A QUARTER of an hour after the Greek officer left the schooner Miller said: “They are lowering a large boat from the Greek flag-ship, sir.”
Martyn brought his glass to bear upon it.
“There is a stir on board,” he said. “It looks as if the commander were going on shore.”
“Yes, there is some officer of importance being handed down the ladder. Now she is putting off. By Jove! I believe she is coming here; at any rate she is heading straight for us. Perhaps Lykourgos himself is coming to blow us out of the water.”
“Quite as likely he is coming to pay his respects,” Miller said. “The betting is ten to one the fellow is a coward; and that if the officer gave the message as he got it, he is impressed with the idea that the chief is an Englishman of great importance, possessed, perhaps, of unknown powers of destruction.”
“Horace,” Martyn said, “you had better tell your father. I can make out that the fellow in the stern is got up in gorgeous uniform. I expect it is Lykourgos himself.”
Mr. Beveridge came up on to the quarter-deck just as the boat came alongside. Martyn went to the gangway as a Greek officer came up and announced that Admiral Lykourgos had come to pay a visit to the English lord. Lykourgos mounted to the deck.
“I am the commandant of this craft, sir,” Martyn said. “This is Mr. Beveridge, the owner.”
Lykourgos advanced with an air of great pleasure and with outstretched hand.
“I am delighted to make the acquaintance of an English friend of Greece,” he said.