Command Part 24

"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 pa.s.sage? 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 _enlevement_. Ha! What a wooden-headed b.o.o.by 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 circ.u.mstances remembered to send her any support, he was romantic in his ideas concerning _enlevements_. 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. "n.o.body on the s.h.i.+p, 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, a.s.sisted 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 c.o.c.k'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 gla.s.s, 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 _enlevement_, the door behind him opened and shut with some noise, and Evanthia Solaris, b.u.t.toning 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 b.u.t.toning 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 s.h.i.+ning destiny, her delicate body sheathed in the supple and impenetrable armour of an inherited fort.i.tude. 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 a.s.sent. 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.