Absorbed in his reflections, he did not hear the bawled orders of the ship’s mate, nor the spitting crackle of musketry from some ship’s hulk near-by in the foggy smother. The brig was lifting and pushing as she gained headway. The captain spoke at his elbow.
“Begging your lordship’s pardon, a man has just come aboard by the ship’s bow-chains. He had a tough swim for it and a bullet through the forearm. Says he was shanghaied by the Pylades. If we put about, we’ll lose the tide. What are your lordship’s orders?”
“Is he Italian?”
“No, sir. He says he’s an Englishman, but he looks Lascar.”
“His name?” the demand fell sharply.
“Trevanion, your lordship.”
As Gordon stood there, breathing deeply, Teresa, at home in her room, stretched at the foot of the crucifix, was crying in a voice of anguish, that icy hand still pressed upon her heart: “O God! help me to remember that it is for Greece! and for himself most of all! Help me not to forget—not to forget!”
For only an instant Gordon hesitated. “Let him stay,” he said then to the captain, and turned away to his cabin.
CHAPTER LVII
THE MAN IN THE RED UNIFORM
From a vessel lying beyond the shallows that stretched three miles from the Greek shore, a puff of smoke broke balloon-like, to be followed, a moment after, by a muffled report.