“Then we must march in half-an-hour, they will make them lead them here. Now, then, who are you?” he asked the doctor as the elder of the prisoners.
“My friend does not speak Greek,” Horace replied. “As you must be well aware we are officers of that schooner that was lying off the village. This is the doctor, I am third lieutenant. We are friends of Greece, we have been in action against the Turkish ships of war, we have saved great numbers of Greek fugitives from the Turks, now this is the treatment that we receive at the hands of the Greeks.”
Horace’s reticence as to the fact that he was the son of the owner of the schooner was the result of a conversation with the doctor.
“These scoundrels have no doubt carried us off either for the purpose of getting a ransom for us or of handing us over to the Turks as an acceptable present. I expect the idea of ransom is at the bottom of it. We have heard of this fellow Rhangos before. He is a noted klepht, and more Albanian than Greek. Whatever you do, Horace, don’t you let out you are the owner’s son. If you do there is no saying how much ransom they might ask for you. They think that an Englishman who fits out a ship at his own expense to come out here must be rolling in money. As long as they think that they have only got hold of a doctor and a third lieutenant they cannot ask a high price for them, but for an owner’s son there is no saying what figure they might put him at. Have you got a second name?”
“Yes, I am Horace Hendon Beveridge. Hendon was my mother’s name.”
“That is lucky; you can give them Horace Hendon. It is likely they may know your father’s name, for the Misericordia and her doings have been a good deal talked about. I am not in favour of anyone telling a lie, Horace, but as it is no lie to give your two first names without giving your third, I cannot see that there is harm in it.”
“The ship belongs to the Lord Beveridge?” Rhangos asked next.
“Yes, that is his name,” Horace replied.
“What is your name and that of your companion?”
Horace gave his two Christian names and the name of his companion.