“Yes, but the Roumis are lying across it.”
“They ought to know which side their bread is buttered by this time. The Roumis won’t take any trouble to spare the susceptibilities of their warmest friends, but they will probably not care to fire on armed Europe. Ah, here we are on the level at last! Now we shall get on faster. Take my arm again. Baines, go on giving Colonel Wylie an arm on the other side. There are the ladies, I see. Why won’t Princess Theophanis let some one else carry that heavy child? I suppose she gave him something last night to keep him quiet?”
“No. He talked a good deal till quite lately.” Wylie spoke with difficulty.
“Hope there’s nothing wrong, then. He seemed very quiet. I say,” as Wylie stumbled, “what’s up? I don’t think you’ll get as far as the Magniloquent this morning. Can you keep up till we get to Ephestilo, or shall I send a man on to get some sort of litter?”
“I can keep up,” declared Wylie, and he stumbled on between his two supporters, and succeeded in reaching the outskirts of Ephestilo. The inhabitants, who had forsaken their homes for hiding-places among the rocks on the approach of the Roumis, were returning now, with a pathetic confidence in the power of the little pinnace lying at the rude quay, and the people whose house Wylie had occupied during his illness met him and claimed him as a guest,—not, perhaps, without an eye to the special protection this would probably involve. Leaving him in their charge, Lieutenant Cotway hurried to the quay, from which Eirene and Zoe were just embarking.
“Tell the Admiral the whole state of things, Princess,” he said to Zoe, for Eirene was too much engrossed with her boy to have any ears for him. “I am staying on shore for the present, and keeping Colonel Wylie with me, and I only hope we may be able to bring your brother off safely to-night.”
The short voyage from Ephestilo to the flagship was accomplished almost in silence. Zoe was hastily conning over in her mind the facts of the situation, and trying wildly to put them into the fewest words that would suffice to move the Admiral to instant action. Mr Suter’s usual flow of talk was checked. He and his crew were alike uneasily conscious of the silent woman with the terror-haunted eyes, who sat huddled by herself, clasping a bundle to her breast—an image of dread that must have filled Zoe with foreboding had not her mind been fully preoccupied with the effort to save Maurice from his impending fate. They reached the ship at last, and the Admiral himself came down the ladder to welcome them and help them to the deck.
“I fear you have had a most unpleasant journey,” he said kindly to Eirene. “Be sure that whatever we can do to make you forget it—ah, what’s that? the baby got hurt?”
“Mr Cotway said he was afraid there was something wrong with it, sir,” said Mr Suter, in what he imagined to be a whisper. It roused Eirene at once.
“There is nothing wrong with him!” she cried, glaring round on the officers. “He is all right—only frightened by so many strangers. He always hides his face when he is shy—doesn’t he, Zoe? doesn’t he? You know he does.” Her voice rose almost to a scream. “He will be quite good when he is once alone with me—quite good.”