'Yes.'
'You really are a remarkable creature. Come on.'
Thrusting the dagger into his belt, regardless of the blood which stained it, Theodoros led Marianne out of the cell, taking care to shut the door behind them with the dead man inside. As he turned round, his eye was caught by the recumbent figure of Stephanos, making a light-coloured blue at the foot of the steps, and he eyed his companion in some amazement.
'Have you killed him, too?'
'No – at least, I don't think so. Only stunned him. It was from him I got the knife… He was kicking me… I think he meant to kill me.'
'Good lord, you don't have to apologize! You ought to be congratulated! Your only mistake was in not killing him… but it's a mistake that can soon be remedied.'
'No, Theodoros! Don't kill him! He's – he's – well, I think the captain is fond of him. If we don't manage to escape, he would certainly kill us without mercy…'
The Greek began to laugh silently.
'Aha! It's the beautiful Stephanos?'
'Do you know him?'
Theodoros lifted his shoulders in amused contempt.
'Kouloughis and his fancies are common knowledge all through the islands. But you're right when you say he cares for the little scum. It makes a difference, certainly.'
He was just bending over the inert form, to lift it up, when there was a terrible crash. The vessel shuddered through all her length, and a gaping hole appeared in the hull.
'We've struck!' roared Theodoros. 'A reef, probably. This is our chance!'
A veritable chorus of shouts had broken out above their heads and the ship struck again. There was water coming in. With a strong heave, Theodoros hoisted Stephanos over his shoulder as if he had been a sack of flour, letting his head fall forward on to his chest so that the boy's throat was within reach of the curved blade he had taken from his belt. It was clear that his idea was to force a passage through the pirates by threatening to kill Nicolaos' favourite.
Marianne crawled up the steps after him and peered out. The deck was shrouded in mist through which could be seen the ghostly figures of seamen running to and fro, shouting and waving. No one had any eyes for them.
The clamour was deafening. Theodoros crossed himself, backwards in the Orthodox fashion, with the hand that held the dagger.
'Holy Mother of God!' he breathed. 'It's not a reef. It's another vessel.'
Towering above the polacca's starboard side, visible in the smoky glare of the lanterns burning here and there on the Greek vessel's deck, was what looked like a sheer wall of bristling guns.
Theodoros uttered a muffled shout of joy and dumped his burden on the deck without further ado.
'We're saved!' he muttered softly. 'We're going to climb aboard her.'
He started forward but she held him back, saying anxiously: 'Theodoros, are you mad? You don't know what ship that is. They may be Turks!'
'Turks? A three-decker? No, that's a western ship, Princess. It's only in your part of the world they build these floating fortresses. A ship of the line, that's what she is! Can't even see her yards in this fog – although we stand a fair chance of feeling them!'
The rigging of the two vessels seemed to have become entangled in some way, despite the difference in height, and one way or another there was a good deal of debris falling out of the invisible sky.
'Come on, before we get our brains knocked out!'
Theodoras dragged Marianne through the apocalyptic scene towards the after end of the ship. The pirates were mostly gathered round the place where the polacca had struck, which was fairly far forward, but all the same, the Greek was obliged to knock down two or three who loomed up out of the mist and tried to stand in their way. His great fists could deliver a blow like a hammer.
The light near the stern was much better, mainly on account of the stern lanterns of the other vessel and the tall stern windows which threw an aura of light into the milky fog.
'There's what we want,' said the Greek, who had been looking for something. 'Climb on to my back, put your legs round my waist and hold on tight round my neck. You'd never manage to climb a rope on your own.'
He was already bending to take her up. Close by, no more than arm's length away, a rope was hanging down, its upper end apparently lost in the sky.
'I used to once,' Marianne said, 'but whether I could now…'
'Well, we've no time to try experiments. Jump on and hold tight.'
Marianne obeyed and Theodoros took hold of the rope. He shinned his way up the side of the ship with what seemed incredible ease, as though his burden had weighed nothing at all.
The panic on board the pirate ship had reached its height. There must have been grave damage to the hull and it was clear the vessel was already going down. The shouts of the seamen getting the boats into the water were overridden by the voice of Kouloughis bellowing frantically: 'Stephanos! Stephanos!'
'Let him look on the deck under his feet,' Theodoros muttered. 'He'll soon find his precious Stephanos!'
On board the big three-decker there was also activity, but a disciplined activity. There was a rapid patter of the seamen's bare feet about the deck but, apart from a single voice speaking in a curiously accented Greek to the men on the polacca and a faint background hum of men talking quietly together, there was no noise.
An order came abruptly from the unknown quarterdeck, amplified by the speaking trumpet. The order itself meant nothing to Marianne, yet at the sound of it she started violently and almost let go her hold of her companion.
'Theodoros!' she whispered. 'This ship – she's English.'
He too was startled. It was not good news. The cordial relations which had existed recently between Britain and the Porte was enough to make her the natural enemy of the rebel Greeks. If he were known, Theodoros would be handed over to the Sultan just as readily as by Kouloughis. The only difference would be that the operation would not cost the Sultan a penny, thus effecting a considerable saving.
The entry-port for which they were making was not far off now. Theodoros paused for an instant in his climbing.
'You are French,' he whispered. 'What will happen if they find out who you are?'
'I'll be arrested, imprisoned. Already, only a few weeks ago, an English squadron attacked the vessel I was travelling in, to capture me.'
'Then they must not know. There's one person at least on board who speaks Greek – I'll say that you're my sister, deaf and dumb, and we were taken by Kouloughis in a raid and ask for asylum. In any case, we've no choice. When you're escaping out of hell, Princess, you don't stop to worry if your horse is running away with you!'
He resumed his climb and a few seconds later the two of them tumbled on to the deck of the English vessel, at the feet of an officer who was strolling along by the side of a man in an impeccable white suit, as tranquilly as though they were enjoying an agreeable cruise. Neither of them showed any undue surprise at the sudden appearance of two dirty, unkempt foreigners. Their reaction was more of faint displeasure, as if something rather improper had occurred.
'Who are you?' the officer demanded sternly. 'What are you doing here?'
Theodoros launched into a long and eloquent explanation while Marianne, suddenly oblivious of her peril, stared about her in amazement. She was conscious of an indefinable sensation, as if the England of her childhood had risen up before her all at once, and she was breathing it in with a totally unexpected delight. Everything, the two beautifully dressed men, both as neat as new pins, the spotlessly holystoned deck, the gleaming brasswork, it all seemed extraordinarily familiar. Even the face of the officer (who, judging by the amount of gold lace he wore, must be the captain), with grizzled side-whiskers half-concealed by the shadow of his great cocked hat, was oddly like a face she knew already.