Captain Buncombe and Rollo, with their burden, were so near the yacht that there was no necessity for lowering the gig as we had hastened to do; and in a very little time we hauled them on board—Rollo jumping about in the highest spirits, as if he had been just having a quiet lark on his own account; but the rescued person was limp and insensible, though he presently came to by the aid of hot-water bottles and blankets. The Moonshine then made another start, and succeeded better in anchoring in a respectable fashion, as she had always been accustomed to do.
The man was a handsome young fellow, with black hair and piercing eyes—a Greek, he told us in French which he spoke fluently—although he had not that treacherous cast of countenance which most of his countrymen possess. He was profuse in the thanks which he bestowed broadcast for our saving him from drowning, although Rollo had really all the credit of it. His name was Stephanos Pericles, he said, and he was crossing to Salamis, when the squall came on, and his boat was upset. He had been dragged under water by the boat and almost suffocated before he could get to the surface, being quite exhausted when the dog gripped him. For Rollo had seen him before any of us, and had not waited for our directions as to what to do.
“I’m a soldier,” he said, proudly tapping his chest, and looking round at dad and the captain, and Mr Moynham. “I’ve eaten your bread,”—he had dinner with us after he had got all right again, and we had settled down into that general routine in which our meals were attended to with the strictest punctuality—“and I shall never forget you have saved my life. By that bread I have eaten, I will repay you, I swear!”
Then turning to Bob and I, who were sitting on each side of him, and Rollo, who stuck close to him, as if under the idea that having saved him he was now his property—“And much thanks to you, little Englishmen, and your dogs I vill nevare forget, no nevare!”
He couldn’t speak English as well as French. The evening had closed now, so Captain Buncombe told the crew to get the boat ready, and the Greek with many more fervent expressions of gratitude, was rowed ashore.
The next morning we had landed and after pottering about the port proceeded up to Athens, which much disappointed all of us, especially dad and the captain. It had a garish and stucco-like appearance; while the people looked as if they were costumed for a fancy ball, being not apparently at home in their national dress, picturesque though it was. It was quite nightmarish for Bob and me to read the names on the shop fronts in the streets, and see the newspapers printed in the old Greek characters. Fancy “Modiste,” and “Perruquier,” as they will have the French terms spelt, in the letters sacred to Euripides and Xenophon. It seemed like walking in a dream!
We had inspected Athens, as I’ve said, and visited the plain of Marathon, which was offered by the Greeks to Lord Byron for sixteen thousand piastres, or about eight hundred pounds—alas for glory!—and returned on board the yacht for dinner again, when we were told that a messenger had been off in our absence and left a parcel for us. What do you think it contained? Guess.
Well, there was a splendid shawl, worth more than a hundred guineas, for Captain Buncombe, and a handsome jewelled pipe for dad; while Mr Joe Moynham had a case of Greek wines for his special self!
Bob and I were not forgotten either. He had a fine gun, with the stock inlaid with ivory, and carved beautifully; and I, a yataghan, decorated with a jewelled hilt, that was even more valuable than dad’s pipe. Rollo was presented with a grand gold collar, which Mr Joe Moynham said was like the one that Malachi, one of the Irish kings, wore in the days of Brian Boru; and, if you please, a lot of little purses, each containing a handsome present, were sent also in the parcel—a good big one, you may be sure—for distribution amongst the crew. It was princely gratitude, wasn’t it, in spite of the slighting way in which Mr Moynham had spoken of the modern Greeks and their ways? However, he had to “take it all back,” as he said, when he drank the health of Monsieur Pericles—who seemed, by the way, to be much better off than his illustrious ancestor, and whom we put down as the Sultan Haroun el Raschid in disguise—in a glass of the very wine that he had sent on board the yacht.
But that wasn’t the end of it all, by any means:— why, I am only just coming to my real story now.