WEST
They watched him row off to the _Santa Margharita_.
It was still a flat calm, and the _Santa Margharita_ lay, the looking
glass of the sea mirroring her ugliness, and a slight swell rolling her
to show her foul copper sheathing.
They saw Pirelli go on board and vanish below. A minute later the water
poured at her stern, and they heard the tramp of her engine.
"She's making off back to Genoa," said Sam. "I wonder if Visconti is on
board."
"Most likely," replied Bobby. "And I wonder would it have been better
to have given him something to keep him quiet."
"You mean the Aphrodite?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's a thing I couldn't do," replied Sam. "It's not only
that the chap played me such a dirty trick. It's just this: If I had
consented to a thing like that, it would have been practically going
partners with him. I draw the line at that. If we are caught we are at
least caught playing our own game and not confederates of a rogue like
that."
"That's just how I feel," put in Martia, "and I think it was splendid
the way you turned him down straight without a moment's hesitation."
Bobby felt out of count. He also felt that he was figuring in Martia's
eyes as a somewhat sordid person ready to buy safety at too high a
price. All the same, he did not draw back from the position he had
taken, though he said nothing more as he stood watching the last of the
_Santa Margharita_ vanishing now beyond the cape that hid Genoa.
The calm still held the _Lorna_ in its grip. If Visconti, turning
vicious, chose to apprise the Genoese port authorities, nothing could
be easier than for the Customs to send a fast launch out and capture
the _Lorna_ where she lay. She was beyond the three-mile limit, but
port authorities don't bother about the fraction of a mile, and there
are no mile-stones, anyway, to show exactly where the limit begins.
"All the same," said Bobby, "I believe we will have trouble with that
chap yet. From what we know of him, he seems to be an extremely wily
bird, and he's got power behind him. Anyway, he's able to do things.
Look at his record. He gets word of Hyalos by some chance. He fits
out the _Margharita_. He engages those sponge-fishers from Ægina to
meet him there. He comes to Hyalos and finds us on the spot. He gets
you, Sam, on to his ship and hypnotises you with the aid of champagne
into telling him the whole of our business. I'm not rubbing it in,
Sam, I'm just showing you the man we have to deal with. What does he
do then? Fancying that we have scooped everything of value in Hyalos
he vanishes, to swoop on us at Genoa in the form of Pirelli. We have
escaped for a moment, but it's my opinion we haven't done with him yet."
"I don't see what he can do now," replied the skipper; "unless he goes
back now and gives the show away to the harbour people at Genoa. Even
then he'd have to get a warrant to arrest us. That all takes time.
Anyhow, once we are clear away from here we're safe."
"How about England? It will take us three weeks to get home, and he can
get there in two days from here, overland."
Sam did not reply to this. His eyes had caught sight of something far
away to the east, a dulling of the water beyond the sea dazzle. It was
the wind.
In a moment the _Lorna_ was alive again, the hands hauling on the
halyards and the great mainsail rising like a kite to the blue; the
gaskets were cast off the jib, and Sam sprang to the wheel as the
forefoot of the breeze struck them, and the banging of blocks and the
creak of cordage sounded as the main boom lifted and shifted, sweeping
across the deck to starboard, the sail filling and tugging at the sheet.
The _Lorna_ sprang away like a spurred horse.
When the east wind comes like that in the Mediterranean, after a calm,
it blows.
The _Lorna_ was running almost rail under. Down below, things that had
not been secured were fetching away, and Sam, for a moment, was in two
minds about reducing sail. But he held on.
Then the first great booming gusts flattened down into a strong, steady
sailing wind, and handing the wheel over to Bowler, he turned to talk
to the others.
They were safe, for the moment at least. With the start they had, and
the speed they were making, no boat out of Genoa would overhaul them
before they had cleared Italian waters. Later that afternoon, away to
starboard, the Maritime Alps showed the spur they push towards Oneglia,
and that night, hauling closer inshore, they saw a spray of light
through the night glass, a glittering ribbon--the lights of Monte Carlo.
At dawn, in cloudless weather, Antibes showed away on the starboard
quarter; then Cape Camarat loomed across the blue, and far ahead the
islands of Hyères beckoned to them, rose from the sea, and sank behind
them. Whatever they had done at Hyalos they had not offended the gods
who preside over the winds of the Mediterranean, for the wind from the
east and south of east never failed them. It held true and hard and
steady as they passed the Balearics and gave Cape Nao the good-bye,
pursued them, laughing and shouting, past Cape Palos; showed them the
cold, white ridges of the Sierra Nevada on the northern sky-line,
chased them at last through the straits into the arms of the gods who
rule the Atlantic.
Then things became different, with a dirty sky and head winds against
which they had to fight from St. Vincent to Finisterre.
Then the Bay of Biscay played with them for five long days, with light
and variable winds and a ground swell that seemed to have come up from
Cape Horn.
