“What is it?” he whispered.
She drew back instantly, taken with sudden panic at that question. Then recovering, and seeking womanlike to evade and dissemble the thing she was come to do, now that the chance of doing it was afforded her—“Do you think,” she faltered, “that Lionel will have reached Sir John’s ship?”
He flashed a glance in the direction of the divan under the awning where the Basha slept. There all was still. Besides, the question had been asked in English. He rose and held out a hand to help her to her feet. Then he signed to her to reenter the poop-house, and followed her within.
“Anxiety keeps you wakeful?” he said, half-question, half-assertion.
“Indeed,” she replied.
“There is scarce the need,” he assured her. “Sir John will not be like to stir until dead of night, that he may make sure of taking us unawares. I have little doubt that Lionel would reach him. It is none so long a swim. Indeed, once outside the cove he could take to the land until he was abreast of the ship. Never doubt he will have done his errand.”
She sat down, her glance avoiding his; but the light falling on her face showed him the traces there of recent tears.
“There will be fighting when Sir John arrives?” she asked him presently.
“Like enough. But what can it avail? We shall be caught—as was said to-day—in just such a trap as that in which Andrea Doria caught Dragut at Jerba, saving that whilst the wily Dragut found a way out for his galleys, here none is possible. Courage, then, for the hour of your deliverance is surely at hand.”
He paused, and then in a softer voice, humbly almost, “It is my prayer,” he added, “that hereafter in a happy future these last few weeks shall come to seem no more than an evil dream to you.”