But the noise of the fugitives scrambling on board the caique and the hoisting of the little boat brought round them a shower of bullets, the splash of which was heard above the rain. One of these broke a jar of wine, and every man aboard bent to the long oars, driving the perfumed caique deeper into the darkness.
"I had a funny time getting this caique," Yanni explained, when, with some difficulty, he had been dissuaded from firing his late captain's revolver at the country of Bulgaria, by this time at least two miles away. "I didn't have no difficulty to get across, but I had to walk half-way to Cavalla before I found the old fish-man who owns this caique. I told him two British peoples wanted him and he says, 'Are them Mr. B.'s fellows for Cavalla?' I didn't know who Mr. B. was, anyway, so I says, 'Sure, they're Mr. B.'s fellows,' but when we got off at dusk, he says his orders was for Porto Lagos and to let go the little boat when he could hear a bird calling. He didn't give a dern for no matches. Wal, Mr. B.'s fellows didn't answer from round about Lagos, and he said bad words, and how it was three days too soon, and who in hell did I think I was, anyway, telling him Mr. B.'s fellows was waiting? So I told him there was a mistake somewheres, and asked him what about taking you Thaso for twenty dollars. We talked for a bit and he said, 'Yes.' Now we got to make him go Samothraki."
At this point the captain of the caique, a brown and shriveled old man seeming all the more shriveled in the full-seated breeches of the Greek islander, joined them below for an argument with Yanni that sounded more than usually acrimonious and voluble. When it was finished, the captain had agreed, subject to a windy moonrise, to land them at Samothraki on payment of another ten pounds in gold. They went on deck and sat astern, for the rain was over now. A slim, rusty moon was creeping out of the sea and conjuring from the darkness forward the shadowy bulk of Thasos; presently, with isolated puffs that frilled the surface of the water like the wings of alighting birds, the wind began to blow; the long oars were shipped, and the crew set the curved mainsail that crouched in a defiant bow against whatever onslaught might prepare itself; from every mountain gorge in Thrace the northern blasts rushed down with life for the stagnant sea, and life for the dull, decrescent moon, which in a spray of stars they drove glittering up the sky.
"How gloriously everything hums and gurgles!" Sylvia shouted in Michael's ear. "When shall we get to Samothrace?"
He shrugged his shoulders and leaned over to Yanni, who told them that it might be about midday if the wind held like this.
For all Sylvia's exultation, the vision of enchanted space that seemed to forbid sleep on such a night soon faded from her consciousness, and she did not rouse herself from dreams until dawn was scattering its roses and violets to the wind.
"I simply can't shave," Michael declared, "but Samothrace is in sight."
The sun was rising in a fume of spindrift and fine gold when Sylvia scrambled forward into the bows. Huddled upon a coil of wet rope, she first saw Samothrace faintly relucent like an uncut sapphire, where already it towered upon the horizon, though there might be thirty thundering miles between.
"I'm glad we ended our adventure with this glorious sea race," shouted Michael, who had joined her in the bows. "Are you feeling quite all right?"
She nodded indignantly.