Ushant passed them on into a fog, and the chance of being rammed
by everything turning that villainous corner. Then the fog, like a
suddenly raised dish-cover, lifted, and behold they were in a world of
east wind, blue sky, and hard, emerald sea; a cold, bright beautiful
world with winter-locked England a line on the horizon to port.
Then came the Dorset coast, and next morning at dawn the Isle of Wight
far ahead, the Needles light just winking out, and Poole Harbour only
four or five hours' sail away.
Down in the cabin, over an early breakfast, with the deck in charge
of Bowler, Sam gave it as his opinion that, barring some catastrophe
unimagined and inconceivable, the expedition was over and a success.
"Unless," put in Bobby, "that beast of a Visconti doesn't play us some
last trick."
"There's only one trick he can play us," said Sam, "and that's Customs.
And I know the Customs men at Poole. And, besides, this has nothing to
do with Customs, although the Government, if they were to be applied
to by the Greek Government, might use the Customs to collar the things
pending investigations. I don't believe that trouble will arise."
"Well, suppose it doesn't?" asked Bobby. "What are we to do with the
things when we arrive? We've got to get them ashore and put them
somewhere till we are able to see Behrens and ask how they are to be
disposed of."
"I thought of that only yesterday," replied the other. "I asked Bowler
did he know of any place handy for storing things. And there's a
cottage close to his that's empty. We can shove them there. They'd be
safe as houses whilst we run up to Town, for he'll be there to look
after them."
A couple of hours later, as they stood on deck, the sandbanks showed
ahead, and the entrance to the great harbour, lying idle, wrapped in
its winter sleep.
Only gulls greeted them as they came in, gulls from Brownsea Island
and the slob lands and sandbanks, crying and creaking on the cold east
wind, flying across the cloudless blue against which stood Corfe Castle
in the far distance.
Sam steered, with Bowler for'ard on the look-out; Bobby and the girl
standing by, as they picked their way by the sea marks that showed the
road to Poole town.
Martia, wrapped in a heavy coat of Sam's, scarcely spoke a word. They
were home at last, safe home, and against that background of winter
land and flying gulls the whole remembered picture of the last few
months seemed unbelievable. They were home with everything they had
started to do accomplished. Home, with no one to greet them but the
gulls.
The tide was coming in with them, gurgling against the stakes and
sea-marks. The _Sandfly_ showed close at her anchorage, snugged down
for winter, and near the _Sandfly_ a barge swung, turning to the tide
on her chain, dead and cheerless-looking as a coffin. And now the quay
of Poole, with an old brig moored alongside, could be clearly seen,
even to its bollards, but with not a soul moving on it.
"Ready there with the anchor?" came Sam's voice.
Then, a moment later, the call to let go, a splash, and the rattle of
the chain, and the _Lorna Doone_ swung to her moorings, the canvas
slatting in the wind, and the long voyage over.
And still not a soul on the shore to see them or a voice to greet them.
Bowler, Church, Atherfield, and Glastonbury, as indifferent to the
whole business as Poole itself, dropped below to get their dunnage
together, after having stowed the canvas.
Sam lit a pipe.
"Well, here we are," said Sam. "I said she was a beauty, and she is."
"Who?" asked Martia, astonished at this cryptic remark.
"Who? Why, the _Lorna_. Close-hauled or going with the wind she's not
to be beaten."
"That's so," said Bobby; "and look."
A figure showed on the quay. It came along to the boat steps, got into
a scow that was moored there, and pushed off, rowing towards them.
It was Bowler's brother.
Not a word of welcome as he came alongside, scarcely a nod. They might
have just come back from a sail in the Solent for all the emotion
exhibited by Bowler's brother on their return.
"Hallo!" said Sam.
"Hallo!" answered the brother of Bowler.
"I'll be wanting you to help us take some things on shore," said Sam.
"Right y'are," said the longshoreman, taking in his oars and tying up
to a channel-plate, whilst the fo'c'sle crowd came up from below with
their bags.
Bowler himself came last.
"When I've got the chaps ashore, sir," he said, "I'll come back to do
any cleanin'-up there's to be done, and to help you ashore with them
bits of things. Glastonbury's willin' to stay and look after the ship
till this evenin', if you're wantin' him."
"Right," said Sam. "I'll pay you off to-night at the inn. Tell them
we'll be coming off in an hour or so, and we'll be staying the night,
and we'll want dinner. I'll want you to come on board this evening when
Glastonbury goes and stay as watchman. We'll get some of the things off
before dark and the rest in the morning. Church, I'll want you to help
us. Go off and see your wife now, but I'll want you at four o'clock."
"Right, sir," said Church.
Then the crew, getting into the boat--but not before Martia had shaken
hands with each one of them--pushed off, the boat having orders to
return in an hour.
"'Them bits of things,'" quoted Martia with a laugh. "Could we have
found a port in the whole world safer than here--for our purpose?"
"No," said Bobby, "we couldn't."