The ninepounder forward gave its sharp bang—some powder boy must have run fast below to bring up the onepound saluting charges—and a puff of smoke, followed by a report, showed that the Turkish ship was replying. She had goosewinged her main topsail—another outlandish sight in these circumstances—and was slowly coming into the Bay towards them.
“Mr. Turner! Come here please, to interpret. Mr. Jones, send some hands to the capstan, if you please. Take in on the spring if necessary so that the guns bear.”
The Turkish ship glided on.
“Hail her,” said Hornblower to Turner.
A shout came back from her.
“She’s the Mejidieh, sir,” reported Turner. “I’ve seen her before.”
“Tell her to keep her distance.”
Turner hailed through his speaking trumpet, but the Mejidieh still came on.
“Tell her to keep off. Mr. Jones! Take in on the spring. Stand by at the guns, there!”
Closer and closer came the Mejidieh, and as she did so the Atropos swung round, keeping her guns pointed at her. Hornblower picked up the speaking trumpet.
“Keep off, or I’ll fire into you!”
She altered course almost imperceptibly and glided by, close enough for Hornblower to see the faces that lined the side, faces with moustaches and faces with beards; mahoganycoloured faces, almost chocolate-coloured faces. Hornblower watched her go by. She roundedto, with the goosewinged main topsail closehauled, held her new course for a few seconds, and then took in her sail, came to the wind and anchored, a quarter of a mile away. The excitement of action ebbed away in Hornblower, and the old depression returned. A buzz of talk went up from the men clustered at the guns—it was quite irrepressible by now, with this remarkable new arrival.
“The lateener’s heading this way, sir,” reported Horrocks.
From the promptitude with which she appeared she must have been awaiting the Mejidieh’s arrival. Hornblower saw her pass close under the Mejidieh’s stern; he could almost hear the words that she exchanged with the ship, and then she came briskly up close alongside the Atropos. There in the stern was the whitebearded Mudir, hailing them.
“He wants to come on board, sir,” reported Turner.
“Let him come,” said Hornblower. “Unlace that netting just enough for him to get through.”
Down in the cabin the Mudir looked just the same as before. His lean face was as impassive as ever; at least he showed no signs of triumph He could play a winning game like a gentleman; Hornblower, without a single trump card in his hand, was determined to show that he could play a losing game like a gentleman, too.
“Explain to him,” he said to Turner, “that I regret there is no coffee to offer him. No fires when the ship’s cleared for action.”
The Mudir was gracious about the absence of coffee, as he indicated by a gesture. There was a polite interchange of compliments which Turner hardly troubled to translate, before he approached the business in hand.
“He says the Vali is in Marmorice with his army,” reported Turner. “He says the forts at the mouth are manned and the guns loaded.”
“Tell him I know that.”
“He says that ship’s the Mejidieh, sir, with fiftysix guns and a thousand men.”
“Tell him I know that too.”
The Mudir stroked his beard before taking the next step.
“He says the Vali was very angry when he heard we’d been taking treasure from the bottom of the Bay.”
“Tell him it is British treasure.”
“He says it was lying in the Sultan’s waters, and all wrecks belong to the Sultan.”
In England all wrecks belonged to the King.
“Tell him the Sultan and King George are friends.”
The Mudir’s reply to that was lengthy.
“No good, sir,” said Turner. “He says Turkey’s at peace with France now and so is neutral. He said—he said that we have no more rights here than if we were Neapolitans, sir.”
There could not be any greater expression of contempt anywhere in the Levant.
“Ask him if he has ever seen a Neapolitan with guns run out and matches burning.”
It was a losing game that Hornblower was playing, but he was not going to throw in his cards and yield all the tricks without a struggle, even though he could see no possibility of winning even one. The Mudir stroked his beard again; with his expressionless eyes he looked straight at Hornblower, and straight through him, as he spoke.
“He must have been watching everything through a telescope from shore, sir,” commented Turner, “or it may have been those fishing boats. At any rate, he knows about the gold and the silver, and it’s my belief, sir, that they’ve known there was treasure in the wreck for years. That secret wasn’t as well kept as they thought it was in London.”
“I can draw my own conclusions, Mr. Turner, thank you.”
Whatever the Mudir knew or guessed, Hornblower was not going to admit anything.
“Tell him we have been delighted with the pleasure of his company.”
The Mudir, when that was translated to him, allowed a flicker of a change of expression to pass over his face. But when he spoke it was with the same flatness of tone.
“He says that if we hand over all we have recovered so far the Vali will allow us to remain here and keep whatever else we find,” reported Turner.
Turner displayed some small concern as he translated, but yet in his old man’s face the most noticeable expression was one of curiosity; he bore no responsibility, and he could allow himself the luxury—the pleasure—of wondering how his captain was going to receive this demand. Even in that horrid moment Hornblower found himself remembering Rochefoucauld’s cynical epigram about the pleasure we derive from the contemplation of our friends’ troubles.
“Tell him,” said Hornblower, “that my master King George will be angry when he hears that such a thing has been said to me, his servant, and that his friend the Sultan will be angry when he hears what his servant has said.”
But the Mudir was unmoved by any suggestion of international complications. It would take a long, long time for a complaint to travel from Marmorice to London and then back to Constantinople. And Hornblower could guess that a very small proportion of a quarter of a million sterling, laid out in the proper quarter, would buy the support of the Vizier for the Vali. The Mudir’s face was quite unrelenting—a frightened child might have a nightmare about a face as heartless as that.
“Damn it,” said Hornblower, “I won’t do it.”
There was nothing he wanted more in this world than to break through the iron serenity of the Mudir.
“Tell him,” said Hornblower, “I’ll drop the gold back into the Bay sooner than hand it over. By God, I will. I’ll drop it down to the bottom and they can fish for it themselves, which they can’t do. Tell him I swear that, by—by the Koran or the beard of the Prophet, or whatever they swear by.”
Turner nodded in surprised approval; that was a move he had not thought of, and he addressed himself eagerly to the task of translation. The Mudir listened with his eternal patience.
“No, it’s no good, sir,” said Turner, after the Mudir had replied. “You can’t frighten him that way. He says—”
Turner was interrupted by a fresh sentence from the Mudir.
“He says that after this ship has been seized the idolaters—that’s the Ceylonese divers, sir—will work for him just as they work for us.”