouff, advancing.
"_Mon lieutenant--bon garçon. Oh-h, mon vieux, il faut que je vous dis
que nous avons une grande affaire. Où est la belle Antigone?_"
"_Chez elle_," muttered the other. "_Entrez. Bon soir, Monsieur
Lieutenant._"
Mr. Spokesly walked through into a lofty hallway. A door on the left led
into the darkness of the garden, another on the right opened upon a
large chamber, dimly lighted and bounded by a lattice-work terrace, and
in front ascended one of those imposing staircases which the Latin
inserts into the most insignificant edifices. The room on the right was
simply a rough-and-ready café, with a small bar in the corner set up in
an unfurnished residence. Upstairs was a select gambling hall for
officers only. And practically French officers only. There was only one
reason why English officers, for example, did not visit this place. They
did not know of its existence. It was a club. Madame Antigone was the
caretaker who also managed the canteen on the ground floor, and
encouraged, by her formidable discretion, the maintenance of a small
corner of France in an alien land. Not the France of popular fancy with
_cocottes_ and _cancan_ dancing and much foolish _abandon_, but the
France of the Cercle and the Casino, sober-minded devotees of roulette
and connoisseurs of sound liquor.
Some of the latter was immediately forthcoming. Even Mr. Spokesly, whose
conception of a drink was that of most English and Americans--a
decoction of no ascertainable flavour and with the kick of a vicious
horse--even he appreciated to a small degree the body and generous
vintage of the wine brought to their table by a soldier in hospital
dress. He looked round as he drank. There were men of all ranks of the
land and sea forces, clean-shaven and boyish, ferociously moustached and
obscured by short, truculent beards. They played dominoes or cards,
smoked and sipped, or conversed with the grave gestures which are the
heritage of a thousand emotional years. They were not demonstrative.
Indeed, the French Navy is so undemonstrative one might imagine it
recruited entirely from the Englishmen of modern fiction. There is no
doubt that the nature of their profession has left its mark upon them.
For them is no vision of conquest or gigantic death-grapple with a
modern foe, but rather the careful guarding of a remote and insalubrious
colonial empire. It has made them attentive to fussy details, faithful
to fantastic conceptions of honour, partial to pensioned ease and
married life if one escapes the fevers of Cochin China and Algeria.
Among them Plouff was accepted as a weird variant of undeniable home
stock, a creature who led a double life as Englishman and Frenchman, _un
monstre_, a grotesque emblem of the great _Entente_. They stood about
him as he sat, his head far back on his shoulders, his large red mouth
open beneath the great moustache, telling them the story of his
lieutenant's incredible gallantry. They listened in silence, glancing
deferentially towards Mr. Spokesly from time to time, as though he were
acquiring a singular and heroic virtue in their estimation for his
audacity in fumbling with a woman's destiny. But Mr. Spokesly himself
felt neither heroic nor audacious. He was uneasy. He interrupted the
eloquence of his bosun as soon as he had finished his drink. He had a
picture in his mind of Evanthia waiting somewhere, waiting for him with
her amber eyes smouldering and ready to break out into a torrent of
reproaches for his sluggish obedience. She had achieved that ascendancy
over him. He was conscious of a species of mingled terror and delight in
her personality. He rose.
"What's the matter?" demanded Plouff, astonished.
Mr. Spokesly regarded him with considerable impatience.
"How can I stop here?" he inquired. "You ought to have more sense," and
he walked away towards the garden.
Plouff looked round at his circle of listeners, as though calling them
to witness the strenuous nature of service with the English, and
followed. He found Mr. Spokesly pausing irresolutely by the foot of the
stairs, confronting a large woman with strongly marked brows and a
severe expression who was descending the stairs with the air of a
proprietress.
"Ah, Madame Antigone," said Plouff in hurried French. "This gentleman is
the lieutenant of my ship. He has an assignation with a young lady who
lives in a house near by."
The woman regarded Plouff steadily and shook her head. She was turning
away as though she took no interest whatever in the matter.
"This is not a house of assignation," she said gravely, merely recording
a casual fact.
"Oh, most surely not!" ejaculated the eloquent Plouff. "Madame totally
misunderstands the situation. All that was suggested was that possibly
Madame would permit the young lady to enter the garden. We have a boat,
and here am I to row. Madame, to-morrow we sail; it is the last night
for us. You can understand, Madame?"
