Bowing deeply to her, he returned to Boneparte and said, 'Mon General, this is Her Highness Princess Sirisha of Bahna." Turning back to her, he added, 'Your Highness, permit me to present Citizen Napoleon Boneparte, General-in-Chief of the Army of Italy and the most renowned soldier of modern times.'
Sirisha smiled, made a slight inclination of her head and extended her hand. Boneparte returned her smile, bowed, took her hand, kissed it, then led her back to the sofa, sat down beside her and began to talk with lively animation. Within a few minutes he had become a different man from the ill-tempered little autocrat who had stepped out of the barge.
Roger gave a discreet cough and said, 'When you wish for supper, you have only to call for it,' bowed again, and slipped out of the salon into the kitchen. Crozier was there with everything arranged on his two-tier wheeled table; cups of jellied ' consommé\ a cold lobster, breast of duck spread with foie gras and garnished with cherries, a cannon made out of pressed marron, half concealed by a smoke cloud of spun sugar, slices of pineapple in Kirsch, late fresh peaches, champagne, Chateau Yquem and old cognac.
After nodding approval of it, Roger glanced at the clock. The hands stood at twenty minutes to nine. He checked it with his turnip watch and, to his consternation, found it right. They must have left Mestre later than he had thought. But Junot should be arriving soon. Cramming his hat on his head, he went out of the back door into the garden. It was now fully dark, and as he made his way across it, he could make out the pieces of statuary only just in time to avoid walking into them. A hundred paces brought him to the far shore of the islet at the back of the casino. For some five minutes he stood there peering out over the inky water, looking in vain for signs of Junot.
There came a sudden sharp pit-a-pat on his hat and shoulders. It had begun to rain. A long roll of distant thunder seemed to run round the great lagoon. The heavy drops fell faster. Another minute and it was sheeting down. All that could previously have been seen of the darkened landscape was blotted out. Even the tops of the cypress were now engulfed in an impenetrable blackness.
With a furious curse, already half drenched, Roger swung about and ran for the house. It looked now as if Fate had led him on only to crush him more certainly at the finish. Finding Sirisha still there, safe and sound, had for the past quarter of an hour led him into a fool's paradise. But the game was not yet played out. In this torrential downpour all the odds were against the French coxswain of Junot's barges finding the island. Yet those of the conspirators might. From boyhood onward, every Venetian fished these waters or traversed them on picnics.
As he staggered through the deluge, he ran slap into a small fountain, tripped on its rim, bashed his shoulder against the figure in its centre and fell sprawling in its basin. Blaspheming, he picked himself up only to find that he had lost his sense of direction. Next moment a vivid streak of lightning gave it to him again. The thunder rumbled, nearer now. The rain came sheeting down as though poured out of some gigantic cistern.
Groping his way forward, he reached the back of the casino. Along it ran a three-foot wide iron canopy with a scalloped edge. Under it, now protected from the cloudburst, he fought to regain his breath. After a moment he saw, within a yard of him, a chink of light. It was coming from a window behind which the curtains had not been completely drawn. His stockinged feet squelched in his shoes as he took a pace sideways, bent down and peered through the inch-wide opening.
He found that he was looking into the salon. By twisting his head a little he could see Boneparte and Sirisha. They were still seated side by side on the sofa, but now had napkins and plates on a low table and had started supper. The Corsican’s face had an expression that Roger had rarely seen on it. His over-wide, incredibly forceful jaw was relaxed, his sensitive mouth was curved in a charming smile, and his big grey eyes were alight with laughter as he waved his fork in the air, evidently demonstrating one of the thrilling stories that he so much enjoyed telling. That the Princess no longer felt the least constraint with him was obvious. As Roger watched, she suddenly threw her head back and very faintly he caught the sound of her delighted laughter.
Roger groaned. What could have been more fortunate than that they should like one another. But they, too, were floating like bubbles in a paradise of fools. Junot should have arrived with the troops a good twenty minutes ago. The fact that he had not showed conclusively that in the storm he must be hopelessly lost. The conspirators were far more likely to find their way through it and land on the island at any moment. It was, too, more probable than not that they would erupt onto the scene without warning. The orderly sergeant had been ordered to stay on guard, so he would not disobey; but he had not been warned to expect an enemy, so he might have taken shelter in the kitchen and be keeping watch through its window. If so, owing to the rain, it was unlikely that he would see anyone approaching until they had actually landed.
Every few moments the lightning made terrifying zigzags, rending the sky and throwing everything up in a flash of blinding brilliance. The thunder no longer rolled but crashed in a series of ear-splitting detonations, as though the heavens were cannonading the earth in an attempt to destroy it. Roger, soaked to the skin, continued to peer between the chink in the curtains. Boneparte was feeding Sirisha with tid-bits of lobster from his fork, when the thing that Roger was dreading happened.
His range of vision did not include the door of the salon, so he did not see it burst open. He saw Boneparte suddenly start, drop his fork, spring to his feet and snatch up the light sword that he had thrown down on a nearby chair; then the room was full of angry shouting people. Unchallenged owing to the downpour, the conspirators had landed on the island and forced their way into the casino. Roger's hand instinctively went to his own sword hilt. If Boneparte meant to fight, the least he could do, having led him into this trap, was to go to his aid. Yet if he did, what hope would the two of them have against the score or more Venetians? It was not muscle but wits that were needed if there was to be any chance of saving the situation. Junot could not be far off. Surely there was some way in which he could be brought to the rescue?
Boneparte had drawn his sword and stood behind the supper table, ready to defend himself. Packed close together, the Venetians enclosed him in a semi-circle. They were a mixed lot. A few were wearing the rich brocaded coats and powdered wigs that the Venetian nobles still went about in as a gesture of contempt for the 'new order'; but most of them looked like prosperous bourgeois, and two wore fishermen's jerseys. A tall man with high cheekbones and thick lips, in the centre of the group, appeared to be haranguing Boneparte. That would be the lawyer Ottoboni. Roger could not see Malderini, so assumed that, according to plan, he was keeping well in the background.
Frantically Roger racked his wits for a way to signal Junot. He had a pistol in his belt so could have fired it, but dismissed the idea at once. With the thunder and the storm h would never be heard at any distance. The storm seemed to be easing slightly. There had been no flash of lightning for several minutes. He wondered now that Junot had not picked up the island by the light of the flashes. Perhaps he had, but lost it again and gone past it in the darkness. It would be easy to miss such a small piece of land when one could hardly see one's hand before one's face.
Light! The inspiration struck Roger's mind like a comet, following his thought of flashes. Turning, he raced along the covered way to the kitchen window. It had no blind and one glance through it told him all he wanted to know. It was occupied only by Crozier who, bent almost double, was peering through the keyhole of the door into the salon. Roger thanked all his gods at finding that he was pitted against amateurs. In a coup such as this, men who knew their work would have surrounded the house before breaking in, then made certain of securing any servants and all the doorways to the place. But Crozier's still being free, showed that the fools had all crowded into the salon.