I recognised Will.
“Tubby,” he whispered, coming up to my bunk, “will you come with me?”
I would have gone with Will to the devil, so I made no conditions, but rose and began to put my things on. I only whispered one word—“Ashore?” I felt certain that it was so, because there was nothing else to rise for in this secret fashion, except a practical jest, and Will was the last man in the world to play a practical jest on a brother officer. His aloofness was their principal complaint against him, and but for his fierce temper and remarkable courage he might have been thought young-ladyish, so unlike was he to the ordinary roystering young naval officer of that piping time.
I did not even ask how we were to get ashore, I concluded that Will had seen to that; and I knew that our getting away depended on our not being overheard, so kept silence. Will crept stealthily, I following, to the starboard shrouds of the mizzen. Then he slipped over the side into the mizzen chains, whispering as he went, “Stop in the chains.”
He had, I observed, a coil of rope with him. Nothing happened for a little while. I supposed that there was some boat that he was looking for, and kept as still as a mouse. Apparently he saw nothing, but presently he took a piece of phosphorus out of his pocket and rubbed the sole of his foot. So he told me afterwards, for I only saw a bit of something shining. He chose this part because if the watch came along and peeped over he had only to set his foot down. Directly afterwards I heard a low, muffled sound, and a boat slid almost noiselessly beneath us. Will made fast one end of his rope to the shrouds, and knotted a loop in the rope at a distance as far as he could judge of about five feet from the water, whispering to me to follow if he made a certain signal. The loop was, of course, to enable him to stop if the boat was not all right. We both had our shoes hung round our necks so that we could walk the more silently. I found myself in the high-peaked bow of one of the little boats which all Italians call a barca. The boatmen pulled us to the landing steps very quickly and very quietly. There was a sentry there, but fortunately he was one of the guard who had escorted us to the Governor in the morning. He challenged, Will said something to him, and the man recognised him as the “Vice-Admiral” who had arrived in the Admiral’s barge in the morning. And as his countrymen seldom did important business without some passing of secret messages, he took it that Will bore some such secret communication between the Admiral and the Governor.
The boatman, I observed by the light of the sentry’s wretched lamp—a little flat earthenware vessel with a hole in the top, through which some strands of cotton found their way into the oil—had left his barca and was accompanying us, carrying a mysterious bundle.
We had, of course, put on our shoes in the boat. The man led the way. As soon as we were out of sight of the sentry Will followed close at his heels, and I, who had not the smallest knowledge of what we were to do, unless it were to have a knife put into us in this evil-looking, cut-throat city, kept close to Will, you may be sure. First he led us to a place where we had to climb the city wall, which was not kept too well mended or guarded, on the side towards the Great Harbour. The man went first and drew his bundle up after him by a line which he seemed to have brought for the purpose. We followed, and then went through a very network of narrow, black, winding streets, with great doors every few yards, out of every one of which I expected some one to spring upon us, not very much caring, because after all, I remembered that it was my profession to be killed. At last we crossed a big, open space, and, taking one or two turns more through narrow lanes, came to a great house standing up gaunt and black against the sky, which was clear and starlit, though there was no moon.
As we went along, having no longer any necessity for silence, Will had unfolded his intention to me, and it fairly took away my breath. Indeed, I did not believe that he would put it into execution. But when he came to the great house which was our destination, taking the bundle from the boatman, he unwrapped a stringed instrument, a sort of lute or zither it seemed to me. I waited to see him assemble the passers-by. In Sicily people seem hardly to go to bed all night in the summer. And even more I expected the fortress-like gates of the palace to open and some one to rush out. But nothing of the kind happened. The passers-by smiled, and the gates of the palace remained as sealed as if they never would open until the day of judgment.
Will had, in the meantime, struck up a tinkly little tune—he was evidently familiar with the instrument—with some Italian words which I did not understand, but took to be a serenade. He had a fair voice and played well enough. After a while I let go of the handle of my dirk which I had brought with me and gripped ready to strike. Will went on singing.
As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I made out that the palace under which we stood had the beautiful moresco windows high up on its front which identified it as the palace of the Mont’ alti, concerning which Will had told me—the palace where Donna Rusidda was visiting with her uncle.