"But perhaps there's some mistake in the reason for her being there. Perhaps——"
"Why didn't she come out, then, when she saw me? She clapped her hands in front of her face and shrank away. My first impulse was to go in, and then it flashed over me in a minute. Besides, you heard what Hassan Bey said—that the lepers are nearly all Cretans."
"Do you mean to say you're yust going away without going back to comfort her or say a word to her?"
"But since she showed plainly that she wanted to avoid me? I tell you, old man, I'm doing the kindest thing for both of us. It's incurable, you know, and even if it wasn't, my mother and my governor would never consent. I should have had a circus with them, anyway."
Lindbohm walked to the taffrail and looked dreamily away toward Canea. There was an unexpected roar of a great whistle—a boat's whistle is always unexpected—and the anchor chain began to rattle and click.
"It takes a long time to get the anchor up, doesn't it?" asked Curtis.
Lindbohm made no reply, but when the chain finally ceased to rattle, he asked in a low tone, and without looking at his companion:
"So you give her up, eh?"
"Why, of course, old man. Seems to me I've made that plain enough!"
The ringing of a bell seemed to awaken the sleeping ship. She shuddered as the machinery started. There was a patter of hastening feet on the deck and a great churning, as the wheel made its first revolutions in the water. Shore boats were cast off, with much shouting and gesticulating of picturesque Cretans, standing erect in their tiny craft, violently rocked by the agitated sea. As the ship moved majestically away, a few boats clung to her side like whiffets to a stately stag. One by one they dropped off and drifted astern. Lindbohm turned and looked about the deck. Spying his satchel, he picked it up and walked to the ladder, at the foot of which one boat was still tied. Curtis ran to him and seized him by the shoulder.