Mouraki’s sneers and jocularity had no power in themselves to anger me. Indeed I felt myself cool and calm, ready to bandy retorts and banter with him. But there was another characteristic of his conversation on which my mind fastened, finding in it matter for thought: this was his barefaced frankness. Plainly he told me that he had employed Constantine to assassinate me, plainly he exposed to me the trick by which he had obtained a handle against me. Now to whom, if to any one, does a man like Mouraki Pasha reveal such things as these? Why to men, and only to men, who will tell no tales. And there is a proverb which hints that only one class of men tells no tales. That was why I attached significance to the Governor’s frankness.
I believe the man followed my thoughts with his wonderfully acute intelligence and his power of penetrating the minds of others; for he smiled again as he said:
‘I don’t mind being frank with you, my dear Wheatley. I’m sure you won’t use the little admissions I may seem to make against me. How grieved you must be for your poor friend Kortes!’
‘We’ve both lost a friend this morning, Pasha.
‘Constantine? Ah, yes. Still—he’s as well where he is, just as well where he is.’
‘He won’t be able to use your little admissions either?’
‘How you catch my meaning, my dear lord! It’s a pleasure to talk to you.’ But he turned suddenly from me and called to his men. Three came up at once. ‘This gentleman,’ he said, indicating me, and speaking now in sharp authoritative tones, ‘is in your custody for the the present. Don’t let him move.’
I seated myself on a rock; the three men stood round me. The Pasha bowed slightly, walked down to where Phroso sat, and began to speak with her. So, at least, I supposed, but I did not hear anything that he said. His back was towards me, and he hid Phroso from my view. I took out my flask and had a pull at my brandy-and-water; it was a poor breakfast, but I was offered no other.
Up to this time the fourth soldier and Demetri had remained in the boat. They now landed and hauled their boat up on to the beach; then they turned to the smaller boat which the Pasha had provided in malicious sport for our more complete mortification. The soldier laid hold of its stern and prepared to haul it also out of the water; but Demetri said something—what I could not hear—and shrugged his shoulders. The soldier nodded in apparent assent, and they left the boat where it was, merely attaching it by a rope to the other. Then they walked to the rocks and sat down at a little distance from where I was, Demetri taking a hunch of bread and a large knife from his pocket and beginning to cut and munch. I looked at him, but he refused to meet my eye and glanced in every direction except at me.