Whether Madame understood or not was locked in her own broad, handsome
bosom. She advanced as though Joseph Plouff and Mr. Spokesly had no
corporeal existence, shaking her head and muttering softly that it was
impossible. For a second the defeated bosun stood looking after her.
Impossible? The massive form of Madame Antigone swam forward into the
café and passed out of view. So it was impossible. Plouff became aware
of his chief officer's expression.
"What are we going to do now?" said Mr. Spokesly irritably, going
towards the garden. "Lot of use you are with your Frenchy friends. Let's
get out of this."
"How could I help it?" demanded Plouff, breaking into a trot to keep up
with Mr. Spokesly's anxious stride. "What's the matter, anyway? You
don't understand, Mister. This way, round here. This is the path. Look
out, you might hit your head--very low here under the trees. No, not
yet. Here's the--that's it. Where are you goin' now? To the house?"
Plouff whispered, a little out of breath, for Mr. Spokesly had been
striding along oblivious to everything. What was the matter with the
man? What was it to him if the girl did miss her passage? Ah!----Plouff,
as they came out upon a soft-earth cart-track that led away into the
darkness, had a sort of spasm in his brain. Of course! This was an
_enlèvement_. Ha! What a wooden-headed booby he had been to miss an
obvious thing like that. Ho-ho! Plouff had a wife somewhere in the
world, and as he never under any circumstances remembered to send her
any support, he was romantic in his ideas concerning _enlèvements_. And
mysteriously enough, Plouff became instantaneously more devoted to the
task in hand, in spite of Mr. Spokesly's disgust. That officer realized
he was pressing ahead without any clear notion of his future actions.
"I wonder what Dainopoulos 'ud think if he saw me hanging round," he
mused. "Nobody on the ship, too! Well, here goes." And he whispered to
the attentive Plouff.
"Do you know where the cars are, Bos'?"
"Of course I do. What do you take me for?"
"Go on, then, go on. I'll know the house if I see it."
Plouff was getting excited.
"And she come down with you?" he demanded.
"I don't know yet, man. Wait."
And suddenly they emerged upon the street.
Mr. Spokesly paused in the shadow of the wall enclosing the house they
had left. On either hand extended an obscure and empty street. From that
retired vantage the suburbs of Saloniki were wrapped in a peace as
complete as that of the harbour. A faint hum, as of a distant
trolley-car, came along the wires overhead. Mr. Spokesly reflected
quietly, noting the landmarks, getting his bearings. The Dainopoulos
house was a little farther on, he guessed. As he took a step forward, a
door banged some distance off, and a dog gave a few ringing howls.
"Is it far?" asked Plouff in a tense whisper. Mr. Spokesly looked at
him. He was very much excited, and looked foolish, with his round eyes
and extraordinarily pretentious moustache.
"No, I don't think it is," said Mr. Spokesly. "I got an idea it's just
along on the other side." And then, as they moved up the road and the
view changed somewhat, opening out on a familiar clump of trees, he
added, "Yes, it's just along here," and mended his pace.
And he advanced upon the place where he believed Evanthia to be waiting
for him, in a mood of mingled fear and pleasure. Perhaps there was shame
in it, too, for he almost felt himself blush when he thought of himself
sitting there on the _Kalkis_ waiting. And but for an accident--Plouff
was the accident--he might have been waiting there still. He grew hot.
He saw that his long habitude of regarding women as purchasable adjuncts
to a secular convenience had corrupted his perception of character. Why
had he not seen immediately that she would expect him to carry out the
whole enterprise? Where had his wits been, when the amber eyes
smouldered and broke into a lambent flame that seemed to play all round
his heart? That was her way. She never supplicated, evoking a benign
pity for her pathetic and regretted womanhood. Nor did she storm and
rail, getting what she desired as the price of repose. She simply
accepted the responsibility with a flickering revelation of her soul in
one glance from those amber eyes. And left him to divine the purpose in
her heart. He thought of all this in the few moments as he moved up to
the house with the active and enthusiastic Plouff at his heels like a
shadow. And he wondered if she would keep him waiting. That, at any
rate, was not one of her faults.
There was no light in the front of the house. That was not promising. He
crossed over and took an oblique view of the windows behind the trees of
the garden. And she was there. He saw a shadow on the ceiling, a shadow
that moved and halted, with leisurely deliberation. He walked to the
gate and tried it. It was shut.
"Listen Bos'," he said, holding that person's shoulder in a firm grip.
