"Perhaps they thought we'd never get aboard in this gale," Jolival hazarded. "Or else they decided that we were not coming—"
"They had no business to think or decide," Jason snarled. "As to the gale, well, they're sailors, aren't they? In any case, I'm sure they can't be far off. I know O'Flaherty."
His previous loud cursing might well have sufficed but to make doubly sure he whistled three times on a particular note and a moment later was answered in an identical fashion. Almost immediately Craig O'Flaherty and his men appeared, dark shadowy figures which the privateer's eyes, accustomed to peering through the blinding spray, were soon able to pick out from the surrounding blackness.
The crew the Irishman had assembled could scarcely have been said to constitute the cream of the world's seamen. There were two Genoese, a Maltese, a Greek, an Albanian and two Georgians whom Craig had ruthlessly bribed away from the service of his friend Mamoulian. But they looked capable enough and stood up to Jason's practiced scrutiny.
"So here you are at last," was Craig's welcome. "We were beginning to give up hope."
"I daresay," retorted Jason dryly. "Several hours without a drink is a long time. Where were you, O'Flaherty? Find a bar somewhere still open?"
"In a safe place, and on consecrated ground, what's more," the Irishman retorted, indicating the vague outline of a small tekke of Whirling Dervishes which made a white blur against the dark bulk of the mosque. "You may not have noticed, but it's blowing fit to skin a cat. It was all we could do to keep our feet on the beach."
"You have a boat?"
"Yes. That, too, is in a safe place—in that fisherman's hut, down there on the shore. Do you see it? And now, if you want my opinion, we had better be moving, unless we want our boarding party to take place in broad daylight. Dawn is not far off."
"Come, then. Run out the boat."
While the men ran down to the hut, Jason turned quickly to Jolival and grasped both his hands in the warm, spontaneous fashion which won him so many friends.
"We part here, then. Goodbye, my friend. Take good care of her. This is not the first time I have entrusted her to you."
"I spend my life taking care of her," Jolival said gruffly, trying to shake off a nasty feeling of impending disaster. "You take care of yourself, Beaufort. Wars are not precisely rest cures."
"Don't worry. I'm indestructible. And look after the baby, too. His mother's love for him is very new and still very fragile, I think. It may be a long while before I am able to take care of him."
The American's hands were warm and strong and firm.
Returning their friendly pressure impulsively, Jolival was troubled by a slight feeling of remorse. Seeing the younger man so ready to be a father to another man's child, he was sorry he had not told him the whole truth. Prince Corrado had certainly approved his decision to conceal his true identity, but at that moment Jolival wished he had not done it. Jason was obviously expecting Marianne to have little Sebastiano with her when she landed in America, and might not be best pleased to find things otherwise.
The men, under Craig's directions, were running the boat down to the sea. It was a long caïque, sound and well built, and looked capable of a pretty turn of speed.
Suddenly the vicomte made up his mind.
"There is something else I want to tell you—something about the child. I've not told you before because it did not seem to me that I had the right, but now—"
"What is there about now in particular to make you decide to reveal a secret which does not belong to you—and which I may very well know already?"
"Which you—?"
Jason laughed. His hand came down heavily on Jolival's shoulder, warmly reassuring.
"Perhaps I'm not quite such a fool as you and Marianne like to think, my friend. So you may be at peace with yourself. You have given nothing away, because you had no need to. Nor, by the way, have I any intention of giving young Sant'Anna my name. And now goodbye."
He was about to turn away when he suddenly gripped Jolival with both hands.
"Kiss her for me—and tell her I love her."
Then he ran to join his men. They were having some trouble in getting the boat into the water. It was as if the sea were trying to throw off the vessel that had the temerity to try to ride it. Jolival could see the dim figures of men moving about against the background of foaming breakers and his mind groped half-unconsciously for a snatch of forgotten prayer.
Then suddenly there came a triumphant shout, and Jolival saw nothing more.
"Here we go, then!" a voice cried in Italian. Already it sounded some way off. "But it's a real night for the devil!"
Left alone on the beach, Jolival shivered. A night for the devil?
True enough, perhaps. The caïque had vanished. The sea had swallowed it, like the dark, gaping jaws of some ravening monster. There was nothing to be heard but the frenzied pounding of the waves and the howling of the wind. Was the gallant little craft still afloat?
Unable to free himself from his sense of foreboding, Jolival turned up the collar of his coat mechanically and climbed back up the slope toward the three bare plane trees where they had tethered the horses. He had no wish to return to Bebek. What was the point? Marianne would only pester him with questions to which he had no answers. At that precise moment he did not even know for certain that the caïque had not gone straight to the bottom.
The wind dropped for a second and he heard a church clock in Pera strike five. It gave him an idea. The French embassy was nearby and, having been built as a Franciscan monastery, it contained a belfry which, although in a somewhat dilapidated condition, commanded a view over the Bosporus and the Golden Horn. From up there, as soon as it was light enough, it would at least be possible to see what became of the Sea Witch and perhaps even something of the gallant band of men attempting to gain possession of her.
Leaving the horses tethered to the plane tree so that the noise of hooves should not wake the whole district, which at this hour of a winter's morning was still shuttered and empty, Jolival turned his steps in the direction of the embassy. He had no difficulty obtaining entrance once he had succeeded in rousing the porter, in itself no easy task. The man stood in some awe of the gentleman who came to play chess with the ambassador and, although it was a considerable time since he had last been seen there, he was admitted without question. It was as much as he could do, however, to prevent them from waking Monsieur de Latour-Maubourg.
"I sat up late at the bedside of a sick friend who is not expected to live," Jolival explained. "The churches are not open yet and I wish very much to pray for him. There is no need to disturb His Excellency. I will see him later. All I want at present is to be left alone in the chapel."
This thundering lie went down beautifully. Jolival knew his man, Conan, the ambassador's doorkeeper, was a good Breton and of a rigid piety which found no joy in Islam. The latter was pleasantly surprised to encounter such lofty sentiments in his master's friend.
"Friendship is a fine thing," he pronounced sententiously, "and the fear of God a finer still. With Monsieur the Vicomte's permission, I will say a prayer or two for his friend myself. For the present, the chapel is not locked. Monsieur has only to enter. There are candles and a tinder box at the door. You will be quite undisturbed."
Jolival asked nothing better. He thanked the doorkeeper warmly, feeling a trifle uncomfortable, for the man was looking at him as though a halo were already sprouting around his head. Then, having strengthened his good opinion by slipping a gold coin discreetly into his hand, he hurried away through the ancient cloister toward the chapel.
The door opened with hardly a creak and he found himself breathing in the familiar smells of melted wax, incense and well-polished wood. The worthy Conan, indeed, took touchingly good care of what he thought of as his chapel. It was his way of striking a blow at the Infidel.