"She'll intrigue you out of everything you know, if you're not careful," Nikka warned me.
"Remember what she did to Watty," cautioned Hugh.
"The 'ussey!" grunted Watkins, who could never bear to hear her mentioned.
Hugh predicted that we would yet meet her on board, but a diligent search of the vessel failed to reveal anyone, in or out of trousers, who remotely resembled her, and we took account of several blonde northern peasants in our canvass. Also, whoever she had delegated to watch us kept themselves severely in the background. We were not conscious of any espionage.
At Piræus we had a choice of several steamers sailing for Constantinople, none of them Greek, however, as Greece was at war with the Kemalist government which had been set up in Anatolia. Nikka pitched upon a French boat that lay across the wharf from a Greek liner plying to Salonika and the Greek islands of the Ægean. The Frenchman was sailing at dawn the next morning; the Salonika boat was due to cast off several hours later.
We booked two cabins on the Frenchman, and hired a clerk at the British consulate to reserve a cabin and passage for two on the Salonika boat. This arrangement made, we mustered our scanty baggage, and boarded the Frenchman just before dinnertime. We dined together ostentatiously in the saloon, having publicly concluded a treaty with the purser that we might spend the night on board and so avoid the inconvenience of an early morning start. And after dinner, with many yawns and protestations of weariness, we betook ourselves to bed.
Our cabins were next to each other, and as a matter of fact, we played poker until long past midnight. Then Nikka and I said good-by to Hugh and Watty, and sneaked out into the companionway. Several sleepy stewards eyed us, but there were no passengers about. The quartermaster on guard at the gangway we handed a Napoleon, telling him we were obliged to land in order to dispose of some forgotten business. The watchman on the pier was conciliated in the same way. And finally, the deck-guard of the Greek liner, once his fingers were greased and our tickets shown to him, offered no objection to escorting us to our cabin.
At dawn we were awakened by the whistling of the Frenchman as he backed out from the pier, and from a porthole we watched him disappear in the mist of the harbor. At noon the Epaminondas likewise cast off, and Nikka and I thankfully abandoned our battles with the cockroaches that fought with us for possession of the bunks, and ascended to the deck.
Nikka sniffed the air as we stepped from the saloon companionway.
"It's good to be out of that stink below," I remarked with feeling.