He waddled forward to greet Mannard. There was around the yacht that pandemonium which in the Near East accompanies every public activity. Men swarmed everywhere. Even the yacht carried a vastly larger crew than seemed necessary, there being at least a dozen of them on a boat that three American sailors would have navigated handily. Sailors seemed to fall all over each other in getting ready for departure.
The party of guests was not large. There was a professor from the College. A local politico, the owner of the proposed campsite. A lawyer. The Turkish owner of the yacht glowed visibly as last-minute baskets of food came aboard. He was not paying for them.
Coghlan and Laurie sat at the very stern of the yacht when at last it pulled out and went on up the Golden Horn. There was little privacy, because of the swarming number of the crew, and Coghlan did not try for greater privacy. He looked at the panorama of the city which had been the center of civilization for a thousand years—and now was a rabbit-warren of narrow streets and questionable occupations. Laurie, beside him, watched the unfolding view of minarets and domes and the great white palace which had been the Seraglio, and the soaring pile of Hagia Sophia, and all the beauty of this place, notorious for its beauty for almost two thousand years. There was bright sunshine to add to it, and the flickering of sun-reflections on the water. These things seemed to cast a glamor over everything. But Laurie looked away from it at Coghlan.
“Tommy,” she said, “will you tell me what was in that mysterious message that you wouldn’t tell last night? You said it was about me.”
“It was nothing important,” said Coghlan. “Shall we go up to the pilot-house and see how the yacht’s steered?”
She faced him directly, and smiled.
“Does it occur to you that I’ve known you a long time, Tommy, and I’ve practically studied you, and I can almost read your mind—I hope?”
He moved restlessly.
“When you were ten years old,” she said, “you told me very generously that you would marry me when you grew up. But you insisted ferociously that I shouldn’t tell anybody!”
He muttered something indistinct about kids.
“And you took me to your Senior Prom,” she reminded him, “even if I had to make my father leave Bogota two months early so I’d be around when it was time for you to pass out the invitation. And you were the first boy who ever kissed me,” she added amiably, “and until—well—lately you used to write me very nice letters. You’ve paid attention to me all our lives, Tommy!”
He said:
“Cigarette?”
“No,” she said firmly. “I’m working up to something.”
“No use talking,” he said sourly. “Let’s join the others.”
“Tommy!” she protested. “You’re not nice! And here I am trying to spare you embarrassment!” She grinned at him. “You wouldn’t want my father to ask what your intentions are!”
“I haven’t any,” he said grimly. “If I were only a rich woman’s husband I’d despise myself. If I didn’t, you’d despise me! It wouldn’t work out. And I wouldn’t want to be just your first husband!”
Her eyes grew softer, but she shook her head reproachfully. “Then—how about being a brother to me? You ought to suggest that, if only to be polite.”
Coghlan had known her a long, long time. Her air of comfortable teasing would have fooled people. But Coghlan felt like a heel.
He muttered under his breath. He stood up.
“You know damned well I love you!” he said angrily. “But that’s all! I can’t turn it off, but I can starve it to death! And there’s no use arguing about it! You’ll be leaving soon. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t come near you here! Nobody could be crazier about anybody else than I am about you, but you can’t wear me down. Understand?”
“I wouldn’t want to break your spirit, Tommy,” said Laurie reasonably. “But I’m getting desperate!”
Then she smiled. He growled and strode irritably away. When his back was turned, her smile wavered and broke. And when he looked back at her a little later she was staring out over the water, her back to the others on the yacht. Her hands were tightly clenched.
The yacht steamed on up the Bosphorus. There were the hills on either side, speckled with dwellings which looked trim and picturesque from the water, but would be completely squalid at close view. The sky was deepest azure, and this was the scene of many romantic happenings in years gone by. But the owner of the yacht talked expansively to Mannard in the thickest of Turkish accents. The professor from the American College was deep in discussion with the lawyer on the responsibility of the municipal government for the smell of decaying garbage which made his home nearly uninhabitable. The owner of the site to be inspected spoke only Turkish. That left only Appolonius the Great.
Coghlan brought up the subject of the cryptic and quite incredible message in the Alexiad.
“Ah, it is a mystification,” said Appolonius genially. “It is also, I think, an intended swindle. But Mr. Mannard has spoken to the police. They will inquire into those persons. It would be unprofessional for me to interfere!”
Coghlan said shortly:
“Not if it’s a scheme for a swindle.”
“That,” acknowledged Appolonius, “disturbs me. As you know, I have recently received a large sum from a source that would surprise you, to bribe my people to freedom. I do not like to be associated with downright scoundrels! Therefore I stand aside—lest it be considered that I am a scoundrel too!” Coghlan turned away, considering.
This was not a cheerful day for him. He doggedly would not go back to Laurie. It had cost him a great deal to make the decision he’d made. He wouldn’t change it. There was no use talking to her. Thinking about her made him miserable. He tried, for a time, to put his mind on the matter of 80 Hosain; to imagine some contrivance, possible to the ancients, which would amount to apparatus to produce cold. In Babylonia the ancients had known that a shallow tray, laid upon blankets, would radiate heat away at night and produce a thin layer of ice by morning on a completely windless and cloudless night. The heat went on out to empty space, and the blanket kept more heat from rising out of the earth. But Istanbul was hardly a place of cloudlessness. That wouldn’t work here. The ancients hadn’t understood it, anyhow. He gave it up.
The yacht drew nearer to the shore as the Sea of Marmora expanded from the Bosphorus. It tied up to a rickety wharf, with seemingly innumerable sailors clumsily achieving the landing. Mannard went ashore to inspect the proposed campsite. Sailors carted ashore vast numbers of baskets, folding tables, and the other apparatus for an alfresco luncheon. Coghlan smoked dourly on the yacht’s deck.
Laurie went ashore, and he sat still, feeling as ridiculous as a sulking child. Presently he wandered across the wharf and moved about at random while the lunch was spread out. When the exploring party came back, Coghlan allowed himself to be seated— next to Laurie. She casually ignored their recent discussion and chatted brightly. He sank into abysmal gloom.
The matter of the proposed children’s camp was discussed at length in at least three languages. Luncheon progressed, with sailors acting as waiters and bringing hot dishes from the galley of the yacht. The owner of the land rose and made a florid, perspiring speech in the fond hope of unloading land he could not use, at a fancy price he could. The professor from the American College spoke warmly of Mannard, and threw in a hint or two that his own specialty could use some extra funds. Coghlan saw clearly that everybody in the world was out to get money from Mannard by any possible process, and grimly reiterated to himself his own resolution not to take part in the undignified scramble by trying to marry Laurie.