At seven o'clock they met again at a small restaurant outside which she had parked the car. The boot and back now contained a folding camp bed, mattress, sleeping bag and pillow, a folding chair, primus stove with a supply of methylated spirit and paraffin, about twenty yards of dark stuff to serve as black-out material, a hammer and tacks, two torches, a packet of candles, a tin bucket, a broom, two jerry cans to hold water, two towels, a saucepan, an enamel mug, three bottles of wine, coffee, sugar, oranges and biscuits.
When she had given him a list of her purchases, she added: 'With the other things you have in your suitcase, you should be all right. We can fill the jerry cans at one of the public fountains; with the water from one, you can wash in the bucket, and with some from the other boil yourself up a mug of coffee on the primus in the mornings.'
Robbie smiled across at her. 'You really are a marvel. You think of everything.'
She smiled back at him. 'I think I told you when you took me on in Athens that I rather prided myself on looking after people; but I never expected to have to do this sort of thing. I only hope now that Vaclav falls for the bait I offered him in my letter.'
After they had eaten, they sat on over coffee and liqueurs until it was fully dark. At the Morosini Fountain Robbie filled toe jerry cans, then Stephanie drove him to within a hundred yards of his hotel. A quarter of an hour later, he had paid his bill and rejoined her with his suitcase. They had some difficulty in finding the cul-de-sac behind the little house; but at length they identified it, pulled up and switched off the car lights. There was by then sufficient star-light for them to find their way over the rubble and, in half a dozen journeys, they transported all the things they had brought.
On exploring the house further, they found the upper floor much clearer of fallen plaster and debris than the lower. There was the point too, that, should children play among the rubble and chance to enter the house, they were less likely to go upstairs than just look into the sitting room; so it was decided that Robbie should occupy the bedroom. While he swept the floor, Stephanie nailed the black-out material along the tops of the windows so that it would hang down over them at night, but could be rolled up so as not to show through the broken panes in the daytime.
When they had fixed everything, the agreed to meet next day at ten o'clock at the same place as they had met that morning. Since Stephanie could not expect to hear from Barak until the following evening at the earliest, she was anxious to keep Robbie's thoughts occupied; so she proposed that they should fill in the day by an expedition across the island to Phaestos, the other great centre of Minoan civilization, near the south coast. As it was advisable for Robbie to be seen as little as possible about the town, in case the police in Rhodes had asked their colleagues to try and trace Max Thevanaz, he agreed that her suggestion was a sound one. They then parted for the night.
Next morning they drove right round the outside of the great Venetian ramparts which still surrounded the city, to get on to the road leading west along the coast. After a few kilometres it turned south, inland, and ran through a valley rich in vineyards with, between the vines, such masses of oxalis that their flowers formed a bright yellow carpet. Gradually the road mounted, in a series of zigzags, until in front they had an excellent view of Mount Ida.
It was in Crete that Zeus had been brought up in secret to save him from his father, Cronos, and it was said that, as a memorial to this, he had reshaped the mountain as a portrait of himself. Seen from the south, its outline certainly looked like the profile of an enormous head of splendid proportions lying on a pillow, with brow, nose and chin all sharply defined.
By half-past-eleven they had come down through the pass and reached the village of Ayioi Dheka, in the vicinity of which had lain Gortyne, the capital of the island during the centuries of occupation by the Romans. According to a pamphlet which Stephanie had acquired, there were a number of interesting remains there on both sides of the road; so, on seeing a ruin through the trees on their left, they pulled up, got out of the car and went over to inspect it.
The country there consisted mainly of small orchards, separated by low, crumbling walls largely composed of blocks of hewn stone, obviously from ancient buildings. Sightseers were so infrequent that there were no sign-boards or even tracks, and the foliage of the fruit trees made it difficut to see far in any direction. The ruin they had seen proved to be only a fifteen-foot-high section of a thick, brick wall but, during twenty minutes of scrambling about, they found the foundations of what must have been an enormous temple, and the ruins of the Roman Governor's palace. The remains of an Egyptian temple were also said to be there, but they could not locate them; so they returned to the car and drove on for a quarter of a mile, till they came to a large ruin on the right of the road.
This, they learned from the pamphlet, was the oldest Christian church in Crete, and had been built by St. Titus. Beyond it lay a Greek theatre, in which St. Paul had preached, and a wall inscribed with the 'Law of Gortyne' which was of special interest because it was the first Code of Laws formulated in Europe, and the work of Greeks living in the second century b.c.
Having walked round the church, they followed a path to the other ruins. The theatre was quite small, with only about twenty-five semi-circular rows of seats, in good preservation and quite charming. Unlike the other ruins they had just visited, it was not entirely deserted. Two men were sitting smoking cigarettes on the edge of the slightly raised stage from which St. Paul had preached. They exchanged nods and smiles with Robbie and Stephanie who, the moment they had passed them gave one another a swift glance. The two men were talking in Czech and one of them had said:
'It went more quickly than one would have expected; but I'm glad the job is finished and we'll soon be home.'
Robbie could hardly control himself for excitement. Czech visitors were so rare in Crete that he felt it highly probable that these were some of Barak's people. What the man had said tended to confirm that. It suggested that the Bratislava had, after all, landed a group in Crete.
Stephanie had jumped to the same conclusion. In order to overhear more of the conversation, she halted to examine an inscription carved on the back of one of the seats in the front row. They heard the other man reply:
'I don't agree. I'm glad to have had the chance to see some of these old places. I only wish we had longer, so that I could visit more of them.'
For once, Robbie took the lead. To have remained where they were would have looked as if they were deliberately listening to the Czech's conversation. But, instead of walking on, he took Stephanie's elbow and guided her up the steep staircase made by the rows of seats. When they reached the top they appeared to be out of earshot but, owing to the admirable acoustics in Greek theatres, they could still hear perfectly every word spoken by the two men sitting on the stage.
As they were making their way up, the first speaker had said: 'It's all very well for you, Frantisek; you are a bachelor.'
'What of it?' the second replied. 'I'd have thought you'd be glad of the chance to get away for a bit from your wife and kids.'
Their conversation then continued:
'Well, it's a change; but I prefer ordinary jobs and the sort of food I'm used to. I resent having my life upset by the Bosses.'
'My dear Viliam, I hope you will not be fool enough to show it. Far better pretend that, like myself, you are glad to have been one of those selected to be sent here for this work.'
'Anyhow, they can have no complaints. We have made a good job of it.'
'True. All the same, I wonder if all the labour and material we have expended could not have been saved.'