"You've got to give me a leg over. Then--listen now--go back and get the
boat out, and lay off the end of the garden. Savvy?"
"Yes. Now, up you go," said Plouff. "What do you want to hold me like
that for? Over?"
There was no need for the question or for a reply. Mr. Spokesly,
assisted by an energetic heave from Plouff, flew over the gate and came
down easily on the flags below. He heard Plouff depart hastily, and went
round into the garden to discover what he might have to do. It was easy
to push along the path and look up at the lighted window. She was there.
He could see her arms above her head busy with her hair. While he stood
there she took a large hat from her head and presently replaced it by a
black toque with a single darting cock's feather athwart it. Once he saw
her face, stern and rigid with anxiety over the choice of a hat. And he
saw, when he flung a small piece of earth gently against the window, the
arms stop dead in their movements and remain there while she listened.
Again he flung a piece of earth, a soft fragment that burst silently as
it struck the glass, and the light went out.
Mr. Spokesly bethought him of the gate over which he had come and he
made his way back to see if it could be opened from within. It could,
and he opened it. And then, just as he was preparing for a secret and
stealthy departure, bracing his spirit for the adventure of an
_enlèvement_, the door behind him opened and shut with some noise, and
Evanthia Solaris, buttoning a glove, stood before him, a slender black
phantom in the darkness.
He was dumfounded for a moment, until the full significance of her
action was borne in upon him. She had surrendered her destiny to his
hands after all. It was with him that she was willing to venture forth
into unknown perils. What a girl! He experienced an accession of
spiritual energy as he advanced hurriedly in the transparent obscurity
of the garden. She did not move as he touched her save to continue
buttoning a glove.
"Ready?" he whispered.
She gave him an enigmatic glance from behind the veil she was wearing
and thrust her body slightly against his with a gesture at once delicate
and eloquent of a subtle mood. She was aware that this man, come up out
of the sea like some fabled monster of old, to do her bidding, was the
victim of her extraordinary personality; yet she never forgot that his
admiration, his love, his devotion, his skill, and his endurance were no
more than her rightful claim. Incomparably equipped for a war with fate,
she regarded men always as the legionaries of her enemy. And that
gesture of hers, which thrilled him as a signal of surrender, was a
token of her indomitable confidence and pride.
"For anything," she said, smiling behind her veil. "What have you done?"
"I've got a boat," he whispered. "It's all ready. Where are they?" He
pointed to the house.
"Asleep," she said, pulling the gate open.
"Don't make so much noise," he begged. She stopped and turned on him.
"I can go out if I like," she said calmly. "You think I am a slave
here?"
"Oh, no, no. You don't understand...." he began.
"I understand you think I am afraid of these people. Phtt! Where is the
carriage?"
"It's only a little way. You can't get boats down at the landings. Just
a little way."
"All right." She pulled the gate to and the latch clicked. And then she
put her gloved hand lightly on his arm, trusting her fate to him, and
they walked down the road in the darkness.
"Have you got everything?" he asked timidly.
She did not reply at once. She was looking steadily ahead, thinking in a
rapt way of the future, which was full of immense possibilities, and
which she was prepared to meet with a dynamic courage peculiarly her
own. And at that moment, though her hand lay on the arm of this man who
was to take her away, she was like a woman walking alone in the midst of
perils and enemies, towards a shining destiny, her delicate body
sheathed in the supple and impenetrable armour of an inherited
fortitude. She smiled.
"Everything," she murmured in French. "Have I not thee?" And she added,
so that his face cleared of doubt and he, too, smiled proudly: "Ah, yes.
What do we need, if we have each other?" He strained her suddenly to him
and she stood there looking up at him with her bright, fearless, amber
eyes smiling. She said:
"The boat?"
They reached the corner and for an instant the dark unfamiliarity of the
lane daunted her.
"Down here, dear," he said, holding her close. "I have a man I can trust
in the boat. He's waiting."
They advanced silently, turning the corners of the lane and stooping
beneath the boughs of the sycamores. Her faint adumbration of doubt
inspired in him an emotion of fiery protectiveness. For a moment, while
they were among the trees in the garden, they halted and stood close
together. The door swung open, letting out a long shaft of yellow light
for an instant, showing up in sharp silhouette a chair, a table, some
garbage, and a startled cat. And closed again with a bang and a rattle
that mingled with the steps of someone going off up the lane.
