"They'll never try to catch us," said Lindbohm, as the gunboat sailed away. "They couldn't if they wanted to, and they've no particular business with us anyhow."
So they built a fire and kept themselves warm as much by the exercise of bringing and breaking up wood as by the flames themselves. When morning finally peeped at the pallid sea and kissed its face to ruddy life and laughter, the Cretan, the Swede and the American looked one another over and took an inventory of their condition. They were dry, but hungry. Curtis and Michali had lost their hats. Michali had tied a handkerchief about his own head in peasant fashion, and had performed the same office for Curtis. Lindbohm's straw had not escaped from the tether, and he still wore it, glistening with salt and hanging down on one side like the wing of a wounded duck. His long coat had shrunk until the tails parted in the middle of his back as though the space between them had been cut out with a triangular stamp. He alone of the three had removed his shoes after reaching the shore. Not being able to put them on again, he cut away the uppers, and tied the remnant on with strings, which he passed through the holes slashed in the sides. A resourceful and courageous man was the Lieutenant.
"Now, we are ready," he said, to Michali; "lead on to breakfast."
"I think," replied Michali, "that we must to the sea go down, and pass around the shore to where the caique wished to come up. There we shall find Greeks waiting. Embros!" (forward.)
But, alas, when they arrived at the beach again they found that the little stretch of sand which had been their salvation ended against an abrupt wall of rock.
"We must go around the hill the other way," said Curtis.
"We may happen on a shepherd or see a village," suggested Michali, cheerfully. "Many people live along this northern coast of the island."
So they returned again to the bit of sandy beach where they had landed. By this time it was ten o'clock.
"Hello! What's this?" cried Curtis, who was walking nearer the sea than the others. They looked. He was holding between his finger and thumb a small, spherical object, that looked like a bluish-black apple, stuck full of pins of the same color.
"Bravo!" shouted Michali. "Bravo! I think it will be our breakfast. It is an achinoos."