CHAPTER VII
ZOE TAKES A JOURNEY
The next few days seemed to Zoe to pass as in a dream. So many things happened which she had never supposed could come to her, that she was almost dazed. Uncle Andreas was such an energetic person that he carried everything his own way. He silenced all objections to his plans, and before the child fairly knew what was happening she had said good-bye to her Thessalonian relatives, and with her new-found uncle and Marco was sailing out of the harbour of Volo on her uncle's ship. She wept a little at leaving her cousins, especially the babycoula, but that Marco was to be with her robbed the separation of half its sting. The future opened before her with much of interest. Unknown lands were to be explored, and to Zoe this in itself was charming.
"Do you feel as if you were setting out to find the Golden Fleece?" asked Marco as the two sat upon the deck and watched the hills of Thessaly fade in the distance, as they sailed over the blue Gulf of Velos.
"I feel very strange and full of wonder as to what will come next," she said.
"Well, Little One," said Uncle Andreas' hearty voice, "what kind of a sailor are you going to make?"
"Oh, I like it on the sea," she answered brightly. "When we came to Thessaly, Mother was very ill, but I was not at all. I love the salt air, the spray and the feel of the wind on my cheek. It is like a kiss."
"Good girl," her uncle smiled at her. "You are just the one to have a sailor uncle. Many a fine sail shall we have together when we reach our own Argolis. Marco shall be a fisherman and we three shall sail and sail in the roughest weather. They do not know the sea who know her only when she is calm. She is most beautiful when angry. Shall you tire of your long voyage?"
"Oh, no, Uncle Andreas, I could sail for ever."
The time passed pleasantly for Marco told Zoe pleasant tales of their own beautiful Greece, and her uncle told of rovings from shore to shore. He had been a sailor for many years and now owned his own sloop, in which he sailed over the Mediterranean with cargoes of currants and lemons. He had had many adventures, had been shipwrecked upon one of the little islands of the sea and in his youth had even sailed to America.
"I do not believe that your father is dead," he said to Zoe one day. "He may have written letters which you have never received, but I think if he were dead we would have heard of it. Some day he will come back or we will go and hunt him up."