"What is this place?" she whispered, looking up into the sky for the
outline of the roof. "Ah, yes!" she said, noting the bulging cupola on
the tower. "I see."
"You know about this place?" he asked as they reached the low parapet at
the bottom of the garden. She pressed his arm in assent. She did. Women
always know those facts of local history. Evanthia recalled, looking out
over the obscure and shadowy waters of the Gulf, the tale of that old
votary of pleasure. Men were like that. Behind her infatuation for the
gay young person supposed to be in Athens, she cherished a profound
animosity towards men. She stood there, a man's arm flung tensely about
her, another man cautiously working the boat in beneath where she stood,
the blood and tissues of her body nourished by the exertions of other
men, meditating intently upon the swinish proclivities of men. She even
trembled slightly at the thought of those proclivities, and the man
beside her held her more closely and soothed her with a gentle caress
because he imagined she was the victim of a woman's timidity.
"It's all right, dear," he murmured. "Now I'll get down." He stooped and
cautiously lowered himself into the boat, which rose and fell in a
gentle rhythm against the sea-wall. And for a moment Evanthia had a
slight vertigo of terror. She found herself suddenly alone. That arm--it
had sustained her. She looked down and descried Mr. Spokesly standing
with his arms extended towards her.
"Quick, dear! Now!" His face showed a white plaque in the darkness; face
and hands as though floating up and down below her disembodied, and the
faint tense whisper coming up mysteriously. She felt the rough coping
with her fingers and leaned over towards the face.
"Hold me!" she breathed, and swung herself over. She felt his hands grip
firmly and closing her eyes, she leaned backward into the void, and let
go.
"Now push off, Bos'," said Mr. Spokesly, holding her in his arms. "We're
away." He set her down and took the tiller. "Easy now, Bos'," he added,
breathing hard.
Plouff, his eyes protruding with decorous curiosity, pulled out and
began to row cautiously into the darkness. It was done. She sat on a
thwart, her gloved hands folded in her lap, demure, collected,
intoxicating. It was done.
"All right now?" he whispered exultingly. She looked at him, an
enigmatic smile on her veiled face, and touched his knee. His tone was
triumphant. He imagined he was doing all this, and she continued to
smile.
"Ah, yes!" she breathed. "Always all right, with you."
He pressed her hand to his lips. She let him do this.
"The ship?" she said gently.
"Soon," he said. "We must be careful. Tired?"
"A little. Where is the ship?"
"That is her light. We go this way--keep out of sight."
"How long?"
"Soon, soon."
She became trustful as they turned and made for the ship. Plouff,
stifling his desire to proclaim his incomparable efficiency, brought up
imperceptibly against the grating and, stepping out, crept intelligently
up the ladder to make sure of the watchman. That person was, as Plouff
expected, drowsing comfortably over the galley fire. He tiptoed to the
bulwarks and whispered:
"Come up. All clear!"
Mr. Spokesly drew Evanthia upon the gangway and guided her steps upward.
Plouff stood at the top, his head thrust forward and his hand gripping
the bulwark as though about to fling himself upon them. His globular
eyes and glossy curling moustache made him look like some furtive and
predatory animal. He slipped down the gangway, got into the boat, and
pushed off. Plouff was off to have a night free from responsibility. His
chief officer was on board. _Sacré!_ His chief officer had _joli goût_.
And he, Plouff, had his eyes about him. And his wits. There was
something behind this. So, not a word!
And the two passengers, whom he had transported so neatly and without
arousing either the watchman or the suspicious picket-boats, went into
the cabin and, after closing the door, Mr. Spokesly lit the swinging
lamp. Evanthia looked about her.
"A ship," she said absently, revolving the novel idea in her mind.
"You must go to bed," said he gravely. "And you must stay down in there
until I tell you it is all clear. Do you understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
"I'll show you," he said, and he carefully piloted her down the
companion. She leaned forward daintily to peer as he lit her lamp.
"It's the best I could do," he whispered.
"Beautiful. Tck!" she saw her clothes in the drawer he opened and patted
his arm. She regarded him curiously, as though seeing him in a fresh
light. "You are very good to me."
"Easy to be that," he muttered, holding her and breathing heavily.
"Good-night!"
He closed the door and strode away to the companion, and he was about to
mount when a thought struck him. She must keep her door locked, in case
somebody came down. He walked back.
And as he put out his hand to open the door again to tell her this, he
heard the key grind in the lock.
He paused, and then went away up, and very thoughtful, turned in.