The trap, then, had double jaws, and we had escaped Constantine only to fall into the hands of his master. It was so like Mouraki. I was so much aghast and yet so little surprised, the fall was so sudden, our defeat so ludicrous, that I believed I smiled, as I turned my eyes from Phroso’s and cast a glance at the Pasha.
‘I might have known it, you know,’ said I, aloud.
[CHAPTER XVIII]
THE UNKNOWN FRIEND
The boat still moved a little from the impulse of my last stroke, and we floated slowly past Mouraki who stood, like some great sea-bird on the rock. To his cynical question—for it revealed shamelessly the use he had meant to make of his tool—I returned no answer. I could smile in amused bitterness but for the moment I could not speak. Phroso sat with downcast eyes, twisting one hand round the other; the Pasha was content to answer my smile with his own. The boat drew past the rock and, as we came round its elbow, I found across our path a larger boat, manned by four of Mouraki’s soldiers, who had laid down their oars and sat rifles in hand. In the coxswain’s place was Demetri. It seemed strange to find him in that company. One of the soldiers took hold of the nose of our boat and turned it round, impelling it towards the beach. A moment later we grated on the shingle, where the Pasha, who had leapt down nimbly from his perch, stood awaiting us. Thoughts had been running rapidly through my brain, wild thoughts of resistance, of a sudden rush, of emptying my revolver haphazard into the other boat, aye, even of assassinating Mouraki with an unexpected shot. All that was folly. I let it go, sprang from the boat, and, giving my hand to Phroso, helped her to land, and led her to a broad smooth ledge of rock, on which she seated herself, still silent, but giving me a look of grief and despair. Then I turned to the Pasha.
‘I think,’ said I, ‘that you’ll have to wait a day or two for Cousin Constantine. I’m told that bodies don’t find their way out so soon as living men.’
‘Ah, I thought that must be it! You threw him down into the pool?’ he asked.
‘No, not I. My friend Kortes.’
‘And Kortes?’