As he was standing thus a car came over the brow of the hill and took the curling road, fringed with pines, which led to the jetty. It stopped at the water’s edge and a man got out. Was it perhaps Axelos who had come to meet Graecen? He saw almost immediately that it was someone much smaller than Axelos. A fisherman in a blue jersey, standing at his oars, conveyed the newcomer slowly across the intervening distance, until his boat rested in the shadow of the Europa. The man seemed to be English, from the cut of his clothes. It was probably the Consul, though why he should come aboard at this hour was more than Baird could fathom. “Prosechete, kirie,” he heard the boatman say. It was the first Greek he had heard spoken for some time; it filled him with a kind of nostalgic pain. He scanned the face of the boatman eagerly to see if it was anyone he knew. (One always does this in Greece.) Octopus, pinnae and red mullet lay in a basket at the bottom of the boat. He had obviously been out all night fishing.
The British Consul (for it was he) came aboard in his time. He was tired and peevish, and walked like a person of some consequence to the bridge, where he asked smartly for the officer of the watch. “I understand that you have passengers wishing to visit the labyrinth. I have come to inform you that the trip is simply not safe.”
He was conducted below to see the Captain, to whom he explained his business more clearly, slightly mollified by the excellent coffee and biscuit of the ship.
“There’s a travel agency run by two young Greeks,” he said. “They advertise tours of the labyrinth. Now, my advice is to dissuade passengers from running the risk. The labyrinth simply isn’t safe. I don’t want to have British subjects lost in the island, it upsets the Embassy; I’ve no doubt your company would also not like to risk the lives of its passengers.”
The Captain listened to him carefully and decided that his manner was too peremptory for a mere vice-Consul. The company, he pointed out, was exempt from any responsibility in the matter. The Jannadis Agency had merely canvassed visitors to the labyrinth. It was not up to him to stop people enjoying themselves. At any rate, he would post a notice on the board, explaining that the place was considered dangerous by the Consul, and advising passengers not to risk it. “Let me see,” he said, “I think we’ve only a few this time.”
Over breakfast the six of them read the Captain’s notice with interest not unmixed with excitement. They felt rather bold to be visiting a place considered unsafe by the Consul. Even Miss Dombey, who was not feeling very well, felt that it was up to her to show that she was no coward. “You’re intrepid, that’s what you are,” said Campion to her in his stage-cockney accent, buttering himself a side of toast. “What happens if the Second Coming comes while you’re inside? You might miss the whole thing.” Latterly, Miss Dombey had found that the best way of dealing with Campion was to ignore him. She had not spoken a word to him since the day he had said: “Miss Dombey, if Spot uses my easel for a lamppost once more I’ll cut his legs off and throw him in the sea.” It had been simply outrageous; even Graecen was shocked by his rudeness. Now she simply ignored him. It did not seem to bother Campion, however, who always had something either offensive or comical to say to her when they met.
Truman met Graecen dragging his grip along to the staircase, and gave him a hand. “Thanks,” panted Graecen. He was very puffed and sat down upon it to exchange a cigarette. “Coming to the labyrinth?” he said. Truman nodded. “I see you are leaving us for good,” he said, with genuine regret. The voyage had been a pleasant one so far. “Not all of us,” said Graecen. “Baird and Campion and I, are going to stay with a friend of mine. But we’re coming up to see the labyrinth with you first.”
The Truman couple slipped ashore rather earlier than the others. They had observed Miss Dombey taking the dog ashore in the pinnace — and had decided to have a look round on their own. They went for a walk in the meadow hand in hand, exchanging private jokes and banter. “My,” she said, “it is a lovely place. You’d never think it was an island, would you?” Truman swung himself into an olive tree by his wrists, and hung for a second before dropping back to earth. “I feel fine,” he said. “And you look fine.”
She wore a bright dappled frock of some light summer material, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and shoes with heavy rope soles such as one buys in Spain—espadrilles. She had brought a rucksack and an overcoat, in case the journey proved cold. “I feel fine,” she said, smiling her friendly, innocent smile.
They could hear the shrill barking of Miss Dombey and her dog over the next hillock. Avoiding her they walked along the flat shore by the jetty. The keen air, the blue sky, the meadows sloping away to the foothills splashed with fruit trees — it was overpowering. “Why don’t we just pick a place like this? Stay here for ever and ever?” She was thinking of Campion sitting under an olive tree, drinking a glass of wine and painting with his small hands. Her husband sniffed. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said. “If you learn the language and do the housekeeping.” They passed several low cottages, whence elderly, wrinkled faces peered out at them. Voices greeted them politely, for Greece is the country where the stranger is honoured like a god, and where hospitality is a domestic art. “I wish I knew how to say good day,” she said as they passed. Farther on they came upon rows of coloured fishing-boats drawn up upon a brown seaweed-covered beach. Tattered fishermen sat cross-legged in a wilderness of nets, darning and sifting them. A small boy offered flowers with the compliments of his uncle. Truman took them in his clumsy British way, blushing as he did so; he felt effeminate in his stupid northern way to be holding a bunch of tinted anemones. “Come on,” he said gruffly, handing them to his wife. “What price Whitby?” said his wife irrelevantly, wondering whether they could go for a row in a boat. They gave the urchin a packet of sweets from the ship’s canteen.
Under an olive tree she put down the rucksack to search for a handkerchief. Not finding one she blew her nose in a letter, catching her husband’s disapproving eye as she did so. “I knew it,” he said. “No hanky.” It was one of her most irritating traits. Later, of course, she would demand the nice clean one that protruded from the breast pocket of his smart summer suit. Women were like that.
They sat under an olive tree together arm in arm, and lapsed into silence. Bees hummed. In the middle distance a caravan of hill-ponies moved across towards the wood bearing sacks of charcoal on their backs, driven by men in blue trousers, jackboots and tasselled caps. Behind them the mountains glowed grey below the snowline, and deep green where the rich foothills sent their orchards straggling up them.
Elsie Truman suddenly felt full of the silence. It had been running noiselessly in her mind like an open tap, and now there came an overflowing, a pause. She sighed, and looked at her face in the pocket mirror she had brought. “Look over there,” said Truman, lazily chewing a grass stalk, and trying to remember the name of a single ancient Greek god or goddess. “It’s old Baird.”
Baird sat under a tree upon a cane chair, deep in conversation with one of the chauffeurs. Over the brow of the hill there appeared a dilapidated taxi with a functionary of some kind seated behind the wheel. Baird at last had seen someone who recognized him. He was asking news of his guerilla comrades; it was all at once as if time had been telescoped all together, as if he had only been away a few moments. He felt close to Böcklin, closer than he had ever felt before; and close to the obscure dream that had troubled him for so long. He put his questions eagerly, asking where this one lived now, and whether that one’s wound had healed. There were few of the original band left on the island. The Abbot John, however, was thought to be still up at the monastery. Baird could hardly wait for the party to arrive, so close did he seem to the heart of the mystery. It was as if some deeply-troubling enigma were going to be elucidated.