The result of his calculations was that he had at least ten days before him, and that as he was not at all bored by the little Tartar lady in blue serge, it was quite useless to put her ashore at Carterets and take her to Paris by that way. The idea of spending eight or nine hours alone in a hot and dirty railway carriage, while she and her maid passed the night in another compartment, was extremely dreary; and besides, he had not at all made up his mind what to do with her, and it would probably end in his taking her to his own house. Margaret [{271}] would have some right to resent that; but as for the trip in the yacht, she need never know anything about it. The girl was really as safe with him as any girl could be with her own brother, and so long as no one knew that she was with him, nothing else mattered. Furthermore, he was good enough to be convinced that if she were let loose in Europe by herself, with plenty of money, boundless courage, and such a clever courier as Spiro seemed to be, she would certainly find Kralinsky at last and murder him, regardless of having sworn by the inviolable water of the Styx. Lastly, he saw that she was at present in that state of Asiatic peace in which it was perfectly indifferent to her what happened, provided that she were not disturbed.
He rose quietly and went aft. Though she was awake she scarcely noticed that he had left her, and merely opened and shut her eyes twice, like the happy cat already spoken of. She was not aware that the yacht changed her course again, though it was pleasant not to have the reflexion from the sea in her eyes any longer; if Logotheti had told her that he was heading to seaward of Ushant instead of for Jersey and Carterets, she would not have understood, nor cared if she had, and would have been annoyed at being disturbed by the sound of his voice.
It was pure bliss to lie there without a want, a thought, or a memory. An imaginative European might fancy that she had waking dreams and visions in the summer air; that she saw again the small white town, the foot-hills, the broad pastures below, the vastness of Altai [{272}] above, the uncounted flocks, the distant moving herds, the evening sunlight on the walls of her father's house; or that she lived over again those mortal hours of imprisonment in the rocky hollow, and looked into the steel-bright eyes of the man who would not love her and saw the tall figure of Saäd already dead, bending forward from the ledge and pitching headlong to the sand.
Not at all. She saw none of these things. She was quiescently blissful; the mysterious Kêf was on her, and the world stood still in the lazy enchantment—the yacht was not moving, the sun was not sinking westwards, her pulse was not beating, she was scarcely breathing, in her own self she was the very self of peace, motionless in an immeasurable stillness.
When the sky reddened at evening Logotheti was again in his chair, reading. She heard six bells struck softly, the first sound she had noticed in four hours, and she did not know what they meant; perhaps it was six o'clock alla Franca, as she would have called it; no one could understand European time, which was one in Constantinople, another in Paris, and another in England. Besides, it made no difference what time it was; but Kêf was departing from her—was gone already, and the world was moving again—not at all in an unpleasant or disturbing way, but moving nevertheless.
'When shall we reach that place?' she asked lazily, and she turned her face to Logotheti.
'Allah knows,' he answered gravely, and he laid his book on his knees.
She had been so well used to hearing that answer to [{273}] all sorts of questions since she had been a child that she thought nothing of it, and waited awhile before speaking again. Her eyes studied the man's face almost unconsciously. He now wore a fez instead of a yachting cap, and it changed his expression. He no longer looked in the least like a European. The handsome red felt glowed like blood in the evening light, and the long black silk tassel hung backwards with a dashing air. There was something about him that reminded Baraka of Saäd, and Saäd had been a handsome man, even in her eyes, until the traveller had come to her father's house with his blue eyes and golden beard. But Saäd had only seen her unveiled face once, and that was the last thing he saw when the ball from the Mauser went through his forehead.
'I mean,' she asked after some time, 'shall we be there to-morrow? or the next day? I see no land on this side; is there any on the other?'
'No,' Logotheti answered, 'there is no land near. Perhaps, far off, we might see a small island.'