As he replaced the coffer in the carriage he saw Trevanion wading knee-deep in the cool surf. He settled the box between his knees and the horses toiled laboriously toward the homeward road.
A sound presently rose behind them. It was Trevanion, shouting at the curlew circling above his head—a wild, savage scream of laughter.
Gordon clenched his hands on the edge of the seat and a great tearless sob broke from his breast. It was the release of the tense bow-string—the scattering of all the bottled grief and horror that possessed him.
He became aware after a time that Dallas was reading aloud. The latter had picked up the blistered copy of the “Œdipus” and was translating.
As he listened to the flowing lines, a mystical change was wrought in George Gordon. With a singular accuracy of estimation, his mind set the restless cravings of his own past over against Shelley’s placid temperament—his long battle beside the other’s acquiescence. He had been the simoon, Shelley the trade-wind. He had razed, Shelley had reconstructed. His own doubts had pointed him—where? Shelley had been meditating on immortality when he met the end.
The end? Or was it only the beginning? “God, the All-Just, shall raise him up again!”—the phrase was running in his mind as they reëntered the palace that afternoon.
Fletcher handed him a card in the library.
“The gentleman came with Prince Mavrocordato,” he said. “They wished me to say to your lordship they would return this evening.”
The card read:
’LIEUTENANT EDWARD BLAQUIERE
The Greek
Revolutionary Committee London