“What about the passport?” demanded Wylie, as he made the change rapidly in his little shelter under the half-deck, while Armitage leaned against the bulkhead outside.
“Oh, that’s the greatest joke! The teskereh they’ve given me would apply to you, or your friend Smith, or any mortal man, just as well as to me. I believe they keep a form in stock with the description of an ideal Englishman—tall, fair hair, blue eyes, and so on—and simply copy it. It will really fit you best, for the eyes will be right, at any rate. What coloured eyes has Smith?”
“I don’t know—ordinary, I suppose,” growled Wylie, with whom the point was a sore one.
“Well, it can’t be more unlike him than it is to me, so we ought all to be able to use the same passport, if we can bribe the police to look away while we pass it from one to the other. But you’ll go as Spiro, of course, so you won’t want it. Ready? I sculled myself off, to the great disapproval of the seafaring population on the quay, because I had something I wanted to say without eavesdroppers.”
Wylie’s possessions were transferred to the boat, and he bade farewell to the captain of the vessel, arranging with him to lie off Myriaki for the next fortnight. In the boat he took the oars, and Armitage pushed off. When they were about half-way to the shore, the artist produced a small but weighty parcel contained in a chamois-leather bag.
“Put that in the safest and best-hidden pocket you can find in Spiro’s garments,” he said. “It has two hundred and fifty pounds in English gold in it, and I have another just the same. I have scarcely dared to sleep since I left Therma. The rest of my money is in notes and cash of various fancy currencies peculiar to this delectable peninsula, and is contained in an imposing cash-box, which all my servants have been taught to regard with profound respect. But I thought it might be desirable to have a secret store in an attractive form, and I’m thankful to shift half the responsibility—and weight—off on you.”
“Good man!” said Wylie, concealing the bag inside his shirt, and securing it with his girdle, and they rowed to the quay, where Armitage was quartered in a villainous little Greek inn, having chosen it that he might be able to keep watch for the vessel. He had allowed it to become known that he was expecting the arrival of a special messenger with a letter from the Patriarch to assist him in his work at Hadgi-Antoniou, and Wylie was an object of intense veneration to the Greeks of the port as he swaggered in front of Armitage, clearing the way as the absent Spiro would have done. A number of the notables of the place visited them after supper, anxious to enjoy the honour of beholding the outside of the Patriarchal letter, and one or two of the chief of them were allowed the supreme distinction of kissing it. In the morning they escorted the letter and its bearers some distance on their way, and parted from them the best of friends, amid much festive firing of guns.
Armitage had neglected no precaution for ensuring the success of his journey that the wisdom of many advisers in Therma could suggest to him. The four men whom he called servants were really guards, Mohammedan Illyrians, armed to the teeth, and faithful unto death until the job for which they were engaged was over, after which they would be quite ready to murder their late employer at the bidding of a new one. Their presence ensured a friendly reception whenever Roumis were met with, and the unofficial rulers of the country were recognised by a letter to the principal brigand chief in the district, who rejoiced in the name of Fido—a letter of safe-conduct obtained, for a consideration, from Fido’s accredited agent in Therma. Armitage had not ventured to make any preparations that might suggest his intention of rescuing the prisoners, but he calculated that by the time they reached Hadgi-Antoniou the stores would have diminished so much that there would be a mule for Zoe to ride coming back, and he had laid in a lavish provision of scented soap, handkerchiefs, and other minor luxuries, ostensibly for his own benefit.
The journey proved to be uneventful, for such trifling incidents as the frequent stopping of the cavalcade by bands of armed men could not be considered events when the exhibition—with due discrimination—of the Patriarchal letter, the brigand’s safe-conduct, or the Roumi passport, according to circumstances, sufficed to close them. One of Armitage’s precautions had been to provide a large store of sugar-candy and other sweets, and the unfriendliness of the most ferocious brigand or densest commissary of police was never proof against a gift from it. The arrival at Hadgi-Antoniou was the close of a triumphal progress, and Armitage and Wylie looked up at the monastery on its pillar of rock, and wondered whether the rest of their work was to be as easy.
The firing of the rifles of the escort brought the monks, as usual, to their watch-tower, and questions and answers were bellowed up and down the cliff. The news that the English lord was the bearer of a letter from the Œcumenical Patriarch caused great excitement, and the net was let down at once. Wylie went up in it, lest the monks should refuse to admit him if Armitage went first. He was grabbed and hauled in as the prisoners had been, and while he waited for his friend to make the ascent he examined the tower and capstan with a keen eye. Armitage having been landed, rather pale and uncomfortable-looking, they were led first into the church, where the monks bowed to the ikons and chanted with extreme rapidity a very brief service, which might have been intended either as a welcome to the visitors or a thanksgiving for their safe arrival. Wylie accepted it gratefully as the latter. He was once more within a few yards of his friends, after their long separation.