So I'm off to the styes afresh.
By early evening, we had calculated, the Batoum should be leaving Turkish territorial waters and entering the Black Sea. Just before six there came the shock of a bitter disappointment. The captain's telegraph clanged, the engines subdued to dead slow, the vessel swung round into the tide and seemed to remain almost stationary for a quarter of an hour. We had expected a last search by the Turkish customs authorities at the outlet of the Bosphorus and surmised that this was the reason for the slackened speed. But a repetition of the whirring and clanking on deck, followed by a loud splash, showed that the anchor was in action again, and that something more important than a mere search was on hand. For two hours longer we remained in the blackness, unenlightened and very anxious. Then, after the usual removal of the boards and the lid, there floated through the tanks a low-voiced "Signor!"
Feodor, candle in hand, was waiting for us. He whispered a warning to make as little noise as possible, because two Turkish officials were on board. Having reconnoitred to make sure that the way to Josef's cabin was clear, he led us there. The delay, it appeared, was because the Turkish merchant had left some clearance papers at Constantinople. He had gone for the capital by automobile, and meanwhile two of the Customs Police would remain on the Batoum. The merchant was expected to return with the missing document next morning, when permission to leave would be given.
We slept in the cabin, and at dawn descended once more to the ship's bowels. We spent five more hours of purgatory in the ballast-tanks. The Batoum remained motionless during three of them, but the last two were enlivened by the swish-swish of displaced water as it passed the flanks of the vessel. Finally we heard for the last time the blessed signal "Signor!"
"Fineesh Turkey," said Feodor, as he smiled and helped us through the manhole. Gone was the Bosphorus, and in its place we saw the leaden waters of the Black Sea. From the port-hole of Josef's cabin we could distinguish many miles west of us the coastline of the country in which White had spent three years of the most dreadful captivity.
Feodor soon left us, for he had to bring other stowaways into the light of day. From every concealed cranny of the vessel men and women, almost as light-hearted as ourselves at deliverance from the Turks, were coming into the open.
One of the stowaways, a passportless woman whom the aged captain was taking with him to Odessa, did not rejoice for some time. As hiding-place for her the ancient had chosen a deep locker in his chart room on the bridge. There she had remained for the past two days.
Now Katrina, the kitchen wench, knew nothing of the captain's lady. That morning, not wishing to send him back to the bunkers, where he had spent the previous day, she thought of the locker as a temporary home for her own particular stowaway—a Turkish deserter with coal-blackened face, untrimmed beard, and decidedly odorous clothes. She dumped the Turk inside the locker, fastened the lid, and ran back to the kitchen.
The Turkish deserter landed with some violence on the captain's lady, and both received a bad fright as they clutched at each other in the darkness. Yet the lid could not be removed from the inside, and the shouts were unheard outside the little room. The air in the unventilated locker grew ever more stuffy and velvety as the two people continued to breathe it. Finally the woman fainted. The Turk, tired out after a long spell of cramped wakefulness in the bunkers and the kitchen, composed himself philosophically and went to sleep.
When the Batoum was beyond the Bosphorus and all danger of a search the captain opened the locker to release his friend. He inserted an arm, and jumped with fright when, instead of a female, he produced a coal-blackened man. The woman revived when taken into the fresh air, but I should imagine that never again will she become a stowaway.