Hastily snuffing out the candles, she went to the window and leaned out. Down below, in the dense shade of the waterfront, it seemed to her that she could distinguish a human form, but she wasted no time on idle speculation. If she wanted to escape, there was no time to waste. She tiptoed to the door and laid her ear against it. There was not a sound to be heard from the ship, except for the faint creaking of her timbers as she rode at anchor. Even the sentries outside her door were silent.
Moving as silently as she could herself, Marianne fastened the rope's end securely to the leg of her bed. Then she hoisted herself through the window, an operation of some delicacy since it was not very large, and immediately felt the rope held taut by some invisible hand. Slowly, she began the descent, taking care not to look down at the gaping blackness beneath and groping for toe-holds on the vessel's side. Fortunately, none of the windows in the lower decks were open. All the officers except those of the watch must be ashore, enjoying their one night of leave.
The descent was one interminable horror. The rope soon burned her hands raw. Then, at last, she felt arms round her, holding her.
'Let go of the rope,' said Theodoros' voice. 'You've arrived.'
She obeyed and dropped into the bottom of the small boat where he had been waiting for her, and groped in the darkness for his hand. She saw his giant shape loom over her and, at the knowledge that she was free, miraculously, from her floating prison, she was suddenly overflowing with speechless gratitude, struggling at the same time to get her breath and to find the words to tell him what she felt.
'I thought you were far away,' she whispered, 'and now you are here. You came to save me! Oh, thank you… thank you… But how did you guess? How did you know?'
'I didn't guess. I saw. I'd just left the boat when the tall, fair Englishman arrived, and I hid on a lighter close by, among a load of timber, to see what I should do. I had a view of what was happening on deck there and when the soldiers took you away, I knew something was wrong. Have they found out who you are?'
'Yes. Cockerell and Foster went to complain and they gave a description of me.'
'I ought to have killed him,' Theodoros muttered, listen, we can't stay here. We've got to get away, fast.'
He unshipped the oars and, softly fending off the perama, began rowing for open water.
'I'm going to row us round Galata point and land by the mosque of Kilij Ali. It's a quiet spot, and not far from the French embassy.'
He was bending vigorously to the oars when Marianne laid a hand on his arm. Not far away, the dark outline of the brig rose out of the black waters. There was only one riding light and from the forecastle a faint, fugitive gleam, but that was all.
'That's where I want to go,' Marianne said.
'There? To that ship? Are you mad? Why there?'
'Because it belongs to a friend – a very dear friend whom I had thought lost. It's the same one on board which the mutiny nearly cost me my life. But I must go.'
'And how do you know it's not still in the hands of the mutineers? Do you really want to reach this city, or only to add to your troubles? Haven't you had enough danger?'
'If it were still in their hands, then it would not be here. The man who stole it didn't want to come to Constantinople. Oh, please, Theodoros! Take me to that ship! It matters dreadfully to me! It's the thing that matters most in all the world because I thought that I should never see him again.'
She was strung taut, like a bowstring, striving with all her might to persuade him. Finally, in a low, breathless voice, as though she were ashamed after all that he had done, she said:
'If you won't take me, I'll go all the same. I'll swim. It's not very far.'
There was silence while the Greek sat with bowed head, thinking, and the little boat drifted gently with no pull at the oars. After a moment he said:
'Is he – the man you call Jason?'
'Yes.'
'Very well. If that is so, then I will take you, and God help us!'
He resumed his work at the oars and the perama began to slide again, silkily, through the water. Very soon, they were in the shadow of the Witch and her steep sides loomed above them. Here, too, there was no sound. Theodoros shipped the oars, frowning.
'It's as if there's no one aboard.'
'There must be! Jason would never leave his ship at night in a strange port. She isn't even berthed… And listen! I think I can hear voices.'
There was, in fact, a murmur of voices from the bows. Forgetting everything in her impatience, Marianne stood up and began groping with her hands along the side of the ship, looking for something to climb.
'Sit still!' the Greek grunted. Like a cat, he seemed as well able to see as in broad daylight. 'There's a companion ladder farther on… You'll have us over!'
He edged the perama gently along the hull, but when Marianne tried to catch hold of the ladder, he stopped her.
'Stay where you are. I don't like the look of this. There's something odd about it and I didn't get you away from the English just to let you walk into another trap. You wait here. I'm going up.'
'No! I can't!' Marianne broke out wildly, no longer able to contain her impatience. 'I've waited days and days for this moment when I could set foot on that ship again, and now you want me to stay here in the boat and wait? Wait for what? Everything I want is there, a few feet away! You must see I can't bear it any longer!'
Seeing that no power on earth could restrain her, Theodoros gave in with a bad grace.
'All right, come on then, but try not to make a noise. I may be wrong, but I think they're speaking Turkish.'
In turn, they swarmed noiselessly up the ladder and dropped on to the empty deck. Marianne's heart was thudding so that she could hardly breathe. Everything looked just the same, and yet somehow different. The deck had lost its impeccable whiteness. Odd things seemed to be lying about there; the brass was dull and sheets hung loose, swaying slightly in the night wind. Then there was the silence…
She could not explain the apparently deserted condition of the vessel. Someone must surely come… a seaman… the lieutenant, Craig O'Flaherty… or perhaps her old friend Arcadius, whom she missed in his absence almost as much as Jason himself. But no. There was no one. Nothing but that glimmer of light forward. It was towards this that Theodoros was now moving cautiously, one step at a time, only to draw back swiftly into the shelter of the mainmast as two men, carrying long-muzzled guns, came out of the forecastle hatch. Marianne and her companion knew at once what they were, from their red and blue garments, their tall felt hats with the spoon for rice stuck in it, their gleaming weapons and the warlike air. They were janissaries.
'They are guarding the ship,' whispered Theodoros. 'That means there is no crew on board.'
'Maybe, but that isn't to say the captain isn't here either. Let me go and look.'
Unable to endure the uncertainty a moment longer, gripped by a fear she could not have described, and by the same sense of something amiss which had struck Theodores earlier, she glided like a shadow past the deckhouse, its door swinging crazily off its hinges, and reached the poop and climbed up, taking care to avoid the faint beam from the single stern light.
Eagerly she sprang towards the door that led into the after-cabin and the captain's own sleeping cabin, but there she pulled up short, staring in bewilderment at the boarded-up doorway and, on the planks nailed across it, the great seals of red wax, like drops of blood.