‘Captain Hatsopoulo,’ she said, ‘the Revenge is none other than the Felatrune. Princess Sophia is on board, and little Prince Leonard; the whole hopes of the House of Ægina are there. There is a foul plot against her—this Bill, in fact, which you may have heard of. I can tell you no more. But she must be in Amandos to-morrow—she must! she must! Ah, it is already to-morrow—she must be there this afternoon.’
The ship which had made signals of distress had by now come close into shore, and already the lifeboat was out. They had quickly got a rope out to her, for she was already breaking up, and the work of rescue was going on. Blanche had gone into the house of the coastguard station, for an inward necessity for being near prevented her from going back to the hotel, and she sat by the fire in a room they prepared for her, waiting. In another hour came news that the crew of the vessel had all been saved, but the ship lost. Not long after this she fell into an uneasy doze, and dreamed that the kingdom of Rhodopé was a bright little round thing, like a roulette-marble. She and Sophia had gone out for a walk together, and Sophia had dropped it, and now she and the Princess were hunting for it in the snow. Others were hunting for it, too. Gray, uncanny shapes like wolves trotted incessantly about; some were like Malakopf, some reminded her of Prince Petros, others had terrible whiskers and green eyes; others, again, were more in the semblance of fiends unimaginably horrible, and they all scratched and nosed in the snow for the little bright marble. Then she slept more deeply, and a dreamless slumber succeeded to these uneasy visions.
It was already day when she awoke; the faithful Yanni was stretched out on the floor beside her chair asleep, and it was Captain Hatsopoulo’s entrance that had roused her. She started at once into the full possession of her faculties, and sprang up.
‘Ah! I no longer hear the wind,’ she cried. ‘Well, captain, what is it?’
‘The Revenge has been sighted,’ he said. ‘You can see her out of this window.’
Far out over the waste of tossing water there heaved up and sank again the masts and bulwarks of a steamer. Captain Hatsopoulo took Blanche to where the great telescope stood.
‘Watch her as she rises to a wave,’ he said. ‘There! that is none other than the Felatrune. You can see her colours. The Princess is flying her own flag! God save the Princess!’ he cried.
‘God save her!’ echoed Blanche; ‘and confound the tricks of her enemies!’
The Revenge was steering an easterly course from Corfu, and about ten of the morning she came opposite Mavromáti, still some miles out to sea. They saw her swing this way and that, now labouring low in the trough of the waves, now poised on the top, and for the next hour watched her still nearing them, her masts striking wildly right and left across a space of some ninety degrees, so that it made Blanche feel qualms of nausea only to see her. On shore, opposite the landing stage where she would put in, was drawn up the sledge, ready to start at a moment’s notice; and opposite, on the other side of the harbour, the lifeboat was launched with its crew, in case she could not make the harbour mouth, and was driven ashore. The port of Mavromáti faced almost north, and the gale from the north-west had raised a terrific cross-sea. As she drew nearer, they could see that she had changed her course a point or two northwards, to allow space enough so that she should not be carried against the south pier by the huge billows that swept across the entrance. Already she had slackened steam, and made almost imperceptible way towards them. Then came a minute of awful suspense as she moved close up to the harbour mouth, so perilously near to the wall of broken water which dashed over the end of the south pier that the spray of it hid her for a moment; the next she was beyond the breakers, and safe.
Blanche was already half-way across the harbour to meet her, and before the yacht had come to anchor she was over the side and in Sophia’s arms.