"Look natural," he whispered. "There's no time to duck."
I picked up a plank of wood and tried to appear as if my business were carpentry; for over there, four yards away, a fez was rising slowly above the glazed portion of the window. White performed convincingly with a tape-measure, the nearest thing to his hand.
The fez was the forerunner of a much-wrinkled forehead. Then came a pair of villainous eyes, a bent nose, and cheek-bones with light olive skin drawn tightly across them. The rest of the face remained hidden by the glaze. The Turk—for such he evidently was—have levered himself from the ground by means of the window-ledge.
"Don't take any notice of the swine," White murmured.
Outwardly calm, but inwardly nervous and shaking, I pretended to busy myself with the carpenter's tools, although it was difficult to withstand a shocked instinct to gaze at the Face. It remained for about two minutes of heart-throbbing tension, then disappeared, and left me gasping with the surprise and the shock of its visit. We heard somebody walking away from the building and down the hill toward Galata.
The Face might have belonged to a police spy, we speculated, but it might have been that of a casual passer-by who was indulging the curiosity in respect of other people's business which is common to most Turks. In that case no harm would be done, for the stranger had seen nothing suspicious—only a workshop, some tools and planks, a loaf of bread and a half melon on the table, and two coatless, collarless, unshaven, untidy-haired men who seemed to be working.
The carpenter showed fright on being told that a Turk had looked in at us, and said he must consult Titoff. Before he returned on the following morning the Face had again appeared, as before—first a fez rising slowly above the glazed pane, then a wrinkled forehead, then the villainous eyes and the crooked nose. It remained staring for a few seconds, and disappeared.
This time the Russian could contain neither his fear nor his impatience to get us out of the workshop. If we were caught, said he, it would only mean imprisonment for us; but him the Turks might hang as a spy. He told us to pack our belongings, while he went to the Batoum and arranged with Titoff for us to be taken on board.
An hour later a procession of three passed through the winding streets toward the quay. We left the workshop in turn, at intervals of a few seconds, for we had decided to walk separately, so that if one of us were stopped the others could make themselves scarce.
First went the carpenter, leading the way down the hill to Galata. I followed twenty yards behind him, still dressed as a Russian sailor; and about twenty yards behind me came White, in his fez and old overcoat. We scarcely looked at each other, but mooched along different sections of the road. Each was ready, at a second's warning, to dash down the nearest alley.